Latin America in the 2020 Democratic Platform

Here is a link to the latest draft of the Democratic Party Platform. Here is what I wrote about 2016 in Global Americans. The party is not paying much attention to Latin America, either then or now. Back then, I wrote that countries were just jumbled together. In 2020 they solved that problems by not mentioning countries at all. Mexico is not mentioned at all, even in the discussion of USMCA. 

I know, I know, the platform is just a basic document of values, with a lot of cooks making the soup. But as I noted last year, is it so hard to say we support the Colombia peace process and anti-corruption efforts in Central America, we value Mexico for everything, and the like?

Below is the "Americas" section:

Democrats believe the Western Hemisphere is America’s strategic home base—a region bound together by common values, history, and vision of a more prosperous, democratic, and secure future. When the United States hosts the region’s leaders at next year’s Summit of the Americas—the first to be held here since the 1994 inaugural meeting in Miami—we will turn the page on the Trump Administration’s denigration and extortion of our neighbors, and we will chart a new era of cooperation based on partnership and shared responsibility for the region we all call home. 

"Denigration and extortion." Strong, but accurate. I really don't like "strategic home base," which is militarist and imperialist. It's not our home--it's their home.

Democrats will reaffirm the importance of North America to U.S. global economic

competitiveness. We will ensure the USMCA lives up to its commitment to create prosperity for American workers, and we will strictly enforce compliance with its labor and environmental provisions. We will reinvigorate and build upon the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza launched under the Obama-Biden Administration and work with our partners to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused the biggest economic decline in history across Latin America and the Caribbean. 

This is a funny paragraph, beginning with acknowledging Trump's passage of a new bill, then pivoting to an Obama policy as counterweight. The labor and worker language is like 2016, which also reflected Bernie Sanders' influence, but I feel like the wording is stronger now. 

Rather than coerce our neighbors into supporting cruel migration policies, we will work with our regional and international partners to address the root causes of migration—violence and insecurity, weak rule of law, lack of educational and economic opportunity, pervasive corruption, and environmental degradation. Rather than encourage climate denial and environmental devastation, we will rally the world to protect the Amazon from deforestation, protect Indigenous peoples, and help vulnerable nations in the Caribbean and Central America adapt to the impacts of climate change. And rather than imitate populist demagogues, we will link arms with our neighbors to realize our shared aspirations for the region’s future. 

This is new and good. In 2016, Democrats framed immigration largely in domestic terms. Viewing it in structural terms, including climate, is a reality-based view, and very necessary.

We will reject President Trump’s failed Venezuela policy, which has only served to entrench Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorial regime and exacerbate a human rights and humanitarian crisis. To rise to the occasion of the world’s worst refugee crisis and worst humanitarian crisis outside a warzone in decades, the United States will mobilize its partners across the region and around the  world to meet the urgent needs of the people of Venezuela, and grant Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in the United States. Democrats believe that the best opportunity to rescue Venezuela’s democracy is through smart pressure and effective diplomacy, not empty, bellicose threats untethered to realistic policy goals and motivated by domestic partisan objectives. 

There are no specifics and Biden has never had any beyond doing mostly what Trump is doing without the empty threats. TPS is clearly critical, so a good step forward and he really needs to contrast himself in Florida on that issue.

Democrats will also move swiftly to reverse Trump Administration policies that have

undermined U.S. national interests and harmed the Cuban people and their families in the United States, including its efforts to curtail travel and remittances. Rather than strengthening the regime, we will promote human rights and people-to-people exchanges, and empower the Cuban people to write their own future. 

This is an easy one. Obama started it, and Biden will get back to that point and move forward again.