President Obama’s Trip to El Salvador: Its Importance and Meaning

The news has gotten around: At the end of March, President Obama will visit El Salvador. This fact deserves some commentary and reflection.

The announcement of the visit to El Salvador was made during a very well-known political event: the annual presidential report from President Obama to both houses of the United States Congress. That lends an importance to the visit that deserves to be examined.

When I heard Obama’s speech live — which lasted more than an hour — I concluded that this speech, a masterpiece of political oratory, was nothing less than a launch by Obama back into the battle to retain the presidency after 2012.

Obama spoke of the greatness and the exceptional nature of the United States and of its possible future. The U.S., he said, has the largest economy on the planet, bigger than that of China, Japan, Germany and France combined.

The occasion was very formal. There were more than five minutes of prolonged applause between the announcement of the president’s arrival and when he began to speak at the podium.

The speech contained impressive sentences about the economy, immigration, homosexuals in the army, necessary innovations, challenges in education, infrastructure needs, health systems that don’t exploit patients, bureaucratic redundancies, the importance of family, fights for democracy in Tunisia and the ethical commitment to always being on the side of defending the interests of the people.

It is in that context that Obama, near the end of his speech, announced that, in order to forge new alliances for progress in the Americas, he would soon be traveling to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador.

He also commented that he would work with those who help ensure that farmers produce more food and that doctors care for more sick people and, chiefly, with those who combat the corruption that rots societies and takes opportunities from people.

The El Salvador government must be very satisfied. This is doubtless an achievement of current foreign policy.

It’s promising that Obama and his diplomatic analysts have chosen these three countries as emblematic and in some way representative of the region. The three countries have a past of cruel and torturous dictatorships that counted on the support of previous U.S. governments: Pinochet in Chile, the military dictatorship of Brazil and the long dictatorship of El Salvador, which led to a civil war. And the three countries have traveled a magnificent and heroic path to building democracies that are hopefully stable, long-lasting and ever more profound.

Obama, then, can rectify errors of foreign policy and undertake alliances of a new type. Let’s hope it turns out that way.

The presidents of El Salvador have had particular styles of praising U.S. power. Duarte kissed the American flag while he was president of El Salvador. Flores said his greatest pride was that George W. Bush had called him a friend (as if there were friends in politics).

President Funes said in his inaugural speech that one of his political models was Barack Obama. Without a doubt, the most successful style was that of President Funes, seeing as Obama, with the visit to El Salvador and other countries, has announced a turning point in the history of relations between the Americas.

It’s important to reflect on the parameters that Obama set in his speech: his government wants partners who take responsibility in the areas of health, food safety and combating corruption.

It’s easy to see that Obama and his advisers have come to the conclusion that the current El Salvador government has done something toward ensuring that farmers produce food, that the health system cares for the sick and that corruption as a systematic practice of government leaders is eliminated. And this is good news.

But it’s also logical to conclude that, if something should come of Obama’s visit, it’s a solid strategic commitment to progress as regards health for all, food safety for the large majority and the eradication of corruption in public service and business activity. And that is possible and necessary.