Has the Obama Administration Finally Discovered Latin America? Tim Padgett - Time
go to original May 13, 2013

President Barack Obama is sending Vice President Joe Biden on a swing through Brazil, Colombia and Trinidad & Tobago later this month. Which means two things: First, the prospect of off-the-cuff gaffes in three different languages. (Memo: Don’t call Latin America our “backyard” as Secretary of State John Kerry did last month.) Second, the Obama Administration is suddenly interested in Latin America and the Caribbean after four years of indifference. Obama just completed a trip to Mexico and Costa Rica, and early next month he’ll host Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala at the White House.

So why this sudden spate of south-of-the-border schmoozing? Even Biden calls it “the most active stretch of high-level engagement on Latin America in a long, long time.” Maybe the U.S. feels it can show its face in the region again a year after a posse of Secret Service agents was caught partying with prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, on the eve of the Summit of the Americas. But the serious explanation is economics: After a decade of boom in Latin America, the Administration has finally figured out that many of the region’s economies are strong enough global players now to be useful to the U.S. as bloc partners in its bid to stay ahead of China’s burgeoning trade and financial power.

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