Obama’s Ambassador

Last Friday, the White House announced the nominations for three new diplomatic representatives in the Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire), Yemen, and Colombia. The U.S. Senate still needs to ratify the nominees, but the new American ambassador to Colombia will tentatively be Peter Michael McKinley. Born in Venezuela, raised in Brazil and Mexico, educated at Oxford — where he defended his thesis on Latin American colonial history — and a diplomat in nature, McKinley is leaving his post as the Washington delegate in Peru.

His designation opens up many opportunities. McKinley is the first diplomatic head of government to be sent to our country during Barack Obama’s administration. During his time in Lima, the United States approved and implemented the Free Trade Agreement with this nation and has signed a treaty of military cooperation. These are two of the most critical topics in the current Colombian-American agenda, where the balance for Bogota has not been the favorable one.

It is true that just the designation of a particular diplomat doesn’t constitute the entire foreign affairs policy toward Colombia. However, it does represent an excellent opportunity to strengthen bilateral dialogue and introduce new topics for discussion. McKinley is arriving in Bogota at a time when the Latin American countries are complaining about the lack of interest Washington has displayed toward region since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Worse, the condition of the neighboring alliance, which was forged during the governments of Andrés Pastrana and Álvaro Uribe, is today seen as a disadvantage in the middle of a hostile regional environment. All of this is without counting the previous total reduction in U.S. aid for Plan Colombia.

However, free trade, military and geopolitical treaties are not the only difficult points on the agenda. The judicial cooperation between Colombia and Washington in relation to justice and peace is a highly topical issue that McKinley will receive. The outgoing ambassador, William Brownfield has recently suggested that both countries should merge their judicial systems, so that the errors in the drug trafficking processes and the damages to humanity could simultaneously contribute to justice, to truth and to repairing the damages caused to victims.

Finally, it is not a coincidence that this nomination has happened a couple of months prior to a presidential change in Bogota. With a new ambassador in Bogota, the next government will have a greater margin to maneuver and reinforce its interests, emphasize important matters, and negotiate new areas of diplomatic cooperation.