Obama’s First Tour of the Region

The principal result of the President of the United States’ first Latin American tour has, if anything, been the confirmation of the region’s selective importance on the American foreign policy agenda and its re-adjustment within an international system that is in a state of gradual and profound change.

The American president visited Brazil, Chile and El Salvador — countries that have been given strategic preference — after spending more than half a term in office before coming to this part of the American hemisphere. It’s not the first time in history that it has happened, but it does seem to clash with the American leader’s promise of “a new beginning” in U.S. relations with Latin America.

This new push announced by the Democratic administration has suffered several delays and both domestic and foreign obstacles. The coup d’état in Honduras, the limited advances in the easing of travel restrictions to Cuba, the deferral of the appointment of the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, the controversy over the military bases in Colombia and then the defeat of the Democratic Party in the legislative elections thwarted the chances of a drive towards rapprochement between Washington and the region as a whole.

During this tour, Obama endorsed the recognition of the democracies’ achievements and especially the role of Brazil as a regional power on the international stage, despite not lending explicit support to its admission to the Security Council as a permanent member. He also made reference to the struggles for human rights that have marked the political processes of recent decades and to the attempt to attain more egalitarian societies. However, the tour didn’t achieve the level of significance hoped for because the eyes of the American president were on other parts of the world. The military intervention in Libya and the catastrophe in Japan captured his attention and relegated the Latin American situation to the back burner in a presidential tour of no real consequence.

In his first tour of Latin American countries, the American president Barack Obama emphasized the growing importance of the region for the United States, but did not elaborate.