Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations:  A Hemispheric Partnership for a Turbulent World
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/1124_latin_america_partnership.aspx
Report of the Partnership for the Americas Commission
Reviewed by Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D.

The Brookings Institution’s Partnership for the Americas Commission recently published “Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations: A Hemispheric Partnership for a Turbulent World” to provide the incoming Obama administration a blueprint for renewing and expanding cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).  The commission, chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering, proposes that: "The countries of the hemisphere share common interests; and the United States should engage its hemispheric neighbors on issues where shared interests, objectives, and solutions are easiest to identify and can serve as the basis for an effective partnership."

Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations offers a collaborative, consensus based approach to U.S. foreign policymaking for the LAC region based on the understanding that: "Their enhanced confidence and autonomy will make many LAC countries much less responsive to U.S. policies that are perceived as patronizing, intrusive, or prescriptive, and they will be more responsive to policies that engage them as partners on issues of mutual concern."Ironically, just as many LAC countries exercise greater economic and political autonomy in relationship with the United States, an increasing number of policy challenges require greater policy coordination and cooperation to solve intractable problems such as unregulated migration and drug trafficking as well as the emerging challenges of energy security and climate change.

With an emphasis on consensus rather than political confrontation or policy convergence, Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations provides two key alternative processes for resolving these regional challenges. First, the commission suggests that informal policy issue networks be established to provide an institutional structure for dialogue and mutual learning among the peoples and governments of the United States and the LAC region.  Second, the commission advocates the creation of a hemispheric wide steering group led by Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, the “Americas Eight” or A8, that would set agendas for each policy issue network and encourage consensus building and political agreement at the highest levels of national government across the Americas. 

Aside from these intriguing “mechanics of partnership,” Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations offers a host of specific issue-area recommendations to increase sustainable energy resources (including nuclear and renewable sources), confront climate change, manage migration, encourage incremental economic integration, and protect the region against drugs and organized crime.  The report alsooffers several innovative proposals that deserve serious consideration by the region’s political leaders, including the creation of a Renewable Energy Laboratory of the Americas and the establishment of a Standing Commission on Immigration and Labor Markets to recommend annual visa quotas on the basis of U.S. labor market needs.  Such innovative prescriptions are matched with a longer list of more modest, consensus creating suggestions for partnership and include: 

• Reduce and gradually eliminate the 54 cent per gallon tariff on ethanol imports, as well as subsidies on corn-based ethanol;
• Establish a three-part visa system (in consultation with the largest sending nations, Mexico and El Salvador) made up of temporary, provisional, and permanent visas to encourage circular migration patterns;
• Consider a “third way” between global trade negotiations and bilateral agreements by deepening hemispheric economic cooperation multilaterally, through incremental arrangements; and
• Undertake a comprehensive review of counternarcotics measures and launch a hemispheric dialogue on illegal drugs.

Lastly, as a sign of change and confidence building measure, Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations encourages U.S. foreign policymakers to usher in a new era of relations with Cuba aimed at engaging its government and society through a set of unilateral actions, including lifting all travel restrictions, repealing elements of the economic embargo, and taking Cuba off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism as the United States works multilaterally to support human rights and democratic governance. 

Taken together, the commission’s recommendations provide the incoming Obama government a relevant policymaking framework from which to craft more cooperation that matters to both the United States and its neighbors.