“Fixing” US-Latin American relations

The Menges Hemispheric Project is always monitoring the latest legislative events regarding Latin America.  Nancy Menges, Editor in Chief, has already testified in Congress and the Project is sometimes asked to name experts for the panels or testify through staff members.  The current discourse is quite vibrant.  

On June 19th the House Foreign Affairs Committee debated how to "fix the broken relationship with Latin America". We decided to give our readers excerpts of the introductory remarks of Rep. Lantos (D-CA) and the response of Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN).  These show that our topics shape the discourse and deliver early insider views.  

The typical party affiliations are an inextricable part of the average debate but the topics, as highlighted by representatives from both sides of the aisle, have picked up on the growing concerns about increased anti-Semitism in the region as well as Ethanol, Free trade and Chavez; the Democrat chairman Lantos and the Republican Dan Burton highlight the topics which have been brought up by our writers.

Federal News Service:

June 19, 2007 Tuesday

HEARING OF THE HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE; SOUTH AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES: HOW TO FIX A BROKEN RELATIONSHIP; CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE TOM LANTOS (D-CA); WI .

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Congressman Tom Lantos, Chairman

South America and the United States: How to Fix a Broken Relationship

Opening Remarks of Chairman Lantos at hearing.

Hugo Chávez’s anti-Americanism could not have come at a worse time for our relationship with our neighbors to the south. Chavez jets off to visit the most reprehensible despots in the world – in North Korea, in Iran, in Cuba – probably just because they have been identified by the United States as rogue regimes. He signs arms deals with these and other countries in a quest to militarize Venezuela to the teeth for no discernable purpose. And he makes friends with despicable perpetrators of violence: Ahmadinejad in Iran, Nasrallah of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad of Syria, and the late Holocaust denier Norberto Ceresole of Argentina. I am deeply disturbed that anti-Semitism is on the rise under Chavez, accompanied by support for Islamic terrorist groups.

With his own people, Chávez angles toward his own brand of authoritarianism. Chaotic, retributive land seizures in Venezuela have led to violence, injustice, and crop shortages. Recently, Chavez crossed yet another dangerous line: curtailing freedom of the press. He closed the independent television station RCTV in a bid to consolidate power and squelch opposition. An international backlash and ongoing student protests seem only to have emboldened him. No sooner did he shut down RCTV than he threatened to do the same with Globovisión, the last remaining TV channel he does not yet control.

Confounding the problem is the gutless response of the Organization of American States, which held its General Assembly days after the closing of RCTV and could not muster the courage to express even a word of concern. Adding salt to this ulcerating sore, OAS Secretary General Insulza just days later practically ripped up and tossed away the hemisphere’s main pro-democracy instrument, the Inter-American Democratic Charter, saying he doesn’t believe it should be used to pressure OAS member states. This whole episode is a stark reminder that the United States can no longer even mobilize the regional body established to address this sort of outrageous maneuver by Chavez.

The sapping of U.S. influence in this region has had wide-ranging ripple effects.   In Chavez’s shadow and with his oil money, the democracies in Ecuador and Bolivia are becoming increasingly undemocratic. Both countries have recently turned on their own media, and both are in the process of altering their constitutions. In Paraguay, we hear similar echoes.

Argentina is in many ways living in its past and grapples daily with the shadow of its 2001 economic collapse.   President Kirchner’s government has presided over a significant turnaround – with more than eight percent annual growth over the past three years – but he seems to listen to Mr. Chavez’s advice with alarming regularity.

There are governments in the region that are strongly democratic. These countries ought to step into the vacuum and re-claim regional leadership from Chavez.   Brazil and Chile, with two strong and visionary leaders, are the standouts.   Peru and Uruguay also hold considerable promise.  

Colombia is on the list of standouts as well, and President Uribe has made significant strides in providing security for his people.   But his troubles at home are significant, with corruption and the drug trade all too powerful. He has more than enough problems to keep him busy without saddling him with the heavy lifting in the region that used to be the role of the United States.

All of these countries show that responsible governments can and should boost economic growth and reduce inequality without enacting authoritarian policies. Our ability to shepherd them into the power void will go a long way toward reestablishing our positive influence in South America.

We have ignored South America as a partner for far too long. We have allowed Chavez to define us to our neighbors. That must stop before we reach a point of no return, a South America where most national leaders resort to the political expedients of coercion and authoritarianism.   We share central values with the rest of the region: democracy, open markets, and free speech.

REP. DAN BURTON (R-IN) :

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Regarding our influence in Central America and South America and trying to change governments, I’d just like to remind the panelists that Fidel Castro tried to cause revolution throughout Central and South America, and he was successful somewhat. He sent Che Guevara down there, and Che Guevara unfortunately got killed or fortunately got killed depending on how you look at it. And right now we have Hugo Chavez who’s a blood brother of Fidel Castro, and he has used millions and millions of dollars to influence the elections in Bolivia and Nicaragua and elsewhere.

And I don’t hear a great deal of mention about that. It’s always the United States and how the United States is interfering. We have a vested interest in democracy and freedom in our hemisphere, and I don’t see anything wrong with the United States being concerned about who is put on the U.N. Security Council that may be an impediment to freedom and democracy in this hemisphere. Venezuela obviously would be an impediment. Chavez wants to do everything he can to drive us nuts, and he to some degree has been successful. And he continues to keep his country in an uproar by going on television every other week or every week and saying that we’re going to invade and we’re going to try to kill him.

So he’s not a dumb politician. He’s pretty smart. And one of the things that I have a concern about regarding Iran being involved in South America and Central America is they are in the process of developing a nuclear capability. Chavez is right now buying weapons systems, submarines, airplanes, guns, everything else he can get his hands on with the money he’s getting from us and elsewhere. And if Iran is able to develop a nuclear capability, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Chavez would try to get some kind of a nuclear capability in his country to further influence the United States and our activities in Central and South America .

And that’s one of the reasons why I think it’s extremely important that we do pay attention to Iran’s involvement with Chavez, because Chavez now has a history of trying to build up a real military capability, and he’s in the process of doing it right now. Iran is developing a nuclear capability, and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to stop them unless we take very strong action because many of our European counterparts aren’t being cooperative in trying to put economic and diplomatic pressure on them.

Regarding our energy problem, we do get quite a bit of our oil from Mexico, Venezuela, and elsewhere in Central, South America . As a matter of fact, my information is we get almost half of our oil and gas from South America . And it’s extremely important that we recognize that fact. And that’s another reason why I really believe my colleagues ought to take a hard look at energy independence. We’ve been talking about that since Jimmy Carter when we had those long gas lines. Now we have gasoline — $3 plus per gallon and going up, and we know we can get between $1 and $2 million barrels of oil a day out of the Anwar, and we’re not doing anything about it.

We know that we could drill offshore around the southern coast of the United States and get oil. As a matter of fact, Cuba has cut a deal with China, and China’s going to be drilling within 45, 50 miles of Cuba, or 40 miles inside that agreed to zone, and there’s no doubt in my mind they’ll be drilling into some reserves that probably are in United States waters, and they’ll be getting those away from us. So I think we ought to take a hard look at — and we’ve got an estimated 500 year supply of natural gas, so I just say to my colleagues I think we ought to start looking at energy independence so we don’t have to deal with these problems down the road.

And finally, these free trade agreements — I want to just say to my colleagues or my friends on the dais there, or at the witness table — we really need to fulfill our obligations on the free trade agreements. Poverty is one of the biggest problems that Latin America has, and that’s why these radical leftists down there have been successful and will be successful. We’ve got to create an environment where people can get jobs, and the best way to do that is to extend these trade preferences and to have more free trade agreements, not less.

The Chile free trade agreement, for instance – we’ve seen trade between us and Chile increase by 154 percent since that agreement went into place. Our exports to Chile have gone up by $4 billion in three years. Their exports to the United States has gone up by $6 billion, and that means jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs fight poverty, and when you fight poverty you fight the radicals. And that’s why it’s extremely important that my colleagues on the other side of the isle pay attention to these free trade agreements and these trade preferences, because if they kill them they’re playing right into the hands of the leftist-like Chavez down there.