Republicans and Democrats look to Latin America
You'd really have to pay me, but fortunately Greg Weeks went ahead and analyzed the Republican and Democratic platforms on issues related to the United States and Latin America. From the Republican platform:
From the Democratic platform:
Americans and Latin Americans want trade deals that deliver greater benefits to the average worker and consumer; better labor requirements; and stronger environmental standards. Too much wealth has become concentrated in the pockets of very few in the US and Latin America. The benefits need to be more evenly distributed not only across countries, but within them. (Mexico?)
We all take seriously the threat from climate change. Central America is one of the world's most vulnerable regions. We must work together to develop renewable sources of energy.
In many US cities, violence has reached epidemic proportions. We share the pain of many cities and countries to our south. We must work together to implement social, economic, and political policies that reduce violence at home and abroad. (Mexico and Central America?)
We must build on the recent momentum to reform drug policy in the United States and the Western Hemisphere. (Colombia and elsewhere).
We need to ends wars that have gone on way longer than they should have (Afghanistan, Colombia) and take steps to address wrongs that were carried out in the name of defending freedom (War on terror, Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, etc.).
We all have an interest in ensuring the safe movement of citizens throughout the hemisphere for labor opportunities, tourism (Cuba?), and safety.
There are no specific policy proposals here but an opportunity to frame the US' approach to Latin America a bit more cooperatively. I shared some insights on a few memos for the Sanders campaign when it came to Latin America. They seemed to want to talk exclusively about Honduras while I thought that they had the opportunity to promote a much more progressive US stance towards the region.
In the end, the Republican platform tries to give ideological coherence to its Latin America policy by wrapping up its positions and policy ideas (if they can be called that) based on the Cold War, while the Republican candidate thinks in terms of good “deals” (though what those consists of is unclear). Those deals may sometimes refer to Trump hotels, at other times refer to what he claims to think is best for the country or at other times refer to his xenophobic core constituency—there’s really no way of telling.
What we might reasonably expect from a Republican victory, then, is an inchoate potpourri for Latin America. The party faithful will want to remain firmly rooted in the anti-communist past, but a President Trump would happily ignore those Cold Warriors when he didn’t like the deal. Which raises a key question: what deal exactly is the U.S. voter getting for Latin America?I tend to support free trade, democracy, and engagement. It's not surprising that I don't connect very well with the Republican platform. Immigration must have fallen under a separate section but that probably would not have made me feel any better.
From the Democratic platform:
What we might expect from an HRC administration, then, is ambivalent continuismo with the Obama policy. There are no new ideas and an overabundance of platitudes. Being anti-Trump is not the same as forming a coherent set of policies.It's not going to happen, but it would have been nice to hear a platform simply say that the issues that are important to the American people (fine, estadounidenses) are the issues that are important to the people of Latin America.
Americans and Latin Americans want trade deals that deliver greater benefits to the average worker and consumer; better labor requirements; and stronger environmental standards. Too much wealth has become concentrated in the pockets of very few in the US and Latin America. The benefits need to be more evenly distributed not only across countries, but within them. (Mexico?)
We all take seriously the threat from climate change. Central America is one of the world's most vulnerable regions. We must work together to develop renewable sources of energy.
In many US cities, violence has reached epidemic proportions. We share the pain of many cities and countries to our south. We must work together to implement social, economic, and political policies that reduce violence at home and abroad. (Mexico and Central America?)
We must build on the recent momentum to reform drug policy in the United States and the Western Hemisphere. (Colombia and elsewhere).
We need to ends wars that have gone on way longer than they should have (Afghanistan, Colombia) and take steps to address wrongs that were carried out in the name of defending freedom (War on terror, Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, etc.).
We all have an interest in ensuring the safe movement of citizens throughout the hemisphere for labor opportunities, tourism (Cuba?), and safety.
There are no specific policy proposals here but an opportunity to frame the US' approach to Latin America a bit more cooperatively. I shared some insights on a few memos for the Sanders campaign when it came to Latin America. They seemed to want to talk exclusively about Honduras while I thought that they had the opportunity to promote a much more progressive US stance towards the region.
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