Latin America

Today in Washington, Argentine vice president Amado Boudou will be addressing a Council of the Americas conference on the global economic recovery. I have no idea what Boudou will say in his remarks, and I have no idea how the attendees will receive it. But I do know this: Having a senior member of the Kirchner government speak about responsible economic policy is like having a senior member of the Iranian government speak about religious tolerance.

Ahead of the president’s trip to the Summit of the Americas this weekend, Gallup reports that Latin America is losing faith in President Obama. Specifically, the Gallup shows that only 24 percent of respondents in Latin American countries now believe Obama will strengthen ties between Latin America and the U.S.—in 2009, by contrast, that number was 43 percent.

In April 2009, four months after taking office, President Obama wooed Latin American leaders and liberal elites at the Summit of the Americas by apologizing for decades of U.S. foreign policy and promising a new era of cooperation. Obama said:

Like Hugo Chávez, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa has used vast oil wealth to boost his personal popularity and camouflage the effects of his disastrous economic policies while steadily weakening his country’s democratic institutions.

However poor his health condition, Hugo Chávez must have enjoyed a certain measure of satisfaction earlier this month when leaders from across the Western hemisphere gathered in Caracas for the first meeting of the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a hemispheric forum that explicitly does not include the United States or Canada.

In her remarks to the 41st Washington Conference on the Americas this past May, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Western Hemisphere “vital” to U.S. interests, adding that Latin America and the United States “will rise or fall together in the 21st century.” Unfortunately, the Obama administration has yet to champion a regional initiative that matches Secretary Clinton’s lofty rhetoric.

When Honduran leader Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo visits the White House today, it will be a watershed moment in the Central American country’s diplomatic rehabilitation.

Back in May, Ecuadorean voters approved a referendum that gave President Rafael Correa broader authority to regulate opposition journalists. At the time, Freedom House expressed concern that Correa was acquiring “undue influence over the country’s media,” and its senior program manager for Latin America, Viviana Giacaman, said that “Correa’s continuous demonization of independent media and the use of criminal defamation suits to silence journalists are having a chilling effect on the press in Ecuador.”

Last week, former army officer Ollanta Humala was inaugurated as president of Peru, and he vowed to maintain the successful economic policies adopted by his predecessor, Alan García. The significance of that vow should not be understated.

As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have said, the relationship between Argentina and Iran just keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser.”

By endorsing the judicial and media “reforms” in this month’s constitutional referendum, Ecuador has moved a step closer to Venezuelan-style autocracy. President Rafael Correa, a Hugo Chávez disciple who has attacked opposition journalists, harassed private companies, and weakened democracy, will now have greater powers to regulate media content and punish reporters, judges, magistrates, and businessmen who disagree with his radical agenda. This represents a huge setback for those Ecuadoreans struggling to preserve the basic civil liberties that Americans take for granted.

The elections in Peru, which were held on April 10, are a stern lesson in Latin American politics and its complexities. Consider the following: Peru’s conservative president since 2006, Alán García, has been wildly successful at growing his country economically, especially during a time of a worldwide economic downturn. But in Latin America, that’s apparently not enough for electoral success.