Changing of the Guard in Washington

The United States, whose leadership in Latin America has been in limbo for months, received a small boost last week in terms of its diplomacy with the region when President Barack Obama appointed Roberta S. Jacobson as chief of Latin American affairs in the State Department.

But the appointment on its own will not be enough to reverse the gradual loss of U.S. influence in the region.

It is true that Jacobson, a career diplomat, has a good reputation in the small world of Washington bureaucrats and academics that follow Latin American affairs closely. In contrast to her predecessor, Arturo Valenzuela, an academic whose 2009 nomination was blocked in the Senate for months by conservative Republicans, it is highly probable that the Senate will confirm Jacobson quickly.

The chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican and one of the strongest congressional voices criticizing attempts by Obama to build bridges with Venezuela, Cuba and other anti-American governments, told me last week that Jacobson has “great knowledge and practical experience in Latin America.”

Jacobson’s appointment would put an end to five months during which the post was vacant after the resignation of Valenzuela.

Before her current position as interim head of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department, Jacobson occupied among other positions that of director of Mexican affairs, and was the number two at the U.S. embassy in Peru.

A well-situated Republican source in Congress told me that Jacobson “is a very competent career diplomat, but cannot be expected to present large initiatives or make big changes. She will be an efficient technocrat.” Ideologically, “she is right in the middle,” between Democrats and Republicans. Another legislative source, from the Democratic side, agreed that Jacobson will be “a good administrator of programs.”

Among the most urgent issues that Jacobson will have to address, if her appointment is confirmed, are the delayed U.S. ratification of the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, the escalating violence in Mexico and the upcoming Summit of the Americas in April 2012.

In a wider sense, she will have to try to improve links with the region at a time when China has largely eclipsed the influence of the United States in the commodity-exporting countries of South America.

According to a recent United Nations report, the percentage of total Latin American imports that come from the United States has fallen from 55 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2009, while the percentage of Latin American exports to the United States fell from 61 percent to 42 percent during the same period. And investments from the United States also represent a smaller percentage of total investment in the region than they did 10 years ago.

My opinion: A rapid confirmation of Jacobson by the Senate will help improve the effectiveness of the U.S. diplomatic machine in Latin America, but it will be no substitute for the lack of a strategic plan to establish long term links with the region.

I agree with Obama that the United States should become an “equal partner” with Latin America, as the president told me during a recent interview.

Obama has done some good things in the region, such as launching a program that will increase the number of U.S. students who go to Latin America by 100,000, and vice versa.

But the fact is that while previous U.S. administrations launched ambitious plans like the Alliance for Progress and the Free Trade Area of the Americas initiative, Obama has not proposed any important regional initiative. What is worse, there are no serious advocates for Latin America in his cabinet; they would be a key factor in focusing the White House’s attention on the region.

New Initiative

Now that Obama is planning his campaign for a second term, he should begin to think about a new hemispheric trade initiative to create value chains that allow U.S. companies to buy more components made in Latin America, increase its exports to the rest of the world and compete with Asia. This would help the United States as much as it helps Latin America.

The United States is already a more attractive trading partner than China in the region; it buys mainly manufactured products from Latin America, while China buys almost nothing but raw materials, which produces little profit for the region.

Washington should widen this advantage to the benefit of both sides. By the same token, Obama should initiate many more academic, scientific and technological exchanges.

It is time that Obama started thinking in much more ambitious terms about Latin America, if he does not want the United States to keep losing ground in the region.