Transcript

Host: President George W. Bush traveled to Latin America, visiting Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. Mr. Bush emphasized the benefits of free trade, and the importance of those benefits reaching even the poorest in the region. He also announced initiatives to provide help with education and health care:

President Bush: "I bring the good will of the United States to South America and Central America, that's why I am here. I don't think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people's lives. My trip is to explain as clearly as I can that our nation is generous and compassionate, that when we see poverty we care, that when we see illiteracy we want to do something about it, that when we find there to be a deficiency in health care we'll help to the extent that we can."

Host: Mr. Bush was challenged – particularly in Guatemala and Mexico – about how the United States treats Latin Americans who immigrate illegally:

President Bush: "We want it to be a rational way for people to come to do jobs Americans aren't doing, we don't want people to feel like they have to be stuffed into the back of a truck and pay exorbitant fees to Coyotes to come and try and realize dreams. There's got to be a better system."

Host: Mr. Bush promised that he would press Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. What were the goals of the President’s Latin American trip, and were they achieved? I’ll ask my guests: Peter DeShazo, head of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University; Alejandro Chafuen, president of the Atlas Economic Research Institute; and joining us by phone from Mexico City, Anna-Maria Salazar, radio and television commentator and a former U-S deputy assistant secretary of Defense. Welcome, and thanks for joining us today.

Peter DeShazo, what was on the top of President Bush's agenda? What was the main purpose of his trip to Latin America?

DeShazo: The main purpose, I believe, was to demonstrate re-engagement in a region where there had been widespread criticism of the United States for lack of interest, especially in the wake of nine-eleven. So it had a very important public-diplomacy content of expressing re-engagement with the region. And beyond that, there were, I think, important bilateral and multilateral agenda items that the President took up along the way. But the image of the United States, in this case, was an important component.

Host: Arturo Valenzuela, about demonstrating an engagement with the region?

Valenzuela: Yes, I think so. As Peter said, there has been a perception that, of course, the United States has abandoned the region, particularly galling to many because the President had made the relationship with Latin America to be one of the most important relationships when he began his presidency. The problem, though, that the President faced on this trip, and faces, is that he's extremely unpopular. In my forty years of working on Latin America, I've never seen a situation where a president of the United States has been personally as unpopular in terms of his foreign policies, not only towards the region, but the world. There's a recent Gallup Poll that shows that he has twenty-seven percent approval ratings in eighteen countries in Latin America. So he had a huge challenge ahead of him to try to persuade people that, in fact, he was the right messenger to say that the United States wants to re-engage.

Host: Alejandro Chafuen, what do you think on that point of, how much of a hurdle does President Bush have to overcome about opinions about him and the U-S and the region?

Chafuen: It is a hurdle, but public opinion in many of these countries where the media is managed by the states and the secret service, especially in some of the Southern American countries, you know, I think it can be reverted in a short term. The closer that Latin Americans are to the United States, the higher is the opinion of Mr. Bush. If we ask Mexico, Central America, it's much higher on the opinion about Mr. Bush than in Argentina, for example. On the other hand, the U-S remains in the service, like Latino barometer, appearing as the most friendly nation to Latin America. Thirty percent is the score the U-S gets. Spain gets ten percent. And almost no neighbor -- A little votes go to Brazil and to Cuba. So I think the Bushes are committed to Latin America. His father was the one who launched Initiative for the Americas. President Bush went, already, seven times. This is the eighth trip to Latin America. I think he will beat records, you know, for an American president going to Latin America. So, again, I agree that he's very unpopular, but for the long term of U-S interests in the region and in the world, I think this is a very positive trip.

Host: Ana Maria Salazar, are you there by phone?

Salazar: Yes, I'm -- Hello. Hello to everybody from Mexico City.

Host: What's your perception there in the region of how President Bush was received and how that relates to attitudes in Mexico toward the United States?

Salazar: You know, the general perception here in Mexico -- and I base this somewhat on the people I had the opportunity to interview for my radio program and for my writing in the newspaper -- is that it was too little, too late. You know, it appears that they're trying to recuperate, you know, six, seven years of lost time in which there was just, basically, very little attention paid to Latin America, paid to Mexico, and I don't think that much can be done in one week, especially when you, you know, look at and analyze the different proposals that were made throughout the trip. Nothing spectacular was said. Nothing different was said. And, in many ways, I would say probably the most interesting agreements that were reached were in Brazil, and we can talk about that later in the program, with the ethanol program. But other than that, the general perception that I'm receiving, at least here in Mexico, is that it's just too little and it's too late. There's not going to be very much change of perception in terms of the President's popularity and the perception, particularly in terms of how the U-S treats undocumented workers in the United States.

Host: Well, Peter DeShazo, on this question that has been raised around the table of whether the U-S is paying enough attention to Latin America, there also seems to be a long-standing sense that the U-S and its involvement in Latin America is often heavy-handed, an attitude of, “Gringo, go home. Don't tell us how to…” Where is the balance between not being too involved in Latin America and overbearing, and yet not being involved enough?

DeShazo: I think the people of Latin America want the United States to be involved in the region, but they want them to be involved in a way that they see as positive and moving forward issues that are important to them. And one of the points that the President is underscoring during the visit was the issue of poverty reduction, which is really a key point in the region. There's a widespread sense that the economic reforms of the 1990s, and even the democratic reforms, did not produce the kinds of changes, didn't deliver the goods for people, the way that was expected. And there's widespread frustration with that. So they want the United States to be engaged, and they want to hear the United States engaged on issues that are crucial to them.

Host: Is there a sense that it's up to the U-S, or the U-S can make the difference between whether prosperity comes to the region or not, Arturo Valenzuela?

Valenzuela: Well, I think, you know, obviously, the real challenges are for the countries in the region, and the countries have to make the reforms, and they're the ones that have to consolidate democracy and address the issues of poverty. The United States can be a partner in this process, and it cannot be, you know, the ultimate provider of prosperity in the region. Now, having said that, what was interesting about this trip is that the President, for the first time really, has been addressing the issue of poverty frontally. In the previous trips to the region, he's talked much more about trade, and there's been this perception in Latin America that the United States has dropped the ball, in a sense, in being concerned about the issues that the Latin Americans find most important. The problem is that, perhaps the trip, as Ana Maria said, is too little, too late. And also, there weren't any "deliverables,” as people say. In other words, there really -- He talked about health and other things like that. When you look at the investment that the United States does, in terms of its bilateral foreign assistance to the region, it's paltry, and it certainly doesn't emphasize those areas. In that sense, Chávez in Venezuela does have the upper hand, because he has been addressing those issues and putting money directly into those particular programs that the United States has not done so in the past.

Host: Alejandro Chafuen, on that question, did the U-S go empty-handed to Latin America?

Chafuen: No, first, I have to disagree that there has been nothing done after the failed talks of the free-trade era of the Americas. The U-S, even before September 11, even offered Argentina to join in bilateral free-trade agreements, and they said, "No.” Then they were discussing it when the terrorists struck the towers. We signed the Central America Free Trade Agreement. The administration is pushing free-trade agreements with several other Latin-American countries, and I have to disagree. The statistics that I have seen about aid and bilateral flows to Latin America are higher now than we had been during Clinton's terms. And more important, foreign aid, Overseas Development Assistance, is not per se going to solve poverty. Bolivia has gotten between six and fourteen percent of their GDP in Overseas Development Assistance, and poverty has been increasing. And what it did, it created the environment for socialism to come. And many times, the way this development assistance is being given, like in Argentina, as political handouts that the government gives to the poor, and it happened also with Lula -- Before an election, imagine if President Bush was giving a thousand dollars, the equivalent of a thousand bucks per month, to the poor people. You know, both Kirchner and Duhalde in Argentina and Lula did that before the election. You know, so be careful in saying the way to supporting poverty is just with assistance and not with free trade. I think his emphasis on free trade has been very good. Again, too little, yes, but we were stuck by an unforeseen circumstance that that administration was not planning.

Valenzuela: Could I clarify something?

Host: Sure.

Valenzuela: The administration has been saying for some time that aid has doubled. Those are really misleading figures. The aid to the region was about about one-point-six. This year, it's actually gone down to about one-point-four. There was a significant spike.

Host: One-point-six to one-point-four billion dollars in annual aid to the region.

Valenzuela: That's correct. Now, if you look at the average across the Clinton administration, it was lower, but that's primarily because the Republican Congress did not provide the Clinton administration with the asks that they had. Number two, there was significant increase when bipartisanship did set in with help for Columbia, and the real spike takes place in the year 2000 with Plan Columbia. And the thing that I would argue is that if you look at that reduced aid now, most of it goes to Haiti and Columbia, and most of it is in counter-drug efforts. So it doesn't really speak to the health and poverty issues that the President underscored.

Host: Ana Maria Salazar, on the question of the health and poverty initiatives that are at least the issue that President Bush was emphasizing while in Latin America, did he succeed in tying improvements in those areas to efforts at free trade and economic freedoms?

Salazar: Once again, you know -- and I agree with what Arturo said -- part of the problem with this trip was that, you know, the President really came empty-handed. On the one hand, I think their message -- The President's message was, you know, he wanted to say, "Look, we've done all these wonderful things for your country, and the United States really cares for you, and we really want to improve our relationship with, you know, your nations.” So, I mean, he had -- That was the rhetoric, but when it came to showing, you know, very specific programs -- like Arturo said, deliverables -- he was literally empty-handed. I was kind of surprised how little he had to offer. Let's remember that when the U-S president travels, it has to be the most important meeting that one country's going to have, you know, one nation with another nation. And it has to be something very special, especially when we're talking about the U-S president, because he doesn't travel all that much to the region. And I have to tell you, I was shocked when I was looking at, you know, the information coming out of the White House and just listening to the press conferences, and there's just very little substance to back up what the President came to do to Latin America. So even though I think he had good intentions and he was probably saying the right things, it's just there was nothing to back up what he was trying to do in the region or what he was trying to do with this trip.

Host: Peter DeShazo, on this point, and with the point that Alejandro Chafuen makes of there being a difference in impact between dollars in aid for a specific thing that you might bring and what can be accomplished through changing the economic system or the governmental system, do you think it was a mistake for President Bush to focus again on these issues of trying to improve transparency in governance, et cetera, things that would supposedly aid the conditions in the country?

DeShazo: No, I don't think it's a mistake to support democracy and improve governance. I think that's really important in the region. It does lead to better economic growth, and it leads to more stability and security for people, which is another thing that people want. The region has reached the stage in which U-S aid is ever less of an important component in the economic mix. So what's really important are the good policies that are coming out of the region and U-S support for those policies. Trade is one of them, but it's important to tie trade with poverty reduction. In the case of this visit, the proximity of Uruguay with the United States on trade was an important message that was underscored during the visit. Brazil -- energy, which was important to both countries. In Columbia, the United States has been a major supporter of Columbia, as Arturo pointed out, since 2000, and also behind that, the FTA agreement with Columbia. Guatemala and Mexico then, immigration was a key topic there, and that's something that the President spoke about, but that's still ahead to delivering.

Host: Let's talk about that topic. Arturo Valenzuela, how did the topic of immigration from Latin America to the U-S play out on this trip?

Valenzuela: Well, in some ways, it was surprising, because this is a topic that you would have thought would come up in Guatemala and Mexico, but it first came up in Uruguay, with the president of Uruguay insisting, of course, that he really supported -- There are very few Uruguayans in the United States by comparison with the number of Mexicans, partly because Uruguay is a very tiny country, and Mexico has a hundred-million people. But is came up in repeated places, and it shows that there really is a significant sensitivity in Latin America to this issue, and it's an issue that's tied. Immigration is tied to the issue of poverty, of course. The reason why people migrate to the United States is because they're looking for better opportunities. And one of the things about our debate in the United States, that is, in my view, extremely flawed, is we never really discuss immigration reform within the United States in terms of our strategic interests in the region and in Latin America. We need to understand that, that the prosperity and the success of Mexico, for example, really does depend, in some part, on how we handle the issue of immigration reform. Ultimately, we would like all countries to be prosperous so that people could stay home and work there, but we have to think about our own immigration policies. The President, I think, is right when he asks for comprehensive immigration reform. What I worry about is, I don't think that he is prepared politically to go far enough, because he repeated on this trip that he would only try to get it done if he can get a consensus among the Republicans when, to do immigration reform, he's going to have to do what Clinton did. Clinton went to NAFTA, and he did it with a majority of Republicans and a minority of his own party. Bush is going to have to go to immigration reform with a majority of Democrats and leave a majority of the Republicans behind.

Host: Alejandro Chafuen, is there -- did this trip help put the immigration issue into a strategic context, as Arturo Valenzuela says, that will affect the debate in the U-S on immigration reform?

Chafuen: I think the issue is seen differently here than in Latin America. Here, even the Republicans consider President Bush, like, siding with the Democrats. In Latin America, they see, like, almost President Bush also trying to put barriers, you know, to immigration. I know that he's very favorable to the unity of the Americas. And I want to stress what President Calderón said, and sometimes you have to put the U-S aid in balance with what he says. He says the best thing that's going on, the best relationships, they are from people to people, not from government to government. U-S involvement in the region must -- For the private sector, like my foundation, it must be, like, ten times, at least, what is given in official government aid. So strengthening those ties, I think, is the best thing we can do for, again, Mexico to prosper so they will have -- sending less people to the United States. The Mexicans love their country. You know, they are coming here mostly for economic and rule-of-law issues, you know. So let's help them with that.

Host: Ana Maria Salazar, how does the immigration issue play, for example in Mexico, not only in the relationship with the U-S, but domestically on this issue of what it says about the economy and opportunities at home, that people have to leave for the U-S to try to find opportunities they don't have there?

Salazar: Well, it was very interesting, President Calderón's and the Mexican's government message. [ Click ]

Host: I'm afraid -- I think we've lost Ana Maria Salazar. Peter DeShazo, on that question, how does it play in Latin-American countries, really in their own discussions of trying to build their own countries and prosperity, the effect that immigration has, not only that people are leaving, but often people who are very motivated, hardworking, risk-taking people are obviously leaving, the sort of people who could help build one's own country?

DeShazo: Right, well, clearly, there's a very dynamic human element that is migrating into the United States from these countries, an element that could be very important in terms of development locally. The remittances that come back from the United States are a key factor and a very large percent of --

Host: By "remittances,” you mean people who are working in the U-S, sending money home.

DeShazo: Who are working in the U-S and sending money home in some countries are a very major share of GDP. But beyond that, there is the image of the United States, and its policies are very closely tracked, so that when the United States talks about building a fence, that's something that is almost universally rejected in Latin America, even in countries that don't send many migrants to the United States.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word for today. We're out of time. But I'd like to thank my guests, Peter DeShazo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Arturo Valenzuela of Georgetown University, Alejandro Chafuen of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and by phone from Mexico City, Ana Maria Salazar, a political commentator for radio and television in Mexico and a former U-S Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our website at www.voanews.com/ontheline. For "On The Line,” I'm Eric Felten.