Latin America: Obama’s Trip

Barack Obama’s visit to Chile, Brazil and El Salvador next week should not raise expectations of huge results. The United States has had little impact on the good things that are happening there: the explosion of the middle class and the marginalization of the extreme left. The downside, the violence of the war on drugs has to do with a U.S. policy that will take years to change.

Latin America and the Caribbean have a long way to go: Only Chile and Barbados are among the fifty most competitive economies. Its universities produce six social scientists for every two engineers. And the flood of money that can be seen in these countries is due in part to China’s demand for their commodities. But there has been a significant leap forward through investment and trade. Poverty has fallen to a third, 30 million Brazilians have swelled the ranks of the middle class in eight years, and Peru, Colombia and Panama are experiencing a bonanza, while Chile is back in form after last year’s earthquake.

The last time the U.S. planted a vision in the region, it was with the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Once this proposal failed, Washington lost interest. In a sense, the economic boom has taken place despite some U.S. policies: Six Brazilian export products have protectionist barriers in this market, and the U.S. Congress never ratified the free trade agreement signed by Colombia five years ago. The progress is due mainly to a broad political consensus in favor of market democracies. As stated by the renovated former Salvadorian guerrilla Joaquín Villalobos, “Natural resources, foreign aid, free trade agreements and loans do not have the effect of political maturity.”

One consequence of this consensus has been the waning influence of the left antediluvian, meaning Cuba and Venezuela, supported by Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. One of Obama’s hosts, Mauricio Funes, has frustrated the efforts of his party, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, to align the country with Venezuela, while Uruguayan José Mujica, a former guerrilla, is now a boring Social Democrat. Even Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo, who once held the door of a revolutionary coven, is luring foreign capital.

Hugo Chavez suffers chronic incubated debacles. His main South American ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, is now hated by two-thirds of the country. The Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega is trying to get re-elected despite a constitutional prohibition, but that is partly due to courtesy of the divided opposition.

It can also be said in this case that the shrinkage of the lunatic left is more transcendental than the economic takeoff; it owes little influence to the United States.

The other side of the coin is the public policy nightmare fueled by the war on drugs. American policy here is a factor. In the 90’s, under pressure from Washington, cocaine cultivation jumped from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia. When Colombia adjusted its pins, it jumped back to Peru, where the cultivated areas have increased by 70 percent and production has tripled. The same game of musical chairs has taken place in relation to trade routes. When the U.S. closed the corridor in the Caribbean, Mexico replaced it. After the death of thousands of people in clashes in Mexico, some of the gangs — oh, surprise! — took it to the south. Now Los Zetas and the Sinaloa gangs are wreaking havoc in Guatemala, where the rate of violence is four times that of Mexico, and Honduras, where the rate is even worse.

Although several U.S. states allow medical marijuana and personal consumption is no longer subject of intense persecution in the United States, Washington’s drug policy in Latin America has not changed one iota. The calls of a wide range of Latin American politicians and intellectuals, as well as major institutions, to correct the repressive approach have fallen on deaf ears. Three former presidents, Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Mexico’s Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Colombia César Gaviria have failed after presenting a cleverly written paper on the subject in 2009.

The result is an inferno that takes place in countries where the flow of weapons from the United States has no end (Mexico has seized more than 100,000 automatic weapons that have entered from the other side of the border). The demand for drugs in the United States, meanwhile, has remained stable and prices have fallen because of unstoppable supply.

Obama knows this, but does not have the necessary stomach, right now, for the long struggle that a change in the drug policy would entail. And until it happens, as I heard recently from President Felipe Calderon in Mexico, it is unrealistic to expect any Latin American country to seriously challenge Washington on their own.