For well over 200 years, basically since our founding, but not enshrined in policy until President Monroe with the Monroe Doctrine, we have at a minimum paid lip service to the plight and prospects of our fellow residents of our hemisphere.
Over the last 2+ centuries we have not always been the kindest of neighbors in their eyes while following our own national self-interests, but our reputation for the most part is solid and good.
The main issues our hemisphere faces are (in no particular order): fair trade agreements such as NAFTA (now USMCA), Venezuela, Haiti, the drug trade, illegal immigration, corruption/democratization issues, global warming/extreme weather/hurricanes, and general improvement in peoples’ lives.
NAFTA/USMCA & Fair Trade Agreements—Just as the Europeans have focused on their common market over the last half century and the “Fortress Europa” concept, we started down the same road with NAFTA in the early 1990’s with Mexico & Canada and despite some bad press over the years, on the whole it has been a huge success. Yes, as we now know purely “free trade” agreements have their major downfalls and blind spots, not the least of which is putting workers in one country out of business for the sake of cheaper labor in the cheaper country, which is why as I have stated already several times, we need to improve on them and make them “fair trade” agreements, not “free trade” agreements. And there is no reason why we cannot extend it to the rest of Central America and South America provided the other nations are willing and able to meet the requirements. Long term, through increasing economic and social ties, we can finally have a chance to achieve and realize a truly close & prosperous Pan-American family of nations.
Venezuela—The history of Venezuela in recent decades reveals the dangers of a) personality politics, b) foreign influence, c) over-reliance on a main source of national income especially one that is commodity-priced based, d) trying to institute austerity measures when an economy is struggling and highly indebted, and e) the use of repressive government tactics.
With its large oil reserves (some say the largest in the world), Venezuela was an emerging bright spot in South America from the late 1950’s until the 1980’s when worldwide oil prices began to fall.
Like so many nations before and since, when the good times were rolling, government spending went up and they didn’t worry about paying the bill because the gravy train was running 24/7. Then, when the music stopped, it struggled to pay its bills and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) tried to help it with its debt load by getting the government to institute austerity measures (ie cut government spending). While totally understandable from an individual person standpoint, at the national governmental level this has always been in my mind the equivalent of “bleeding a patient” when it is at its sickest and weakest.
Sure enough, within a short period of time the poor and middle classes started becoming disenchanted, and there was some class warfare involved too, with the ruling elites traditionally coming from the lighter skinned portion of society.
Around the same time, Cuba which was rapidly losing its major Communist benefactors around the globe due to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, was trying to hold on for dear life.
Castro had always tried to foment other revolutions in Latin America to give himself some allies, and in Venezuela saw a wonderfully vulnerable target that also could keep Cuba well supplied with oil.
Along comes some disgruntled and ambitious Venezuelan military officers led by Hugo Chavez, and just like that another fragile, flawed, and yet promising, young democracy began the downward spiral to being snuffed out a few years later.
Chavez tried to overthrow the government unsuccessfully in early 1992, which led to his becoming a household name, the elected government became repressive and instituted censorship, arrests and executions without charge, and thereby squandered whatever remaining sympathy the majority of the population had for their democratically elected leaders.
President Perez was ousted from office in 1993, new elections were held, the new President was a re-tread former President (Caldera) who was sympathetic to the coup plotters and pardoned them, and in 1998 Hugo Chavez was elected President.
From 1998 until his death in 2013, Chavez oversaw the dismantling of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and turned it into yet another autocratic leftist anti-American dictatorship. When oil prices rebounded in the 2000’s, if Venezuela had stayed the course set forth in the early 1990’s with the IMF’s help, it could have rapidly returned to prosperity, but instead Chavez used the increased revenue stream to do more unsustainable deficit spending.
Today Venezuela is still a populist dictatorship under his protégé Nicolas Maduro, who tries really hard to be like Chavez, but does not have his personality, but has all of his dangerous traits. He continues to try and be a thorn in the side of America, but more importantly, the people of Venezuela are the real losers in all of this, and that is heartbreaking.
From an American foreign policy standpoint, we need to do everything we can to support the Venezuelan people to help them emerge from this dark time in their nation’s history so that it can realize its full potential.
It won’t be easy, because those in power in Venezuela do everything possible to try and limit ties with America and paint us in a bad light, so first above all else, we need to make sure we don’t give them ammunition in their cause to make us out to be the bad guys, and ignore their propaganda attempts on the world stage.
We need to do everything we can to engage with the average Venezuelan and to help them improve their lot in life, and at least to know that we are on their side, but at the end of the day not a whole lot will be able to change unless the Venezuelan people themselves seek to overthrow the dictatorship and reinstitute true democratic policies.
We have too much of a checkered history of getting involved in overthrowing other governments in the Americas, so unless Maduro begins attacking his own people or his neighboring countries, we need to stay out of a military solution in Venezuela, and even if one becomes necessary, it needs to be led by the other nations of Latin America.
Our days of invading and occupying other countries in the Americas, even if done out of the most benevolent and egalitarian of reasons, have to be at an end if we ever want to truly have good, equal, bilateral relations with our closest geographical cousins.
Haiti—The story of Haiti is a bittersweet and heartbreaking one. It began with such promise as the second Republic in the Americas in 1804 after a successful slave revolt, and the first independent nation in Latin America, but over the last two centuries continues to endure abject poverty, corruption, natural disasters, and exploitation by foreign governments. In the last 10-15 years in particular it has been devastated by an earthquake and several hurricanes. The UN had been helping to administer the country since 2004, but only in a very limited way that ended in 2019.
As with many other situations, at the end of the day it will be up to the Haitian people to run their country properly, but we in America have a vested interest in seeing them succeed and we need to make sure we stand at the ready to assist & advise them however we best can to finally succeed and fully realize the dream that was born in 1804. It will not be easy, but it is also not impossible….provided they themselves want it and do most of the legwork to make it happen. They have to root out corruption, they need heavy investment in education, infrastructure, and jobs. We and our neighbors in the hemisphere can certainly help with all of those to varying degrees.
The War on Drugs—I touched upon this earlier under Homeland Security & the Justice Department, but after decades of going after the supply side and not stopping the flow into the country (and spending a fortune in blood, sweat, tears, and treasure doing so), we really need to re-focus our efforts on the demand side through increased treatment options, education and intervention to cut down on new addicts and reduce the ranks of addicts, and then the Latin American supply side will fade away and find either other buyers in other nations or new occupations and things to grow and sell.
On some level, doesn’t it strike you as ridiculous to declare war (albeit it an unofficial one) on people in far away countries like Colombia for simply supplying something that our own people are demanding? When you’re walking through an amusement park and there is a stand selling ice cream, and your kid is pitching a fit wanting one, do we resent the presence of the vendor and blame the situation on them for offering something, or do we look inward and realize that the deeper root cause of the problem is that a) the kid is tired and hungry, and b) too young and therefore probably incapable of realizing or accepting that ice cream isn’t going to solve either of his problems?
As society evolves over time and more and more people learn that illegal narcotics are not the solution to anyone’s problems, demand will die off more and more, but we can help accelerate that drop off. Going back to the amusement park scenario for a second, what do you think would happen if everyone walked through the park day after day and never bought ice cream or popcorn or burgers or fries? The company would start to recognize that hey, people aren’t buying this stuff, we need to find something else that they DO want to buy, and maybe they will start offering healthier options.
Just as an aside, I’m not a health nut, and writing that analogy pained me greatly, so if you’re reading this anyone that runs an amusement park, keep all of those goodies flowing. : )
But seriously, we need to flip our focus over to the demand side. We can still work with our neighbors in the hemisphere to help them curtail the drug trade in their countries, but just like happens in so many impoverished countries, the simple farmers are just making what brings in the most money. If we can convince them to start planting good crops instead of drug crops, and show them that it is a safer and more prosperous way of making a living, then we have a real chance to win the battle on both fronts…supply and demand.
Quality of Life—The remaining subjects are all so interconnected, it will really just save time to discuss them all together as one….illegal immigration, corrupt/democratization issues, global warming/extreme weather/hurricanes, and general improvement in peoples’ lives.
When you get right down to it, everyone in North, South & Central America is doing the best they can with what they have and what they know. We run the risk of coming off as a paternalistic, meddling big brother like we have for over 200 years by actively getting involved and trying to tell them how to run their lives and countries, but when it comes to things that affect us as a nation at the end of day, we have every right and should be expected to voice our concerns and offer advice on how to remedy the situation.
The bottom line of what needs to happen in the Americas is an improvement in peoples’ quality of lives, but yet done so in a way that also protects the planet and secures our collective future.
Every acre of tropical rain forest cut down in the Amazon to make room for grazing cattle has a devastating long term impact on weather patterns in the US and around the globe, affecting world economies.
Every child who has to drop out of school so they can try and make money for their family becomes part of a longer term problem.
Every entrepreneur who leaves their home country to go to another one because they are tired of corruption weakens their home country further.
It is absolutely in our best interests as Americans, for our nation, that the overall quality of life in our neighboring countries of the hemisphere is as good as it can be.
That means helping them to instill good governmental practices, helping them grow their economies and educational opportunities, and helping them to protect the environment in the process.
Perry Waag 