Friday, January 28, 2011

Obama and El Salvador

If there is one thing all media outlets can agree on, it is that they have no idea why President Obama is going to El Salvador.

--The Wall Street Journal just says he's going to South America

--Ditto for Bloomberg, though at least they have a sentence or two on El Salvador

--UPI focuses on the unvisited countries that are ticked off, figuring they are more important

--At least Fox News Latino (yes, such a thing exists) mentions the importance of migrants

--Voice of America disagrees, saying it is about crime

4 comments:

Federico 9:19 AM  

Greg, which reason do you agree with? It seems to that it's largely about violence and drug trafficking in Central America, and El Salvador is chosen by process of elimination (can't go to Guatemala because they're having elections in 2011 and the U.S. doesn't want to be seen as influencing the elections). At least that's what this other article states: http://www.infolatam.com/2011/01/27/ee-uu-latam-las-claves-del-viaje-de-obama/

Greg Weeks 5:24 PM  

I agree about process of elimination:

1. We need to emphasize security in Central America

2. We need to visit a president who is non-controversial (no Nicaragua or Honduras)

3. We can't visit Panama because we aren't ratifying the FTA

But I am not yet sure why Costa Rica and Guatemala are out. I don't agree about the election hypothesis, but I do have to admit that the three countries he's visiting had very recent elections (in two they were within the past year).

David McKenzie 12:19 AM  

There are around a couple million Salvadorans in the United States--wonder if that's a factor? (from a one-time Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador)

Ondrej 2:44 PM  

Couldn't part of the reason of his trip to Salvador be psychological? He likes underdogs - being one himself as he keeps repeating - and small countries that are not superpowers (his two visits to the Czech Republic).

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