Yesterday I joined in the New Republic’s criticism of the extent to which the left’s anti-imperialism has blinded it to a more accurate analysis of the problems facing the developing world. But there is one realm in which the analysis of the U.S. as neo-imperalist power holds the most explanatory power: Latin America. As if to remind us of the increasing strain that US-Latin American relations have come under, a great article in today’s Times criticizes the Bush administration’s heavy handedness:
United States policy toward Latin America has long been characterized by neglect and some measure of insensitivity. Still, many Latin American officials at the meeting were upset, even surprised, by how indifferent Washington has become to Latin American affairs: its reluctance to intervene in the Argentine economic collapse of 2001, for example, or its initial failure to condemn the aborted coup in Venezuela in 2002.
The bold projection of United States power in Iraq didn’t build a lot of goodwill, either. Furthermore, the United States persisted in pursuing a selective agenda at the meeting: the need for change in Cuba. In his speech Secretary of State Colin Powell appealed to other nations to “hasten the inevitable democratic transition in Cuba.” To many at the meeting, that sounded like a call for “regime change” Â- in this hemisphere.
Latin America hasn’t been hit with the dire poverty and underdevelopment that Africa has, but in some ways its potential for economic development and democratization (and in fact the strides it’s made toward these ends) makes the US’s current neglect more frustrating. And that Bush has gone from favored neighbor relations with Mexico to one foreign policy insult after another is disturbing. As the op-ed’s author Michael Shifter notes, “In relations between the United States and Latin America, style can be nearly as important as substance.” Latin America has shown willingness to forgive and accept a good deal of neo-imperialism and the Washington Consensus. Congress and the Bush administration are rapidly squandering its goodwill.
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