A Latin American Opportunity for the Trump Administration

the AZEL PERSPECTIVE Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 61

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President Donald Trump’s intentions to renegotiate trade deals with Mexico and other countries, to build a border fence across the southern border, and to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants, have made it conventional wisdom that his administration will have an antagonistic and rocky relationship with Latin America.  Yet, an exceptional opportunity now exists for the Trump administration to positively redefine the relationship of the United States with its southern neighbors. For nearly sixty years, the Unites States has unsuccessfully attempted to redefine its politico-economic relationship with Latin America, most famously with President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in 1961, and with President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 address before the Organization of American States to announce his Caribbean Basin Initiative.  Empirically, these policies turned out to be not much more than short-lived public relation successes. The Alliance for Progress in particular, was a sort of failed U.S. response to the Cuban Revolution. Parenthetically, I will reminisce by sharing that an assessment of the Caribbean Basin Initiative was the subject of my 1988 doctoral dissertation on the formulation of U.S. foreign economic policy. Since the early 1960’s, working intellectually against U.S. policy efforts in Latin America, were the disciples of “dependency theory” who blamed United States “imperialism” for all the continent’s ills.  The book Dependency and Development in Latin America, written in 1965 by sociologists Fernando Enrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, became the Left’s theoretical textbook for economic development. The book was required reading in Latin American universities as well as for Latin American programs in American universities.  A wiser Cardoso later served as President of Brazil (1995-2002) and acknowledged that he knew little about economics when he wrote his book. But most importantly, it was the Cuban Revolution and the Robin Hood image of Fidel Castro and his willingness to confront the United States that gave practical context to Latin America’s anti-Yankee posture inspired by Cardoso and Faletto’s dependency theory. Since 1959, Fidel Castro had been not only an inspiration to the Latin American Left, but its de facto continental leader. With Fidel Castro’s death, the Latin American Left has lost its champion.  And, with the abysmal failure of his economic model, the Latin American Left has also lost its strategic direction. There is no one in Latin America today with the charisma and revolutionary credentials to replace Fidel Castro in the mentorship role he played in the continent. Also, the universal failure of centrally planned economic models leaves the region without a viable politico-economic paradigm. The Latin American Left is currently a politico-economic orphan. This confluence of events presents the United States with the best opportunity in sixty years to positively redefine its relationship with the Hemisphere on values of democratic governance, limited government, and free markets. Historically, U.S. policy toward Latin America has shifted from neglect to intervention, from inattention to paternalistic involvement. The Trump administration, with its business acumen, intuitively understands that a Latin America that is entrepreneurial, prosperous, and free market oriented is in the national interest of the United States on multiple fronts: it limits the influence in the region of hostile foreign powers such as Iran or Russia; it begins to address the economic root causes of the migration problem; it enhances markets and opportunities for American companies; and it promotes democratic governance.  President Trump recognizes that U.S. and Latin American national interests will not necessarily always coincide. And that no nation, be it the United States or any Latin American nation, should be faulted for pursuing its national interests. The principal security challenges to the U.S. from the Hemisphere are not military or economic; they are challenges embedded in a failed hostile ideology of collectivism that can now be uprooted. This understanding opens the door for the design of imaginative policies that acknowledge that a productive relationship is not always a happy relationship. With Fidel Castro gone, and his economic ideology discredited, the Trump administration now has an opportunity to bring Latin America out of the collectivist camp.  To do so, it needs to implement policies that allow Latin-Americans to perceive that it is in their best interest to choose the side of innovation, entrepreneurship and free markets; which is, demonstrably, the side of prosperity and freedom.   Please let us know if you  this article. This article was originally published in English in the PanAm Post and in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald.   José Azel, Ph.D. José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.   He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies as a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami and has published extensively on Cuba related topics. In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami.  Dr. Azel is author of Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, published in March 2010 and of Pedazos y Vacios, a collection of poems he wrote as a young exile in the 1960's. José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They cycled St. James Way (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary. They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast.  Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them.  Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro. Books by Dr. José Azel Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future. Buy now   Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish. Buy now

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