Colombia FTA imminent

Apparently the Colombia FTA is imminent.  From the AP:

The U.S. and Colombia are expected to announce Wednesday a deal on a key free trade pact, three people close to the agreement said, ending a years-long stalemate over the highly-coveted pact.

An agreement appeared to come together following weeks of intense negotiations in Washington and Bogota, focused in part on Colombia strengthening its protection of unions and labor leaders.

I take this to mean that whatever was negotiated will lead to a favorable vote in the U.S. Congress.  My main conclusion is that there will be relatively few significant effects.  This will have no effect on Hugo Chávez, no effect on the FARC or terrorism more broadly, will likely not boost either economy significantly, and will not strongly affect the U.S. role in the region.  By virtue of being blocked by congressional Democrats, the FTA has taken on exaggerated importance.  Until Republicans held up the ATPDEA, Colombia had access to U.S. markets already anyway for many key exports.

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Yet more on Colombia FTA

I've written quite a bit on the strange arguments people make about the Colombia FTA.  Here is an entirely new one from Michael Barone: the FTA has not been passed because of support from, and I quote, "black or Hispanic left-wingers, from union operatives, from antiwar groups."   This is the first time I've seen a racial or ethnic argument, and he provides no evidence for it.  As for unions, what people do not realize is that some unions support FTAs.  To argue otherwise is false.


Regardless, I am not ready to make predictions but I would argue that from a strictly pragmatic perspective the current political climate is potentially propitious for passing the FTA.  In particular, President Obama just came back from Latin America and would like to show he is making an effort.  It would also be a bipartisan effort, which shows he is trying to reach out in the context of a bruising budget debate.

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Enforcement blues

From USA Today: Congress is going to take a look at the following issue:

From 2006 to 2010, the number of Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect people and cargo crossing through the ports of entry along the southwest border increased by 15%, while the number of CBP Border Patrol agents who patrol the rugged terrain between those ports increased by 59%, according to CBP figures.

In other words, our real problems--drugs and guns--are getting short shrift in order to be seen as "doing something" about undocumented immigration.  We'll see how Republican address the problem, since they are simultaneously committed to security and fiscal restraint.  In this case, you either shift resources or spend more.

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Immigration bills

Seth Hoy at Immigration Impact has a very interesting post on how state-level immigration bills are not passing.  In ten states, Arizona-type legislation is getting axed by legislative leaders.  For example:

Mississippi’s legislature killed more than 30 immigration-related bills this week that would have, among other things, required people to speak English before receiving a state license, denied public benefits to the undocumented and attached an additional fee to all wire transfers going out of the country. The most controversial of the package, however, was SB 2179—Mississippi’s Arizona-style bill which would require police to investigate the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

This is another example of why I criticized the New York Times article about how such bills are becoming more common in the South.  Yes, we will see immigration bills pass at the state and local level, as potentially in Georgia, but I think there are signs of greater pragmatism that don't tend to get media attention because they aren't exciting.

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Academic writing

Mike Munger has some very good advice on academic writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I really agree with everything he says, but particularly with #2:

Set goals based on output, not input. "I will work for three hours" is a delusion; "I will type three double-spaced pages" is a goal. After you write three pages, do something else. Prepare for class, teach, go to meetings, whatever. If later in the day you feel like writing some more, great. But if you don't, then at least you wrote something.

That was something a friend in graduate school said he did--writing two double-spaced pages of dissertation a day--and I successfully copied it and continue to do so in some fashion (though not necessarily always two pages).  Those two pages aren't necessarily good, and will be changed through editing, but they represent a concrete goal and then accomplishment.

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More on Brazil

I am going to stop flogging this horse soon, but Greg Grandin sent me an email response to yesterday's post about his Brazil argument and kindly agreed to let me post it here.

As to Lula's statement, I think the difference between voting no (if Brazil was a perm member) and abstaining (as a non-perm member) has to do with cost benefit.   As a non-perm member, a vote no would have been ineffectual -- ie, done nothing to stop the bombing -- while possibly giving ammo to those who claim Brazil is too "irresponsible" to have a permanent seat.   Once it had that seat, it could vote/veto as it saw fit, to effect.     It might have been morally cowardly to abstain, as you suggest, but I'd think it has less to do with not wanting to appear to be "doing nothing" than with not taking a righteous yet structurally useless stand and risk giving more excuses to those who would deny it a seat.   And if it was a simple case of being a moral coward, why the strong statement now?   If there is anything those Wikileaks Brazil memos reveal, is that its diplomats and politicians are very good at not getting into pointless rhetorical arguments with US representatives, even as they went about and substantively did the opposite of what the US wanted.    

I get the logic, but the statements and actions of the Brazilian government don't suggest its current strategy is more likely to generate U.S. support for a seat on the Security Council.  I would argue that abstaining and then saying you wouldn't abstain in the future is equally ineffectual, and undermines confidence in your decision-making even further (though indeed perhaps less so than an actual "no" vote).  Obama already refused to support Brazil's bid in any case, showing that Brazil's current actions are less relevant than its past foreign policy deviations from what the U.S. government wants.

FWIW, for an argument about Russia's abstention that was very similar to my argument on Brazil's abstention, see The Monkey Cage.

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U.S. and Brazil

Greg Grandin has an opinion piece in Al-Jazeera about U.S.-Brazilian relations, which I think tends to over-emphasize the negative but is worth reading.

I also keep thinking about the Brazilian abstention in the UN vote on Libya, which I've written about before, and its subsequent criticism of military action:

Even before Obama landed in Rio, Brazil, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, joined with China and Germany to abstain from the vote authorising "all necessary measures" against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.  

Since then, its opposition to the bombing has hardened.  According to the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), Brazil's foreign ministry – still, for the most part, staffed by the diplomats who charted Lula's foreign policy – recently issued a statement condemning the loss of civilian lives and calling for the start of dialogue.  

Lula himself has endorsed Dilma's critical position on Libya, going further in his condemnation of the intervention: "These invasions only happen because the United Nations is weak," he said. "If we had twenty-first-century representation [in the Security Council], instead of sending a plane to drop bombs, the UN would send its secretary-general to negotiate."  

His remarks were widely interpreted to mean that if Brazil had been a permanent member of the Security Council – a position it has long sought – it would have vetoed the resolution authorising the bombing rather than, as it did, merely abstaining from the vote.  

If this is what Lula meant, then I am confused.  Why would the nature of your participation in the UN change the way you voted?  Why not vote "no" regardless?

Regardless, it is also worth noting that President Rousseff's foreign policy does deviate from Lula's, so it is important not to generalize too much..

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No more awards

I would like to propose that governments impose a moratorium on granting awards to people from other countries, particularly when those people show evidence of doing the opposite of what the award is supposedly celebrating.

The latest was Hugo Chávez being given a press freedom award in Argentina, but there are plenty more.  Of course, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Obama awarded Alvaro Uribe with the Medal of Freedom.  And who could forget the Libyan human rights award, won by that paragon of liberty Fidel Castro?  And don't bother offering a prize to Cubans because they're so free that they aren't even allowed to attend.

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Obama on immigration

With the Libya crisis in full swing, what is getting less notice is the fact that President Obama has been repeating constantly over the past few weeks that he is committed to immigration reform.  He did so multiple times while on the trip to Latin America, and now has done so again in a speech at a high school.  The first paragraph in the Politico article makes clear the political risk this entails:

President Barack Obama on Monday told an audience of predominantly Latinos that he’s hopeful an immigration overhaul bill will be able to pass Congress soon, even though he was unable to shepherd legislation for the DREAM Act to his desk before the first half of his first term, when Democrats controlled both houses.

At what point does President Obama's promise to get things done combined with inability to convince Congress to pass anything start rebounding negatively on him?

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Latin America benefits from tsunami

This is a bit twisted, but true.  From the Wall Street Journal: Latin America stands to benefit from the Japanese tsunami.  Latin American economies depend heavily upon commodities, which like thneeds are something that everyone needs.  Japan will need a lot as it rebuilds.  It would be more seemly, however, if Latin American foreign ministers were not salivating quite so openly:

Argentine finance minister Amado Boudou also sees Japan quickly restarting to rebuild its infrastructure. "We salute them because it's good for the whole international economy," he told reporters at the IDB meeting. In 2009, Argentina exported about $581 million in food and mineral products to Japan, or about 5% of its total exports.

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Latest Colombia FTA threat

Throughout the Bush administration the primary public rationale for a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement was security.  This reached absurd extremes, as in 2008 when President Bush said that without the FTA, we would all lose to the FARC and Hugo Chávez would "win" (whatever that meant).

This argument does keep popping up from time to time, but it has lost its luster as its apocalyptic visions have never come to pass.  So supporters are now looking to find another apocalypse.  The answer: China!  From the Financial Times:

China has meanwhile risen to become Colombia’s second biggest trade partner after the US, and by some estimates will overtake the US in the next decade if the trade deal is not approved.

I've been doing my best to debunk the breathless China threat meme, which is now coming fast and furious, but it has everything: foreigners we don't really understand, questionable statistics, and scenarios of "losing."

I just keep coming back to the same point: FTA supporters should argue its concrete merits rather than playing on fear.

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Immigration in the South

If you want to see some bad reporting, check out this New York Times article on immigration legislation in the South.  The basic argument is that there is more restrictionist legislation in the South than elsewhere.  We know, of course, that state and local governments in the West and Northeast have already passed various bills that are being legally challenged.  In the South, however, the article points mostly to proposed legislation, and then mentions only one bill that has a clear chance of passing.  It then asks people in one Atlanta grocery store what they think, and generalizes from that.

If you want a more nuanced view, read my book.  To quote myself, "Although one might expect that as more immigrants arrive Southern legislatures would be more likely to pass legislation, thus far the evidence is not firm" (p. 154).

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Walker and Wade's Nicaragua

I like Thomas Walker and Christine Wade's Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle, 5th Edition (2011).  It is clearly sympathetic to the revolution, but takes pains to remain even handed.  That means having no illusions, for example, about the political direction Daniel Ortega has been taking while also praising successful policies he implemented in the 1980s.  I highly recommend it as an excellent political history.  I would be tempted to use it in a class, but I don't tend to go that far in depth in a country study to merit an entire book.

The first half of the book is historical chronology, and the second half is separated by different issues: economic, cultural, political, and international.  Nicaragua has a fascinating history, and the writing is very good.  Who can resist sentences like the following?

On September 20, a young poet named Rigoberto López Pérez infiltrated a reception honoring the dictator and pumped five bullets point-blank into Somoza's corpulent hulk (p. 28).

My only complaint, and a relatively minor one, is that the facts can really stand for themselves in Nicaragua so there were far too many uses of the words "alleged" and "apparently," usually referring to some nefarious connection to the United States.  But there were so many such nefarious connections that including rumors weakens the overall argument.

I agree with their assessment of Ortega: "The Ortega government was both openly defiant and curiously submissive to the demands of its old enemy" (p. 213).  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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QOTD: Obama trip post mortem

From Kevin Casas-Zamora in the Wall Street Journal.  I think this nails it, and underlines the gap between rhetoric and action:

"When it comes to the truly crucial issues that are at the heart of U.S.-Latin American relations, to really move the relationship forward requires politically costly decisions here in the United States," said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a former vice president in Costa Rica who now studies Latin America in Washington.

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Obama in El Salvador

After much discussion, much confusion, and plenty of disagreement we finally got to hear what Barack Obama and Mauricio Funes prioritized during their brief meeting.  There were three main points.

First, pleasant pronouncements with nice names regarding economic growth.  Some of them, like the Bridge Initiative, are aimed specifically at immigrants (i.e. remittances).

Second, narcotrafficking.  The CARSI Initiative is an example they mentioned in particular.  To his credit, Obama does keep repeating the importance of reducing drug demand in the United States.

Third, migration.  Obama said again, as he did in Chile, that he would push for immigration reform.  He's been saying that for over two years, but still.

Boz mentions the environment, but I think it is noteworthy that Funes did not mention it, and Obama tacked it on the end of his speech as something he basically convinced El Salvador to do.

These do not preclude the symbolic measure of bolstering a moderate president in Central America, as Mike Allison has argued.  At least he isn't getting divorced in order to let his wife run for president!

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Obama's speech in Chile

Barack Obama's speech in Chile was bland.  There's no other way to put it.  We're partners, we're connected, you're so democratic, let me mention JFK!  Funny thing is, he even seems to acknowledge that fact:

Now, I know I’m not the first president from the United States to pledge a new spirit of partnership with our Latin American neighbors.  Words are easy, and I know that there have been times where perhaps the United States took this region for granted.

Words are indeed easy, though at least he mentions things that previous presidents tended not to.  He talks about immigration reform, the flow of guns from north to south and an emphasis on drug demand rather than supply, so hopefully those translate into action.

Other views:

--Robert Funk says Obama's message is "I am not Bush."

--Kenneth Bunker says the visit is a boost for Sebastián Piñera, who can use it

--Pato Navia says the symbolism of visiting Latin America even though a crisis brew elsewhere is important, and also the specific choice of Chile

--Fox News just hates Obama's guts for visiting Latin America in the first place

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Immigration bills in NC

The Charlotte Observer has a story about how quickly the new Republican state legislature is moving.  There aren't more bills than in the past, but more are getting passed rapidly (fortunately, screwball ones like introducing a new NC currency are not!).  What really got my attention, however, was that immigration was never mentioned.

There are indeed restrictionists bills that have been introduced, but it is noteworthy that no one interviewed, including House Speaker Thom Tillis, ever brought it up.  I don't want to make too much of it, but it seems to be a positive sign.

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Obama to Brazil: no UN for you!

Obama on India in 2010:

"And that is why I can say today, in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member."

Obama on Brazil in 2011:

In a joint statement, Obama and Rousseff said they recognized the need to reform international institutions to reflect the “current political and economic realities.”

But Washington did not explicitly back Brazil's aspirations for a permanent UN Security Council seat, as he did for India when visiting New Delhi in November.

“President Obama expressed appreciation for Brazil's aspiration to become a permanent member of the Security Council,” the statement said.

Doh!

There are any number of reasons this is happening.  For example, as a permanent member India's votes would be far more likely than Brazil's to fall along the lines of U.S. policy.

Nonetheless, it opens up the Latin America trip with a slap at a time when the administration talks all about partnership.

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Presidential plans

I just returned from the 2011 conference of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies, which I regularly attend and really enjoy.  I also became president of the organization, and hope to learn from Latin American politics.  You see, I only have a one year term with no re-election, so I will spend the next year figuring out how to end term limits--but only because the people want me, and who can deny the people?  If SECOLAS had a Supreme Court, I'd pack it.  Just for the people.

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Brazil and Libya

Brazil was one of five countries to abstain in the vote to approve use of force in Libya, and particularly given their UN Ambassador's comments, it strikes me as a particularly cowardly vote.

Among the five governments that abstained in the vote, Brazil’s U.N. ambassador, Maria Luiza Riberio Viotti, voiced concern that military action in Libya would “exacerbate tensions on the ground and cause more harm than good to the same civilians we are committed to protect.”

She also warned that military action would undermine the “spontaneous homegrown nature’’ of popular uprisings spreading through the Arab world and threatened to “change that narrative in ways that would have serious repercussions” for Libya and the rest of the region.

If you believe that firmly that military action will have very negative consequences, then vote no.  Instead, Brazil is trying to hedge its bets.  Abstaining means it is trying to avoid blame for the consequences of military action, but also does not want to be blamed for "doing nothing."

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Obama in Latin America

President Obama is already getting some pokes for traveling to Latin America despite the crises in the Middle East and Japan, not to mention a budget debate at home.  From the Wall Street Journal:

With the Middle East in turmoil, Japan’s nuclear reactors at least partly melting down and Congress in the midst of a budget battle, President Barack Obama is going to … Latin America.

Of course, he would also be criticized if he chose to postpone the trip.  In general, it reflects well on Latin America that it is not crisis-ridden enough to get the global spotlight.  In fact, Obama will likely talk about successful political transitions in Latin America in a comparative context.  It's downright comparative politics!

But during his trip to Latin America next week, Obama is likely to use his visit to a region that has undergone a long process of transitioning from authoritarian regimes to democratization to finally address the future of the Middle East. 

I have a feeling these will be superficial comparisons, but I will be interested to hear how he frames them.

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China in Latin America

One of the latest crazes is to argue that China is "challenging" the United States in Latin America, and this is something the U.S. government needs to address (exactly how is rarely explained).  So Reuters cries out:

China's growing economic stake in the region may one day raise a threat to Washington's strategic dominance too as its deep pockets bring new friends.

They toss that "may" in there as a qualifier, but the overall tone is very clear.  I am skeptical, and agree with those who argue that China cannot very easily displace U.S. influence, no matter how much money it throws at Latin America.  Plus, China mostly wants commodities and market access for its goods, neither of which "raises a threat to Washington's strategic dominance."

But wait, the end of the article acknowledges that China is viewed warily in Latin America:

Brazil's new government under President Dilma Rousseff has already taken a much cooler stance toward China than her predecessor, aiming to address a lopsided relationship that has seen imports of Chinese goods quintuple since 2005.

Tensions also surfaced with Argentina last year when China, in apparent anger over protectionist moves, boycotted soyoil shipments for six months.

And Chinese companies often face challenges winning local support for their projects in Peru, which critics worry will cause pollution or use scarce water resources.

In other words, the story contradicts itself, but sadly the lurid headline about losing clout in Latin America is what many people will remember.

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Venezuelan take on Libya

If you want to see how much the Libyan people love Gaddafi, how there is calm in the streets, how the UN lies about human rights, how Gaddafi's son is just trying to do the right thing, and how the crisis is a U.S. plot, then check out the Venezuelan News Agency's special web page on Libya.  Dictatorship never looked so good.

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Mexico and asylum

All the stories about Mexican law enforcement, journalists, and even just family of activists seeking asylum in the United States made me wonder about the numbers.  These are from the Department of Justice's Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2009 (I discovered that the 2010 numbers don't come out until next month).  The following is the number of individuals granted asylum from Mexico from 2000 to 2009.

2000: 42
2001: 52
2002: 36
2003: 35
2004: 53
2005: 85
2006: 84
2007: 103
2008: 176
2009: 192

In other words, in that decade the number rose 457 percent.  It is entirely reasonable to expect the 2010 numbers also to show an increase.  It makes me wonder a) whether the evaluation of asylum requests has evolved over time or not; and b) how much the number of total requests has gone up.

Regardless, this is becoming an increasingly public issue that is uncomfortable for both the U.S. and Mexican governments since it does not reflect well on current strategies for reducing drug-related violence.

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Remittances are back

One sign of an economic recovery in the United States is the increase of remittances to Latin America, which had been down for several years.  Overall, they rose to $58.9 billion, a 0.2% increase.  Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico all increased between 6 and 16%.

We can therefore come to a few conclusions.

First, this once again suggests strongly that there is no exodus of migrants going back home.  They still see the U.S. as an economic engine from which they can draw.

Second, since we know that recent migrants are the most likely to send remittances, and many of them are undocumented, this constitutes anecdotal evidence that enforcement is not serving as a major deterrent.

Third, unfortunately, Latin American economies are still heavily dependent on the export of primary products, and that includes their own people.

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Brazil at the UN

Peter Hakim at the Inter-American Dialogue has a balanced analysis of why the Obama administration should support Brazil's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and also includes counter-arguments.  He has one sentence that jumped out at me:

Washington would simply be acknowledging Brazil’s new global prominence and getting out in front of the inevitable.

I think "getting out in front of the inevitable" applies to many different foreign policy areas.  U.S. policy makers, not to mention the general public, all too often believe that sheer might, combined with our deeply embedded sense of exceptionalism, can bend international events to our own will.  You can push for your own policy preferences, but it is important to understand when something is going to happen whether you like it or not, and then adjust accordingly.

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Current immigration reform

Here is where we currently stand on immigration.  Faced with federal inaction and knowing they need to regularize their workforce, state governments like Utah are trying to forge their own guest worker programs.  Whether or not the Utah plan passes constitutional muster, or works in practice, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the federal government raids Chipotle restaurants.

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Fidel and Moammar

The Huffington Post has a post from Yoani Sánchez in English comparing Fidel Castro to Moammar Gaddafi.

Both leaders waved before their subjects' eyes the specter of foreign invasion and a return to political dependence, the worst of threats. Anti-colonialism became the big bad wolf of the eccentric Berber leader, while the Caribbean leader scratched around in the mud of anti-imperialism, turning the metaphor of David and Goliath into a perennial reference to Cuba and the United States.

It's a good post.  Short and sweet.

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Drugs and innovation in Latin America

Sylvia Longmire has a very interesting article in Homeland Security Today about how drug traffickers are constantly finding new and innovative ways to transport drugs to the United States.  Although the U.S. government has been responding, it can barely keep up.  She makes the point that the innovation comes because of the squeeze--"record" busts mean it is necessary for traffickers to find new strategies.

This brings me to one of my numerous pet peeves.  I find myself annoyed at triumphant references to "records" regarding drugs, and though she doesn't focus on it I think her article highlights why they are terribly misleading yet media pleasing factoids.  To quote Inigo Montoya, I do not think it means what you think it means, because records don't automatically mean you are "winning" (and now I guess I am quoting Charlie Sheen).  Somehow the record number of busts continues to coincide with the record amount of drug revenue.

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Chile-Japan nexus

From Wikileaks (via CIPER Chile): Alejandro Toledo thought there was a nefarious "Chile-Japan nexus."

The President also complained that he was surprised President Vicente Fox of Mexico did not promptly inform him that Fujimori’s plane had transited via Tijuana. The Ambassador replied that it appeared the Chilean Government had been caught off guard, noting that the flight manifest faxed to Santiago did not have Fujimori’s name on it (though the manifest handed over by the flight crew on arrival did). The Ambassador added that he suspected the Japanese Government also was taken unawares. Toledo indicated that he still suspected collusion between Chile and Japan, while continuing to express bewilderment at “”my friend”" Fox’s failure to provide timely information during their attendance at the Summit of the Americas.

In fact, by 2007 Fujimori was a hot potato for the Bachelet administration, which didn't want him around.    But I guess if you set the record for the lowest approval rating in a democracy, you feel pretty paranoid all the time.

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More on Libya and Latin America

Reading analyses of Latin American leaders' reaction to the Libyan crisis has been entertaining.  A simple matter of ideological unity--however repugnant--is transformed into sweeping arguments about Latin America as a whole.  This normally becomes a mirror of the author's own beliefs.  Take for example this L.A. Times op-ed by Andrés Martinez at the New America Foundation.

The fact that three Latin American leaders (Chávez, Castro, and Ortega) have expressed support for Gaddafi means the following (and I swear I am not making this up):

--All of Latin American civil society is "immature."  So presumably the fact that Hugo Chávez supports Gaddafi reflects Chilean or Mexican "immaturity" as well.

--"Latin leaders have arrogantly considered foreign affairs their exclusive prerogative, divorced from whatever constraints they face at home."  I will explain what this means once I figure it out.  If there were constraints, then presumably they would be constrained.  Otherwise they aren't constraints.

--Lula mocks human rights by his relation with Iran.  What this has to do with Libya or President Rousseff (she is not even mentioned in the article!) is not explained.  The Brazilian government has in fact not ruled any response out, but rather asserts any international solution must have UN backing.  Lula cozied up to Gaddafi plenty of times in the past, but currently Brazil is more or less in the mainstream with regard to a solution.

--In sum, the Latin American left is a big bloc and all of it supports Gaddafi. Except if it doesn't, I guess.

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Latino population in North Carolina

I have not yet had time to dig into the Census data on the Latino population.  Nonetheless, the upward growth of that population is considerable--Latinos now constitute 8.4 percent of North Carolina's population, an increase of 111.1 percent since 2000.  I was quoted in a local paper, the Salisbury Post, about the origins of that migration.

There will be plenty of misunderstanding of the numbers, plus anecdotal accounts that may or may not have empirical backing.  Take this story in the News & Observer, which argues there is an "exodus."  The reporter spoke to one Latino immigrant who, as we learn at the end of the story, doesn't plan to leave despite economic problems!  As I've written many, many times, there is always circular migration and some people will indeed leave for economic reasons (or perhaps enforcement) but there is no exodus.

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Performance vs. ideology

There's a curious juxtaposition between North Carolina politics, where Republicans recently took control of the both legislative houses for the first time in more than a century, to Latin America, where over the past decade or so left-leaning governments are replacing right-leaning ones.  In both cases, the new governments confidently asserted that the voters actively wanted them in particular.  Increasingly, however, it is evident that voters are making their choices based on performance rather than ideology.  Assuming everyone voted based on your ideology can become problematic when performance dips.

From Jack Betts in today's Charlotte Observer:

"The biggest mistake Republicans can make is to believe that voters chose them because of their ideology," he said. "They chose Republicans because they had lost confidence in the Democrats' ability to solve the problems of the day. ... This has not become a Republican state."

And this abstract from Latin American Research Review:

Over the past few years, a burgeoning literature on Latin American politics has developed, focusing on explanations for the renewed success of the left in the region. Building on electoral trends and public opinion analysis, we argue that the region is experiencing the normalization of democratic politics rather than a backlash or a revolution. Furthermore, we believe that electoral support for the left reflects the disenchantment of voters with underperforming right-wing governments. Using a unique data set covering eighteen countries in the region, our statistical analyses demonstrate that retrospective voting provides a powerful explanation of the recent electoral success of the left in Latin America. Thus, the central implication of our argument is that electoral accountability is still the primary mechanism of controlling the executive in the region's young democracies.

María Victoria Murillo, Virginia Oliveros, and Milan Vaishnav, "Electoral Revolution or Democratic Alternation?" Latin American Research Review 45, 3 (2010): 87-114.

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Quote of the day: Chile

"The latest rumor is that Moammar Gadhafi is calling other countries to find a place to live in exile. So far, only Chile has offered to rent out an empty mine."

--Jay Leno

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U.S. policy toward Nicaragua

Thanks to Boz for pointing out this speech from the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, Robert Callahan.  It is an apologia for U.S. policy, and really a doozy.  He goes all the way back to William Walker.

Walker was clearly crazed, a true megalomaniac, and he caused death and destruction wherever he pitched up.  But he was acting on his own and received no support from the American government.

Then it gets worse.  Much worse.

Another renowned Nicaraguan figure to emerge from this period was Anastasio Somoza Garcia.  As history would prove, Americans erred in selecting him to lead the newly created and non-partisan National Guard, which was to replace a politicized army, but it would have been impossible to know Somoza's intentions at the time.  He seemed bright and well intentioned and he spoke English.  He talked of democracy.  He extolled freedom.  He promised elections.  He charmed us, and many others.

Yes, we supported him and his sons for years, tolerating them in the name of national security.  But at the end, admittedly late in the game, we abandoned him.  Many contributed to the defeat of Somoza, but we did play a modest, if belated, role. 

This is just embarrassing.  We thought Somoza was a great guy and he tricked us!  But then, after over 40 years of brutal repression we stopped supporting his son just when he was about to be overthrown anyway.  So we're the good guys.  Why can't you Nicaraguans understand that?

I will just provide one more example.

But there are many other, much less visible, ways that America and Americans contribute to Nicaragua's economic and social development.  Take, for example, remittances.  Although we have no exact figures, we estimate conservatively that Nicaraguans receive at least a half a billion dollars annually from workers and residents in the United States.  The United States has welcomed these workers, many of whom are immigrants, and has never interfered with their desire to send money home.

It is strange that anyone today could say that the U.S. welcomes Latin American workers.  Even setting that aside, it is bizarre that "never interfering" with remittances is equated with actively contributing to Nicaragua's "economic and social development."

There is more, but I won't subject you to it.

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Hugo Chávez on the Middle East

Hugo Chávez on Libya: I want to help mediate.

Hugo Chávez on Egypt: No outside power should be involved and the country should find its own solution.  "El pueblo decidirá."

Hugo Chávez on the U.S government.: It is hypocritical.

Oh, and don't call me Mubarak.

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Latin American drug consumption

A dark side of economic growth is that people have more disposable income to spend on illegal substances.  The UN is concerned about the rise of cocaine use among Latin American youths, led by Uruguay, Chile and Argentina.  Further, it looks like Peru may overtake Colombia as the world's largest exporter of coca.

Latin American governments rightfully criticize the United States for refusing to address the problem of consumption, but with increased Latin American consumption there is a pressing need to work jointly to find solutions that work.  Otherwise organized crime will be moving into places like Chile that have never experienced it before.

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Why Cuba Isn't Likely Next

I think Chris Sabatini has a really interesting take about why Cuba is not likely to be the next in a wave of dictatorial uprootings:

For the last two decades, from Eastern Europe to Egypt, none of the countries that has experienced a people's revolution has been under a U.S. embargo.  Though it is about to be the target of focused sanctions as a result of its bloody response to the protestors (and deservedly so) before the current uprising even Libya saw its sanctions ended in 2004 by the George W. Bush administration.  In the case of Libya --and in the past-- targeted sanctions tied to a specific act by the government can provoke a course correction or even collapse.  Over the long-term, though, sanctions actually seal a country off from the rest of the world and allow a government to dig in.

The inverse relationship between isolation and people's revolution is no coincidence. Contact with the outside world builds capacity and ideas insidious to even the most tyrannical regime.  

Add this to all the other many reasons that the embargo helps to block political change in Cuba.

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Sergio Bitar on Obama

Sergio Bitar (who was a cabinet member in the Allende, Lagos, and Bachelet administrations in Chile) offers a Latin American perspective of the Obama administration's Latin America policy that is worth reading.  It compares Obama's approach to other parts of the world, and sees two core problems.

First, with Latin America, Obama focuses only on the hemisphere and does not acknowledge broader global forces at work.

Second, Obama does not acknowledge legitimate reasons why Latin American leaders (even ones generally supportive of U.S. policy) have been critical of the U.S., particularly how the global economic crisis came about in the first place.

Both are fair criticisms.  Obama inherited the "neighbor" rhetoric from every president before him, but it is increasingly becoming outdated and often had paternalistic overtones.  He also inherited the insistence that problems of drugs, immigration, etc. are primarily Latin American ones without creating new policies aimed at demand rather than just supply.

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Honduran elections

The People's National Resistance Front in Honduras says it will not form a party and participate in the 2013 presidential elections because the country is not democratic enough.

Instead, some 1,500 delegates to the first general assembly of the People's National Resistance Front, known popularly as Resistance, opted to eschew elections and push for the Central American nation's constitution to be rewritten, an effort that was begun by Zelaya and led to his ouster.

"The conditions are not right to go to an electoral process," Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro, said in a speech Saturday. "To do that would require that the coup-mongers leave power and are punished."

My immediate thought was that it sounded almost exactly like the opposition to Hugo Chávez in the 2005 legislative elections.  The lesson it learned was that refusing to participate gave Chávez a huge majority in the legislature and in retrospect was a serious tactical mistake.  It also reminds me of the Chilean Communist Party, which had once been very strong, but which rejected any participation in Augusto Pinochet's 1988 referendum.  As a result, the party was not part of the Concertación and ever since has struggled for political relevance.

In short, it is a risky strategy in a situation where there are admittedly no great options given the political violence (on top of the criminal violence) in the country.  However, to require punishment for those involved in the coup as a precondition for formal political participation may unfortunately be setting the bar impossibly high.

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Nicaragua and social media

Tim Rogers at Time has an article on virtual protests in Nicaragua against Daniel Ortega's re-election, which gets to the heart of recent debate about social media and political activism (see, for example, the controversy over Malcolm Gladwell's dismissal of any connection).  Some 16,000 Nicaraguans protested on Facebook.  The protests in the Middle East have famously used social media for coordination, so the parallel is obvious.

The big difference, at least for now, is that social media must translate into real world action.  Here is a problematic part of the story:

Indeed, the fear of reprisal in Nicaragua might have even affected turnout to the cyber protest. More than 2,200 Facebook users invited to attend the march clicked "maybe" — if, one assumes, it didn't conflict with other virtual commitments on their virtual calendars — and 76,800 didn't respond at all.

Afraid?  Maybe so, but we should also ask whether the vast majority are indifferent, apathetic, or otherwise not feeling sufficiently motivated to protest even just online.  The article seems more like wishful thinking than serious appraisal.

But let's see whether protests can jump entire regions with totally different political, economic, and cultural contexts.

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Libya and Latin America 2

I recommend this Al Jazeera rundown on the Latin American response to the Libyan crisis, which is much more detailed than others I've seen.  Everyone talks about Venezuela, but Brazil has been very happy in recent years with Gaddafi as well.

One of the stranger developments is the criticism from both Venezuela and Cuba about media manipulation about events in Libya, which is why Hugo Chávez claims he has remained quiet.  Of course, Al Jazeera has been at the forefront of providing news from the Middle East, so is very often the source for western news agencies.  Back in 2006, Telesur and Al Jazeera signed a deal to share content:

Head of Telesur Andres Izarra said his channel felt inspired by the path which al-Jazeera had taken to become a reference point in the Arab world.

Telesur says it seeks to promote regional integration and offer an alternative to US networks.

In other words, up until now the Venezuelan government saw Al Jazeera as a solution, and now suddenly it is part of the problem.

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Libya and Latin America

Another conservative criticism of the Libya-Latin America link from José Cárdenas at Foreign Policy.  For once I actually agree with most of what he says, until the end when he cannot help make it into a criticism of the Obama administration.

All this crystallizes the situation for the United States in Latin America today: between serious governments with whom we can do business and the irresponsible outliers with whom we share hardly any common interests. It is a distinction the Obama administration doesn't always seem to appreciate. At a House Western Hemisphere subcommittee hearing last week, Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) chided Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela on this score, saying that our hemispheric policy seems to be all about trying to make up with our enemies and ignoring our friends. Let's hope the disparate reactions to the carnage in Libya will serve as a wake-up call to realign our priorities in the Western Hemisphere.

If we didn't "do business" with "serious" countries that had ties to Libya and had nice photo-ops with Gaddafi, we wouldn't do business with much of Europe.  Plus, Bolivia is not the same as Venezuela, since the former is actually pursuing unpopular market reforms.  In general, the stubborn inability to see any nuance is tiring, though not surprising.

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Gaddafi and Latin America

Conservative commentators are jumping on the Latin American reaction to the Libyan uprisings, even criticizing the Obama administration for, well, I am not quite sure even what.  Regardless, it is useful to start thinking about what Latin America lessons we can take from Libya, though of course we need to wait until events unfold more before we can make firm conclusions.

Perhaps the most important is that the U.S. was uninvolved in prompting these protests, and they are likely more powerful as a result because accusations of meddling--as from Fidel Castro--come off as hollow echoes of the Cold War.  Strangely enough, for those who support the Cuban embargo, the U.S. (starting with George W. Bush, in fact) had even been liberalizing relations with Libya, which obviously did not have the effect of making him stronger politically.  Whether you believe the liberalization was good or bad is irrelevant--the point is that there is no automatic correlation between such liberalization and the strength of a dictatorship.  If there is one thing Cuba policy teaches us, it is that intervention can create blowback and give you the exact opposite result from what you want.

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Gaddafi and Chávez

Twitter has been loaded with rumors the past two days about Libya, and there was no juicier rumor than Moammar Gaddafi flying to Venezuela.  It also turned out to be completely false, but it underlined the very public and strong bond between him and Hugo Chávez.  Meanwhile, Chávez has been totally silent about events in Libya.  Along these lines, I recommend Nikolas Kozloff's article in the Huffington Post.  He's written fairly favorably of Chávez in the past, but pretty much nails the embarrassment of embracing people like Gadafi:

With revolution now sweeping away the most autocratic rulers across the African continent, Chávez now has a unique opportunity to redraw his political priorities. Will the Venezuelan leader see the error of his ways or continue to embrace phony Third World liberation in the guise of autocratic despotism? Señor Presidente: the silence has become truly deafening.

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Colombia FTA and the Middle East

There is an article in the Miami Herald about Latin America's ties to the Middle East, which is largely interesting but one part grated on me:

Amid mounting frustration with the U.S. Congress’ refusal to pass a free trade agreement with Colombia, Santos has talked of the need to build new trade routes, including with the Middle East. And the country plans to open embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey this year.

This meme is tiresome.  Whether or not an FTA is passed is irrelevant to Colombia's trade with the rest of the world.  An FTA does not mean that you suddenly stop trading with everyone else.  Chile has roughly fifty free trade agreements, and continues to "build new trade routes" all the time.

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Transitions and foreign policy

Like everyone else, I've been following events in the Middle East with no small amount of shock.  As protests in Libya expand, I've been thinking about the ideological angle.  Dictators of all different ideological stripes are under fire.

That ideological mix is throwing the western hemisphere for a loop.  The Obama administration was slow to respond because Mubarak was such a strong ally, yet much more quickly now says it will provide "technical assistance" to Libyan protestors.  Fidel Castro lauded the protestors in Egypt, and then the Cuban government became utterly silent when similar protests hit Libya.  Similarly, Telesur emphasizes the Libyan government's official line that the protests constitute foreign intervention, though interestingly in the Egyptian case Hugo Chávez criticized the U.S. for not supporting Mubarak, which itself is foreign intervention.

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Chile Wikileaks

If you need more evidence from Chile that the left-right dichotomy in Latin America is far more complex than commonly portrayed, we have this Wikileaks revelation.  The center-left Bachelet government, which we would expect to be more sympathetic to Hugo Chávez, was spying on Iranians in Latin America, which was in line with U.S. concerns.  And now, the center-right Piñera government is pro-Palestinian, which is not what the U.S. wants and is much more in line with Venezuela.

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Immigration enforcement welfare

Andres Oppenheimer makes a good case for cutting immigration enforcement spending on programs proven not to work.

At the very least, they should have a serious discussion on whether it makes sense to spend $4.5 billion in deporting people who have not committed serious crimes and do jobs that Americans don’t want to do, while slashing funds for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies whose job is to put serious criminals behind bars.

He also highlights an important and generally neglected issue, namely that immigration enforcement is a huge government giveaway:

There is growing evidence that the arrest and deportation of undocumented migrants along the U.S. border has become a big business for private detention companies, and that in many cases it hasn’t helped reduce the flow of undocumented migrants.

In so many ways, immigration enforcement should be a perfect issue for those claiming a commitment to cut fat from the budget.  Unfortunately that rarely seems to happen, as everyone is happy to throw good money after bad.

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Obama's trip to El Salvador

The media in the U.S. is still not sure why President Obama is going to El Salvador (here is my post about how confused everyone was last month).  The fact that the White House is not really explaining why doesn't help.  From the New York Times' Caucus Blog:

Mr. Obama’s stop in El Salvador is as much about domestic politics as international affairs; one of the larger and fast-growing immigrant populations in the United States hails from this nation.

I don't buy it.  Obama is not courting Salvadoran-American votes in the U.S.  His trip will likely focus on gangs and drug trafficking, which are related to immigration but far more complicated than that.

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Colombian refugees

A new report shows that 280,000 Colombians were displaced in 2010, and one-third of these were in areas the government claimed were "consolidated."  Colombia has a total of 5.2 million displaced people, roughly 1 out of every 9 Colombians, and the most in the world.  Some 389,000 live as refugees abroad, which of course has been a serious problem for Ecuador.

Unfortunate, then, that the House of Representatives wants to slash refugee aid when we're helping to cause the flow of refugees in the first place.

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Economic growth and food riots

It is so ironic.  For about the past year, we were hearing over and over that Latin American economies were on fire, recovering from the global recession faster than the developed world (back in December, for example, both ECLAC and the Wall Street Journal, not exactly bosom buddies, were excited).  The problem, of course, was that economic growth was dependent largely on high commodity prices, which had become something of a pet peeve of mine.

A mere two months later, reality sets in.  High commodity prices are not so good when you are the buyer, and it is even worse when it's food.  In fact, now the UN is concerned about food riots in the poorest Latin American countries because of the rise in prices.  The Bolivian government may even stockpile food.

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The U.S. and Honduras

Arturo Valenzuela's statement to the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is not too remarkable, but one thing jumped out at me:

During 2010, Honduras made significant progress in strengthening governance, promoting national reconciliation, addressing some of the problems of human rights violations, and restoring diplomatic relations with many countries in the hemisphere. As President Lobo has said, he has sought to redirect the country on a path towards democratic normalization following the disruption of the institutional order that took place in June 2009. In our view, he has prepared the groundwork for the restoration of Honduras to the Organization of American States. The U.S. Government is supporting Honduras through robust programs managed by several agencies, including the Departments of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, State, and USAID, and we will seek new ways to support the country’s efforts to achieve its economic development objectives.

This is so over the top and inaccurate that I would wager that he does not believe it either.  Just browse, for example, Amnesty International's Honduras reports, which discuss police intimidation of human rights activists, threats against journalists, and refusal to address human rights violations that occurred after the coup.  Then take a look at Human Rights Watch, which discusses the overall climate of intimidation and failure to deal with human rights abuses.

My hunch is that it is a bone for the key Republican members of the committee, who thought the Honduran coup was the best thing since sliced bread.  The committee chair, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, even went personally to Honduras to tell Roberto Micheletti how great he was.

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Trading with Colombia

Finally, finally, I see public acknowledgment of a key aspect of U.S. economic policy toward Colombia that is usually obscured.  Back in 2008, I asked the following:

If Colombia benefits now, and the U.S. doesn’t, then how does an FTA benefit both of us? Right now, Colombia has access but also protection of domestic industry, and an FTA gets rid of the latter.

So you can ignore all the arguments you hear ad nauseam about how essential an FTA is for Colombia, as House Republicans are finally discussing the real reason they support an FTA, which is that the status quo benefits Colombia too much.  From the new Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee:

Without a timetable on all three agreements, Mr. Camp said, conservatives weren't likely to back an extension of the Andean trade program, because it reduced tariffs on Colombian exporters without lowering them on U.S exports to Colombia, as a trade agreement would do.

The key benefit of an FTA for Colombia is to avoid the constant stress of renewal deadlines for trade preferences.

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Political transitions in Chile and Egypt

The academic study of political transitions was huge in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing largely on Latin America.  It may well get a new boost because of the Middle East.  In fact, the White House is reaching out to academia to better understand the Egyptian transition.  From the Washington Post:

The White House focus has been on revolutions against U.S.-backed dictatorships, including the 1986 popular revolt against Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the Chilean transition from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to democracy in 1990, and the 1998 uprising in Indonesia that drove out President Suharto. Officials have also looked to Serbia and Poland for lessons.

I assume they will not make the mistake of labeling Chile a "revolution."  It was a pacted transition that got going when Pinochet lost a referendum on whether he should stay in office.  He did leave power, but in a position of strength, even remaining commander in chief of the army.  In that sense, the Chilean transition has little to say to Egypt.

As I mentioned in passing in a previous post, Chile is more relevant for understanding how to deal with a very strong military in a democratic context.  For a 2006 book chapter on Chilean civil-military relations, I used the title "Inching Toward Democracy" and that may be the same for Egypt.

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Who needs a groundhog...

...when you have the day--today--when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.  Plus, Baseball Prospectus 2011 will be out in nine more days.  Baseball is here and spring is on its way.

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Contagions and dominos

"Contagion effect" and "domino effect" are being used interchangeably (I can put in a million links but just do a quick Google search to see what I mean) to describe the current spread of popular revolt in the Middle East, but I would argue it is useful to view them as distinct, albeit clearly similar.  What's occurring in the Middle East is contagion, not domino.

The term "domino effect" was coined by Dwight Eisenhower to describe the drive to spread communist governments around the world, and was central to U.S. policy toward Latin America during the Cold War.  They key here is the aspect of coordination, or at least leadership.  Marxist leaders wanted to spread revolutions to other countries (e.g. Che Guevara's Message to the Tricontinental about multiple Vietnams) and so provided arms, training, doctrine, rhetorical support, etc. to rebel leaders elsewhere.  In Latin America particularly after the 1954 Guatemala invasion, U.S. policy makers tended to view everything as a domino even if there was little or no outside support.  Indeed, it can be even more confusing when movements were both home grown and then also supported from abroad.

"Contagion effect" refers to more spontaneous copying of successful political movements (such as uprisings).  Success in one country provides opposition leaders in others with more confidence that they could do the same.  Currently in the Middle East there is no direct coordination (that I have heard of, anyway) between, say, Tunisia and Egypt, but clearly the former had a huge impact on the latter.  And the example of Egypt is now very influential.

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The military in Egypt and Latin America

Rightly, much attention is now being paid to the Egyptian military.  David Pion-Berlin, Harold Trinkunas, and I among others commented on the issue at The Monkey Cage from the perspective of Latin Americanists.  Although comparisons to Batista's Cuba or Somoza's Nicaragua are compelling for understanding U.S. policy, they are weaker for understanding civilian-military relations, because those governments did not have independent military institutions.  What the Latin American experience demonstrates, however, is that all the current excitement must be tempered by the fact that the outcome in Egypt is by no means preordained to be democratic.

Along those lines, Steven Taylor links to a Foreign Affairs article by Ellis Goldberg, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo.

Today, the army presents itself as a force of order and a neutral arbiter between contending opponents, but it has significant interests of its own to defend, and it is not, in fact, neutral. The basic structure of the Egyptian state as it now exists has benefited the military. The practical demands of the protesters seem fairly simple: end the state of emergency, hold new elections, and grant the freedom to form parties without state interference. But these demands would amount to opening up the political space to everyone across Egypt's social and political structure. That would involve constitutional and statutory changes, such as reforming Egypt as a parliamentary rather than a presidential system, in which a freely elected majority selects the prime minister (who is now appointed by the president). These changes would wipe away the power structure the army created in 1952 and has backed since.

At a minimum. the military will protect its prerogatives, though this can be consistent with democratic elections.  With luck, this will be a case like Bolivia or Ecuador, where the military withdrew support from leaders facing massive protests, then stepped aside to allow elections.  If that happens, then it may well take years to whittle away at the prerogatives, as in Chile.  Let's see how the meetings go between Mubarak's opposition and the armed forces.

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Insurgency and Mexico

There is a flap regarding the U.S. Undersecretary of the Army characterizing the situation in Mexico as a "form of insurgency," even raising the issue of using U.S. troops to fight it.  Key quote:

“This isn’t just about drugs and about illegal immigrants,” he said. “This is about, potentially, a takeover of a government by individuals who are corrupt.”

This isn't entirely new, since Hillary Clinton had made the insurgency comparison last year.

Setting aside the obvious problem of sending U.S. troops, I agree with the Mexican government that it is an inaccurate way of characterizing the conflict.  An insurgency is an illegal armed group seeking to overthrow a government.  That is not happening in Mexico because the drug trafficking organizations do not want to overthrow the government, but rather simply to absorb themselves into it.  Much of that effort has nothing to do with armed insurrection, and instead involves well placed bribery, recruitment of political candidates and other such strategies.  You can't fight those with troops, either U.S. or Mexican.

Further, when there are attacks, they are aimed at forcing the government to leave them alone and not to overthrow it.  The Center for International Policy's Just the Facts correctly made this point last year:

This is a concern, because some poor policy choices can result from viewing criminal gangs and narcotrafficking syndicates – whose only truly political goal is to keep government from disrupting their business – as “insurgents” or revolutionaries.

It's not just a matter of semantics.  If you call this an insurgency, then you click into place a variety of counterinsurgency measures that in the Mexican case will not work.

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Promoting economic growth

Quite a lot to chew on from a speech by Jose Fernandez, the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs.  The issue is how the Obama administration views the U.S. role in promoting economic growth.

To be clear, this is not simply a blind faith in the power of the free markets. Instead, this focus is really about identifying every convergence point where commercial and public interests meet.

We see this convergence of profit and purpose with several initiatives and concepts we are promoting in the spirit of partnership and cooperation laid out by the President.

• FIRST, our innovative initiative to harness remittances for development needs,

• SECOND; our emphasis on women’s entrepreneurship in Peru, and

• THIRD, I want to speak to the need to promote anti-corruption and transparency measures as a way to boost domestic revenues for development

The emphasis on remittances is ironic, since the Obama administration is deporting more remittance senders than any administration in the history of the United States.

Women's entrepreneurship sounds good, though the idea is essentially to connect small entrepreneurs with Wal-Mart.  Small businesses do need markets, but government-sponsored ties to massive multinational corporations raise all sorts of questions given the virtually total control the MNCs will immediately exert on those small businesses acting as distributors.

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With friends like these...

An African American state senator in South Carolina managed to use every stereotype imaginable, to advocate paying immigrants virtually nothing and thereby making legal businesses go bankrupt, all the while believing he was helping the cause of undocumented immigrants.

He recalled to senators that four workers in the country illegally showed up on his lawn and finished mowing, edging and other work in 30 minutes that would take others much longer, and only wanted $10 for the job. He went on to say he recommended the workers to his neighbors, and one local lawn care businessman lost work - a story one senator remarked was hurting, not helping, his case.

...

Black guys and white guys are going to get out there and do the hard work? No. I'm for America, and America's a country of immigrants," Ford said later when reached on his cell phone. "Everybody in America finds ways to take a break."

Everyone is lazy, so let's ignore the minimum wage.  He then said he would apologize, but he doesn't know what for.

This is the sort of thing that distorts the immigration debate.  It isn't about "lazy" versus "hard working."  Are there jobs so physically demanding and/or seasonal that many people don't want them?  Absolutely, but that is not related to laziness.*  What the U.S. needs is an immigration policy that encourages hard working people to come legally, which will raise the wages of those physically demanding and lower wage jobs (including lawn care) thus making them more attractive.  That in turn will help both businesses and workers.  The "us versus them" mentality just makes everything worse.

* On this point, once again I recommend Gabriel Thompson's Working in the Shadows, which I reviewed last August.

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Andean trade preferences

In a speech to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, John McCain said that the Andean Trade Preference Act will not be  renewed by Congress.

The need to ratify our FTA with Colombia will become even more dire in a few days, as it appears all but certain that Congress will fail to reauthorize the Andean Trade Preference Act, which expires on Saturday. This legislation gives Colombia, along with other Andean nations, privileged access to U.S. markets. It has done wonders for Colombian workers and American consumers alike, and as a result, these trade preferences have been renewed by every Congress for the past 20 years, regardless of which party was in power. If these trade preferences expire this weekend, with no FTA in place, it will be a double slap in the face for Colombia.

I was not aware of that, and it turns out there is a bizarre story behind it that can be summed up as follows: Republicans say are blocking trade because they support trade.  From The Hill:

Republicans had planned a vote to extend the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA), which lowers duties on imports from Andean countries, and the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which helps U.S. workers hurt by overseas competition. The TAA program is widely supported by Democrats, and some Republicans were known to be pressing for a White House commitment to move ahead with the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements (FTAs) before allowing a vote on TAA.

So the Andean Trade Preference Act, which everyone supports, will be held hostage for an FTA.  But it gets even more interesting, as voting for trade preferences have also recently been held up because of sleeping bags in Alabama.  You couldn't make that up if you tried.

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Immigration reform

More and more stories about how Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are still working to pass immigration reform, though it is in the "infant stage."  The basic idea, which should be obvious to everyone, is to cobble together all the disparate groups who support it even if they don't necessarily agree on anything else at all.  There isn't much chance of reform happening this year, but if restrictionists are up in arms and refer to bipartisan dialogue as "scheming," then it suggests at least some belief that it could have legs.

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Reagan and Panama

As the Ronald Reagan 100th birthday commemorations really get going, the Charlotte Observer notes the importance of North Carolina to his presidential aspirations, and reminds us how Latin America was the main connection.  What is perhaps most remarkable to remember is that Reagan successfully generated outrage at something that was irrelevant.

He had failed in his early primary challenges against President Gerald Ford. But when he got to North Carolina, his campaign was taken over by Republican Sen. Jesse Helms and his sidekick, Raleigh attorney Tom Ellis. They made the Panama Canal the signature issue, as Reagan pulled off a historic upset, breathing new life into his presidential effort.

"We bought it, we paid for it, it's ours and we're going to keep it," Reagan said of the canal.

The transfer of the Panama Canal was ultimately smooth, untraumatic, and perfectly compatible with U.S. national security to boot.  Even Henry Kissinger supported it, yet Reagan and Helms managed to get people riled up all the same.  Happy 100th!

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Latin America-Arab Summit blues

Last month I mentioned the Latin America-Arab Summit, which is coming right up.  At that point, the big issue was the string of governments recognizing the Palestinian state.  What a difference a month makes.  Now everyone is focused on Egypt, and as result the summit may be postponed.  It does not take too much reading between the lines to figure out why.  From Peruvian President Alan García:

"We understand that there is a severe problem of instability in the zone and some (leaders) are wary of leaving the area," Garcia said.

Put another way, authoritarian Middle Eastern leaders do not want to leave their countries and then suddenly find themselves ousted and not allowed back (or allowed back under arrest).

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Homecoming 5K

This morning was time once again for the UNC Charlotte Homecoming 5K, which circles around campus and is my favorite race of the year.  Since we will have a football program beginning in 2013, I am guessing the university will move Homecoming (and thus this race as well) to the fall.  That will be much nicer, because although I enjoy the run (despite pushing my constantly growing daughters in the jogger stroller) it is less pleasant when 38 degrees and rainy.

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China message

From the Financial Times blog: these days the U.S. government has to try and convince people its economic influence is still greater than China's.  And, apparently, we make that argument essentially by saying that with Wal-Mart we can be just as cheap and anti-labor as China.

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Egypt and Latin America

Silvia Viña at Global Voices Online links to a number of blog posts, including mine, that compare the situation in Egypt with Latin America.  Some, like Boz, ask whether a similar situation could occur in Latin America now.  I see that as unlikely in large part because it already happened.  The past riots in Caracas and the protests in Bolivia and Ecuador, among others, uprooted deeply entrenched and corrupt regimes and installed very different ones that currently enjoy more popular support.  Later in Venezuela, the opposition tried to launch such a movement itself, failed, and then gave up the mass protest strategy.  I think the main current comparison to be made is with Cuba, where like in Egypt you have a long-standing personalistic dictatorship.  However, Cuba is even more repressive than Egypt, so the massive movement of people simply wouldn't be allowed, and it is hard to imagine security forces simply standing around.

So at least in my opinion the historical analogies--while imperfect--are best equipped to shed some light on the different possible directions Egypt might go.  If there is a contagion effect of some sort, I am not sure where we would likely see it.

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Piñera and Bachelet

Sebastián Piñera's approval rating dropped to 41% in January 2011.  Curiously, right about this same time in her presidency Michelle Bachelet started facing a similar crisis of confidence.  In January 2007 she fell to 47%, and then fell into a slide that brought down to 35% in September.  Of course, we need to remember that she ended her presidency at 83%.

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Hegemony and omnipotence

Media commentary on Egypt is echoing past arguments about Somoza's Nicaragua, Batista's Cuba, and the Shah's Iran (among others).  All of them confuse U.S. hegemony with omnipotence, and fail to comprehend the consequences of their policy prescriptions.  I thought of this as I happened to see Cal Thomas' opinion piece as I read today's Charlotte Observer.

The argument, made most prominently in the past by Jeane Kirkpatrick (which is why I have students in my U.S.-Latin American Relations class read her), goes along the following lines:

First, procedural democracy (or Dahl's basic idea of polyarchy) is not possible in these countries.

Second, the United States has the power to keep these authoritarian governments in power.

Third, it is necessary to keep those pro-U.S. authoritarian governments in power, because if they fall, an anti-U.S. totalitarian dictatorship will take its place.

Fourth, as a result the United States should support the authoritarian government's efforts to repress dissent as much as possible.

Fifth, if the U.S. does so, then the status quo will be maintained and the protests will disappear.

This is a vision where the U.S. controls all events, and mass protests are simple manipulations that do not reflect true popular opinion.  As such, they can be crushed without consequence, and neither U.S. national security nor the positive image of the U.S. will suffer.

It is, in short, a mirage.

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More on 287(g)

The Migration Policy Institute just published an extensive study on the 287(g) program.  It has a number of findings, but a key one is that contrary to the government's stated aims, the program does not target criminal offenders, and tends to be oriented toward tossing people in jail.  Obviously, a major concern about 287(g) is that it would give law enforcement carte blanche to stop anyone anywhere for any reason based on a presumption of being in the United States illegally, thus fostering an environment of fear and mistrust of law enforcement.

Overall, the conclusion is that the program can be implemented in a way that targets criminal offenders and builds  bridges to the Latino community.  At present, however, there is too little attention being paid a) to the different ways 287(g) is implemented; and b) the specific pros and cons of all those different ways.

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