Yglesias, in analyzing U.S.-Latin American foreign relations in the wake of the Summit of the Americas, says this:At the risk of putting words in someone else's mouth, the choice of the word "interests" seems like the problem. Our direct interests in Latin America are (obviously) many, as Erik Loomis points out. I wonder if by "interests", Yglesias means that the potential that the world's next catastrophe surges from Latin America is very small, which is why it doesn't get a lot of attention. If that's the case, that idea --that interests is roughly synonymous with potential problems and putting out fires is paramount-- in and of itself seems to be borne of a Cold War mentality. Then again, maybe I've gone a bit far in my reinterpretation.At the end of the day, our interests in Latin America are pretty limitedWhoa. Now, in the sake of proper context, he's saying we need to get beyond a Cold War paradigm for thinking about Latin America. But nonetheless, America's relations with Latin America are incredibly important. Trade, immigration, drugs, American investments in the region, regional security, natural resources--all of these issues are huge.
Whatever the case, this demonstrates that the most insuperable gap in foreign policy isn't right versus left, but those who have an interest in Latin America versus those who don't.
4 comments:
True dat! On the other hand, the existence of such a gap means that on the rare occasions when people who usually ignore the region feel obligated to consider it, we few LatAm watchers have a good opportunity to shape their opinions. Until they forget what we said five minutes later.
If it even takes that long.
I took Yglesias to be arguing something else. Not so much that disaster can't emanate from Latin America, as that there isn't really anything in particular that Washington wants Latin American government to do.
This has come up for me personally, and is one of the reasons I am not going to Washington. AFAICT, there are absolutely no proactive actions ... other than, you know, smiling and shaking hands ... that the U.S. should be taking in Latin America.
Outside Haiti. But I'm not sure that counts. And we're not going to do anything there anyway, so it doesn't matter.
What do you mean by that? Certainly there are actions that we don't want LA governments to be taking. Wouldn't the flip side of that suggest that there are actions we do want?
Also, do you think that the lack of proactivity is more pronounced in Latin America than other regions?
Post a Comment