Biden Awakens New Hopes

In political speeches, the use of one word over another might at least mean hope for significant change in planned actions and their actual results, even if this is only true when the speaker shows a genuine interest and answers to decisions made public by government officials, usually at a very high level.

Yesterday, during the 43rd Washington Conference on the Americas, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden uttered such words, indicating that the U.S. had shifted focus from asking itself what it could do for Latin America to what it can do with Latin America. The conference is organized annually by the U.S. Department of State and the Council of the Americas; the change could be fundamental and mutually beneficial.

The upcoming weeks will be full of intense American diplomatic activity. The presidents of Chile and Peru will visit Washington; Biden will go to Brazil and Colombia, while acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank will travel to Brazil, Colombia and Panama, in order to commemorate a year of free trade treaties.

Meanwhile, at the same event, Sen. Joe McCain, R-Ariz., expressed that Latin America should impose greater pressure on the U.S. to make changes to its strategy against drugs during the meeting of the Organization of American States in June in Antigua, about whose theme the Guatemalan government has hardly been informed.

As McCain says, Central American countries find themselves at the edge of being overtaken by drug trafficking. This is a position that implies interpreting the reality of the isthmus differently than the U.S. has in recent years. A change in this sense can validly be considered a product of the criterion of changes that Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina proposed for the anti-drug strategy a year ago, a strategy that McCain believes is necessary and urgent.

During the same meeting, there was little doubt that the OAS will need to decide on the political crisis in Venezuela, thereby allowing the Guatemalan government to see why it is not a good idea to adhere to a program like Petrocaribe, fatally infirm for some time as a consequence of the series of post-election crises in Venezuela.

The U.S. cannot forget that in the distant and recent past, it has made pronouncements similar to those made today without really translating them into positive and tangible action for the region. Both Democrats and Republicans appear to have understood this. As is clear, the agenda of topics to be discussed by the U.S. and its interlocutors is broad and important. It is not necessary to mention the immigration law because of its evident importance. We can only hope that the words transform into beneficial realities.