Editorial: A Trip with No Results

Barack Obama’s trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador depicts the distance between disgrace and glory. In spite of months of preparation and the expectations that were raised by the visit from the chief of the White House, and after more than two years in office — not counting short trips to Trinidad and Tobago and Mexico — the truth is that Obama’s time in the capitals of the countries he visited generated very little interest.

Without doubt, the visit was motivated by the world situation. The allied forces’ offensive attack against Libya, under the direction of the United Nations, was beginning; the world’s eyes and the media were focused on the Mediterranean, and the tsunami which caused the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan on March 11.

Despite these circumstances, Obama had much to do with what happened. At each stop that he made, despite being charming and generous with his words, the content of his speeches did not meet the expectations of people in Latin America. For example, Brazil was expecting an explicit promise from Washington that they would have a seat on the U.N. Security Council. Unfortunately, Obama was vague on this subject.

In Santiago, which had great expectations of the president, the style of the talks took precedence over their content. Obama’s speeches were beautiful examples of public speaking but not much more. A strategic alliance with Latin America was repeatedly mentioned, but it sounded like platitudes. The fact that the president acknowledged that he was not the first person to promise something like that gives his statement that “words are easy” a bit of irony.

In his eagerness to sound friendly, Obama concentrated on the region’s good points, and did this in a way that made Latin America sound like it was a democracy with an economy that is growing and countries that are working together to confront diverse challenges. Using this logic, the contribution of this zone to world prosperity and peace is crucial.

All of it sounds marvelous and is partially true. Without a doubt, the period of dictatorships is over; at the same time, the region’s gross national product has increased and the conflict between several countries has decreased. But Obama’s description should not be ignored. There are dictatorial trends in Venezuela and Nicaragua that do not bode well with the increase in price of raw materials or the persistent conflicts between Bolivia and Chile.

As if the above were not important, there exists the sensation that there is a disconnect between the speech and reality. To cite one case, during his trip to Chile, Obama mentioned Colombia’s improvement in its level of security several times. The problem is that, in contrast with his statement “my administration has intensified our efforts to move forward on trade agreements …” reality is another thing. With his campaign just around the corner and the fear that he will upset the unions that constitute the base of the Democratic Party, in spite of votes that favor it, the White House has refused to send the treaty to Congress so that it can be ratified.

The similarity between what he says and what he does has to do with the relationships that Washington has lost in Latin America. In Chile, the grand proposals of the United States’ president motivated 100,000 students to use social networks to generate competition and an exchange of ideas with the North. These plans are laudable, but probably do not justify a trip that generated so many expectations and that, apart from nice photos, had poor results.