US Hegemony in Latin America
Published on Thursday, April 26, 2012 by Common Dreams
US Hegemony in Latin America
by Renee Parsons
While the 'misconduct' of Secret Service agents with prostitutes in Colombia is a significant, if titillating scandal, most media reports have missed the tectonic political shift that surfaced at the recent Summit of the Americas meeting.
The Summit, an offshoot of the Organization of American States organized in 1948, consists of 35 western hemisphere nations that meet on a tri-annual basis with the U.S. historically setting the agenda since the summit's inception in 1994.
The president arrived, smooth and impeccable, with, no doubt, the expectation of encouraging new investment and trade initiatives at the first business seminar conducted since the Summits began. Attending were over three hundred U.S. business executives with Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue in attendance to push for a free trade deal with Brazil. Once China began out-hustling the U.S. for its share of the global pie in Latin America and as the U.S. bogged down in a decade of war with an enduring economic catastrophe on its hands, Summit countries took the opportunity to readjust their vision of Uncle Sam's once omnipotent authority. That readjusted vision has offered a measure of independence from U.S. trade markets as well as U.S. domination on policy decisions. While not known for its historical memory, the U.S. does not usually react kindly to previously compliant nations flexing their sovereign muscles, U.S. AID to Latin American and the Caribbean at $1.3 billion in 2010 will most likely provide the necessary tether for continued cooperation.
Out of left field, the president's usual razzle dazzle charm offensive so successful at his first summit in 2009 ran into a brick wall amid deep contentious divisions that had been brewing since the previous summit. In what may be karmic payback for one hundred and fifty years of U.S. policy imposed on Latin America, 32 nations supported a resolution that Cuba be allowed to attend the 2015 summit with only the U.S. and the reliable Canadians voting against. Cuba had been expelled from the OAS in 1962 with the beginning of 50 years of economic sanctions and was readmitted in 2009 but not invited to the summit.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/26-5