Washington -- After a year in which 16 of the 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere held elections, the Bush administration hopes to engage new partners in 2007 and to listen to their priorities and interests to determine how best to collaborate on advancing regional interests.

“[W]e really see this coming year as a year of engagement for us as we sit down with all of these new governments, and with our partners in the region who have not gone through elections and who are still there,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon told reporters December 13.

The United States wants to cooperate on consolidating democracy and creating economic opportunity “that we think is essential in the region,” he said.

Shannon described the 2006 election cycle in the hemisphere as a dramatic, healthy and positive period, which demonstrated the people of the region have “a very strong commitment to democracy and to democratic institutions.

“What's striking as you look out across the region and see the results of the elections is that they've been fairly diverse. The elected leaders really do span the spectrum from the left to the center to the right. And we think, again, this is positive for the region,” he said.

EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL ISSUES, RATHER THAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES

Most voters are concerned with social problems such as poverty, inequality and social exclusion, and they are looking for political leaders “who can build a national political consensus” to address those problems, Shannon said, and not those who “are going to deepen the divide within societies.”

Traditional political elites also are recognizing their platforms must include “social content” to allow democracy and democratic institutions to survive in their countries, he said.

A party’s political leanings are less important to winning elections than being the party “that find[s] the voters first and offer[s] a social program or a social agenda that meets the concerns of voters,” Shannon said.

U.S. leaders are unconcerned with the orientation of the political party “as long as they're committed to democracy and committed to working with us.” Shannon said in those circumstances, regardless of the leader’s position on the political spectrum, “we're prepared to sit down and talk.”

The United States views 2007 as a year of engagement with the region, and Shannon said that “whatever countries might feel about some of our policies in the world,” there is recognition that “the United States is an essential partner in the success of these countries.”

In a separate interview December 14, Shannon said important components to success include access to U.S. markets, direct U.S. financial and technical assistance or indirect assistance through multilateral development institutions.

“[W]e share some very kind of fundamental strategic interests,” Shannon said. These include: “consolidating democracy;” “promoting economic integration in the region;” creating “economic prosperity and economic opportunity;” and “developing the individual capacity … to allow democracies in the region to show that they can indeed deliver the goods,” Shannon said.

U.S. ASSISTANCE TO THE REGION

Since taking office, the Bush administration has doubled U.S. foreign direct assistance to Latin America to $1.6 billion per year, which includes development assistance, military assistance and counterdrug assistance.

“On top of that, it has brought new funding sources to the region through the Millennium Challenge,” Shannon said December 13. “If you add up what we've done in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua and then add the threshold programs in Paraguay and Guyana, it's almost $900 million in addition to the 1.6 billion.” (See Millennium Challenge Account.)

He added that about $500 million is being spent on efforts to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.

In the process of providing aid, “we're learning things” about “what works and what doesn't work,” he said.

Creative projects in countries like Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Argentina seek to address big social problems “and we want to find a way to learn from it,” he said.

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns has said the United States in 2007 intends to focus on completing free-trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and Panama, expanding the Andean Trade Preference Act, and helping Latin American countries combat the negative sides of globalization such as narco-trafficking, terrorism, global climate change, human trafficking and poverty. (See related article.)

“The stage is set for a period of good, productive, harmonious U.S. ties with Latin America – a situation that defies the conventional wisdom of earlier this year,” Burns said.

Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, told USINFO November 29 that continued U.S. engagement in the region “is perhaps now more important than ever before, as much of Latin America and the Caribbean struggles to increase economic growth, reduce poverty, and strengthen democratic institutions.”

He said U.S. support for trade expansion in the region is vital, “but in and of itself only one aspect of a comprehensive agenda.”

Stephen Kaufman
USINFO Staff Writer

 

 
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