In September 2013, the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies conducted a Hemispheric Forum on US foreign policy in Latin America. The forum, one of a series of conferences that bring distinguished scholars together to discuss matters of urgency in the Hemisphere, addressed the dilemma faced by US policy makers in the current political environment in Latin America and the Caribbean. Panelists remarked on the political relations between the United States and Latin American nations, relations that have grown distant and contentious in the last decade. A summary of the discussion is provided for readers.
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This article examines the foreign policy of Latin America and the Caribbean toward the People's Republic of China. It finds that, for those nations recognizing Taiwan, most Latin American nations have had relatively few political differences with the PRC. Exceptions include Brazil's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council and Mexico's receipt of the Dali Lama under the sexenio of Felipe Calderón. Within the region, the most important differences have emerged on issues of foreign economic policy. The article finds that Latin America's heterogeneous orientation toward China on economic issues may be understood in terms of four cross-cutting cleavages, which reflect economic, political, and geographic divisions in the region more broadly: (1) north versus south, (2) populist regimes versus market economies, (3) pure resource exporters versus industrialized exporters versus nonexporting capital recipients versus pure importers , and (4) Pacific versus Atlantic.
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Brazil's economic performance, political stability, and search for greatness ensure that Brazil will play a strong role on many global issues and will strengthen regional economic cooperation. US-Brazil relations have evolved from an alliance during and after World War II into a wary but crucial engagement today. The April 2012 meeting of Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Barack Obama deepened cooperation on common interests. Brazil's foreign policy is set by economic factors more often than ideology, and Brazil wants to advance its core interests. The US seeks to encourage Brazil's rise. Nevertheless, differences between the US and Brazil on trade and other issues will not be overcome easily. This paper examines how the shifting balance of power in the world has expanded Brazil's spheres of action while outdated concepts like formal trading blocs prevent Brazil from achieving the narrower goals it set for itself.
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This paper provides a comparative analysis of China's emerging role in international relations and its ties to the United States and Latin America, and China's future impact on the Western Hemisphere. The author discusses the challenges and opportunities inherent to the current China-US relations, such as currency, military, intellectual property, cyber security, and human rights tensions, and the impact those factors will have on the relationship in the future. China's pursuit of closer ties with the countries of Latin America, long seen as within the US sphere of influence, represents a major challenge for the US-China relationship.
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This article examines the often contentious role that human rights promotion has played in US foreign policy in Latin America. As a longtime interloper from the North, the United States has employed many different strategies, often resulting in the election to participate in foreign countries' domestic conflicts in aid to one side or another. With regard to human rights, the fact of the matter is that the United States has failed to adopt as many human rights treaties as many other South or Central American nations have. In a globalized world more closely linked than ever before, nations are adopting human rights practices that promise to prevent injustices from occurring as they did in the past, a welcome break from the violent past in Latin America. For myriad reasons, including domestic pressures and belief in "American Exceptionalism," the United States has dodged full participation in many international legal and human rights documents, but this practice has already started to harm international cooperation with and perception of US goals abroad. The author concludes his analysis by suggesting that the United States reconsider its earlier defiance against making human rights a fully fledged tenet of its foreign policy in favor of a new, more cooperative stance.
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