Suchergebnisse

The article explores the ambitions, challenges, successes and perceived failures and disappointments of the policies pursued by the Democratic administrations of PresidentBarack Obama, with particular focus on Honduras, Mexico and Colombia. The article notes the eloquent and optimistic rhetoric of Obama, in his first presidential campaign and in the early days of his first administration, commitments to significant change in U.S. policy toward Latin America. In contrast the record of the first five years of his administrations have witnessed the continuation of policies which are difficult to distinguish from those of his predecessor. The article also notes the general decline in U.S. influence in the region. There has been insignificant change in Cuban policy, save for a liberalization of family travel to Cuba. His administration implemented the controversial Free Trade Agreement with Colombia which his own party leaders had long opposed. He has maintained the funding levels of the equally controversial Plan Colombia which began under Bill Clinton, and he has continued to adhere to a largely Republican agenda on border security with Mexico.

This paper reviews and assesses some of the key trends in recent United States-Latin American policy with particular focus on trade and investment liberalization and security issues pertaining to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The paper looks in particular at the extent to which the terrorist attacks on 9/11 contributed to a sharpening of American policy on internal subversion in the region, with particular attention to FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the main paramilitary organization in Colombia. Such groups, the paper, notes, have constituted a twin threat, since they both threaten civil society within Colombia and have contributed to serious border problems with neighbouring countries. At the same time they have been closely tied to the narcotics industry and as such are perceived by American officials to contribute both the organized criminal activities in the United States as well as political and destabilization in the region.