Obama and Latin America
Jaime Daremblum at the Hudson Institute lays out a conservative agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America. It is deeply flawed for two reasons. First:
Nearly two years have passed since his inauguration, and President Barack Obama has yet to unveil a major policy initiative for Latin America. Regional officials are hoping Obama ends this neglect in 2011 and increases U.S. engagement.
Some flowery policy initiative is most certainly not necessary, and the "Regional officials" are conspicuously left unnamed. It has really struck me how so many people seem to think that big announcements are the only way to engage.
Second, the overall thrust of the proposals are copies of the 1980s. In short, be more aggressive and attack perceived enemies as much as possible, without any thought to the potential consequences. He even wants a new Kissinger Commission, which in the 1980s justified U.S. military intervention. We definitely do not want to copy anything Henry Kissinger did, and in any case the Council on Foreign Relations already wrote a report that, if imperfect, would do the job.
1 comments:
Gravitational pull of Latin America on the USA ??
According to the 2010 U. S. Census, people are moving westward and southward. Why are people moving from "cold" states to "warm" states ??. Why are states in the NorthEast and MidWest becoming less populated in relative terms ??
These are some of my answers, very simplistic and unsatisfactory, that is lacking depth, but they are the children of my Idleness :
A) Many of the Immigrants come from Subtropical or Tropical lands in Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia, Oceania or Africa, and they prefer the "warm" states. And they have high birth rates.
B) Some nations in Tropical and Subtropical areas have become prosperous and begin to develop economically, then states like Texas, California and Florida are closer to them for Trade, Transport, Airline Passengers, Airports, Ships, etc ..
The same applies for the states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina ( They gain House Seats ).
New York, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are not so close to those areas of the World that are developing economically now for the first time. These last states lost House Seats.
The only exception is Louisiana, perhaps because of the Katrina Storm that devastated that land. Louisiana also lost a House Seat.
C) The USA sells more exports to Latin America than to the European Union. This is true today but wasn't true in the times of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president. In those times Europe was everything to Americans and Latin America, Africa and Asia did not count as customers of American Products.
The fact that Latin American nations are important customers and clients of the USA is ignored by most people. Also consider the importance of Asiatic Nations that are located in subtropical and tropical climates like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, South East Asia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Arab and Islamic Nations, etc ...
Vicente Duque
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