Pettiness and U.S.-Latin American Relations
Chris Sabatini has an op-ed in the Miami Herald about how petty vengeance in Congress is getting in the way of U.S. policy toward Latin America.
Raising policy criticisms is a legitimate function of the Senate, but hobbling broader and more weighty U.S foreign policy interests to those narrow policy squabbles — especially with small countries — not only makes us look small-minded and non-strategic, but also undermines our national interests. Superpowers and those who aspire to lead them shouldn’t behave that way, on either side of the aisle.
Hard to argue with that. One point to make is that we can add election-year posturing. Rubio believes such a stance will pick up some votes--which he really needs these days--as he portrays himself as a security hawk. In general, during a presidential campaign foreign policy gets reduced to laughably simplistic bullet points, not much more than "I am tough and I will act tough with tough countries."
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