New Agenda with the United States

Today’s visit — which begins a high-level delegation, headed by James Steinberg, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State and second-in-command to Hillary Clinton — is an excellent opportunity to relaunch the new foreign political agenda that President Juan Miguel Santos has drafted and that Chancellor María Ángela Holguín is successfully implementing.

Topics such as human rights, energy, science and technology move to an important position — along with the already familiar ones of trade, drug trafficking and security —in “high-level negotiations.”

Since the period when the countries of the region were “pawns in the Cold War,” as ex-President López Michelsen defined them, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Hence, Santos’ propositions to maintain a mature and serious relationship with the United States — in which common elements are strengthened while respecting eventual differences — are more than welcome. Compare this attitude with the eight years of Álvaro Uribe, in which the position facing the northern country was, to say the least, deplorable. And it’s because of this that the meetings to take place in San Carlos will be marked by new parameters established at the right time by the national government.

The current head of state has made a positive turnaround, and his decision not to present the controversial law about the presence of American troops on Colombian military bases to Congress again is not gratuitous. This is a step in the right direction that should be congratulated [and] which does not entail dispensing with the important intelligence support and consultation that the United States could provide in the fight against insurgency or drug trafficking.

From this point stems the bilateral relationship’s change of direction, since the emphasis of the meeting will be centered around three work groups: human rights, democracy and sound government; energy; and science and technology. This way the American officials — the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela, the Assistant Secretary of the Energy Bureau and the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, among others — will have the opportunity to deeply discuss these things along with Chancellor Holguín; Vice President Angelino Garzón, who chairs the Colombian High Level Human Rights Work Group; and the Ministers of the Interior and of Justice, Defense, Mining and Energy, Trade and Agriculture. That’s the way to do it.

Nevertheless, we can’t forget that right now the Obama administration is trying to resolve the complex internal and external problems afflicting it, including those that it’s stuck with as a legacy from the Bush administration. For known reasons, its priorities right now focus on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and not necessarily on Latin America. Internally, in a few days there will be elections to renew part of Congress. Everything indicates that the governing party, the Democrats, will pay the price for the economic situation. This way the Republican recapture of the House of Representatives, and a similar situation in the Senate, could put additional pressure on the State Department and its relationship with certain countries, like Venezuela, which could also have some type of similar repercussions in Colombia. This is something that remains to be seen.

Right now, the important thing is to know that a new relationship between the United States and Colombia is beginning, after the submission of the old government and its excessive emphasis on matters of security. A new agenda, based on the important topics mentioned previously, will allow the bond between the two countries to strengthen even more. This is how it has been expressed by the Santos administration, and everything seems to indicate that Washington shares that understanding.