The first visit to Cuba in 88 years by a US president comes as South America undergoes radical political change

In the heady days of Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House in 2008, the soon-to-be president made a speech at the Cuban American National Foundation that was to become a benchmark for his relations with a hemisphere.



“It’s time for a new alliance of the Americas,” the candidate declared. “It’s time to turn the page on the arrogance of Washington and the anti-Americanism across the region that stands in the way of progress.”

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He went on to promise that he would engage Cuba, help to end the conflict in Colombia, boost democracy and development in Haiti, crack down on drug cartels in Mexico and strengthen trade and aid to Latin America as a whole.

After the stagnation of the Bush era, this sounded like a bold step forward, particularly given the regional mood at the time. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez was in his Washington-bashing pomp. Leftwing administrations dominated the continent. China’s influence was on the rise.

Even after Obama entered the White House, many doubted he would fare any better than his predecessors in winning the hearts and minds of his regional neighbours. The nerdy northern president looked like a soft touch compared with the caudillo hard-men of the south.

Amid all the euphoria over the thaw, it is sobering to look back at the other promises Obama made to Cuba in 2008

Fast forward eight years, however, and it is undoubtedly Obama’s vision that is in the ascendant. On Sunday, he will be in his pomp as the first sitting US president in 88 years to visit Havana, a move that looks likely to be remembered among the greatest legacies of his presidency. Meanwhile, the regional leaders who once isolated him are falling like flies. Declining commodity prices, election defeats and corruption investigations are reversing the “pink tide” of the Latin left that was once a source of hope for socialists around the world.

The past week has seen massive anti-government demonstrations in Brazil and a heightened legal challenge against former Workers party president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Last month, Bolivia’s formerly unbeatable president Evo Morales lost his first election – a referendum that would have changed the constitution so he could remain in power until the middle of the next decade.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An inflatable doll depicting Dilma Rousseff amid anti-corruption protests against her and former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters

Almost every day, there is grim economic news from Venezuela, where Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, recently lost control of Congress. In Argentina, meanwhile, the new centre-right president, Mauricio Macri, is busy unravelling the policies of his populist predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Obama will give this change of direction his stamp of approval by visiting Buenos Aires after he leaves Havana.

His regional swagger was not always so confident. In the early days of his presidency, it looked as though his pledge of better neighborhood relations was just froth and talk, designed only to win over the sizeable Hispanic vote. Like many a president before him, Obama devoted his foreign policy attention to the Middle East and Russia. Latin America appeared an afterthought. Disappointed regional leaders turned against him. At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, in April 2012, the US looked more isolated than ever.

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The main cause of friction was US policy towards Cuba. Washington’s cold war embargo and its work to block Havana from neighbors was seen as a part of the arrogance and interference that had characterized US policy for decades. It left every other plan snarled in resentment.

But by reaching out with a surprise pope-brokered agreement with Raúl Castro on 17 December 2014, Obama appears to have cut this Gordian knot. At last year’s Summit of the Americas in Panama, he shook hands and talked to Castro, held a 10-minute dialogue with Chávez’ successor, and won plaudits (as well as the usual brickbats) from other leaders.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A billboard in Cuba: ‘Socialism or death’. Photograph: Enrique de la Osa/Reuters

Speaking at a panel in Washington this week, Mike Hammer, the US ambassador to Chile, said that normalized relations with Cuba go a long way to “removing what we all know was a tension point in US relations with the hemisphere”.

“It’s good for folks back here in Washington to grasp that,” he said, adding: as ambassador of Chile I can see, even among regular people that come up and say, ‘Well, it was about time,’ and ‘It was the right thing to do,’ really it’s quite significant.”

More acclaim is likely to follow in the next week, but amid all the euphoria over the thaw, it is sobering to look back at the other promises Obama made to Cuba and the region in 2008. The overall score card is good, but by no means perfect.

Running for president in the critical state of Florida, he told Miami’s powerful Cuban community that he would only engage the Castro government to stand up for freedom. He said he would push for the release of political prisoners – a goal that has been largely but not completely achieved – but also vowed to promote freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and political reforms necessary for free elections. None of these latter three is close to success. This next week may move the needle, but not by much.

Another 2008 promise, peace in Colombia, may do far more. Negotiations in Havana are expected to reach agreement very soon on an end to the world’s oldest conflict, the almost 70-year war between the government in Bogota and leftist guerrillas. The US, Cuba and Venezuela are among the key players backing a deal.

Other goals look more distant than ever, particularly with regard to crime and drugs. Mexico has fallen deeper into cartel-related turmoil and violence. Despite US funding for police forces in Central America, El Salvador suffered the most murderous year since its civil war ended in 1992. In Honduras, where the US backed a 2009 coup that ousted the democratically elected president, civil rights and environmental activists are being killed at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, and refugees are fleeing en masse to the US.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paint thrown by protesters stains police shields during clashes in Bogota, Colombia. Photograph: Fernando Vergara/AP

In Haiti, meanwhile, presidential elections were twice postponed and remain inconclusive, underscoring the problems the poorest country in the hemisphere faces in moving towards democracy.

Obama cannot be held solely responsible for the disappointments of his tenure, said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American programme at the Wilson Center thinktank, which hosted the panel. “He has accomplished a good deal,” she said, “but it’s important to remember the president doesn’t make policy alone and the Congress plays a role.

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“There’s currently no US ambassador to Mexico. We’re in the middle of an election campaign in which Latin Americans, and Mexicans in particular, have been vilified in the grossest terms.”

Speaking at the same panel, Bradley Freden, the US chargé d’affaires in Uruguay, suggested that the US had moved past its rigid ideological standards of the cold war. Citing the US’s ties to former president José “Pepe” Mujica, a former guerrilla, Freden said: “I think perhaps the most important thing we’ve done by embracing him is to show countries like Venezuela that it’s not whether you’re left or right.

“The United States can have great relations with a country that’s run by a former guerrilla as long as he’s elected democratically and is committed to the rule of law, which certainly was the case.”

The US is finally giving up its old approach of telling the continent what to do Harold Trinkunas

US diplomatic presentation, however, has certainly changed in the last decade. Obama has adopted a more humble stance and called for a more equitable partnership with continental neighbours. Echoing comments he made in 2008, the president observed in a recent interview that the US has to face up to the darker side of its foreign affairs record.

“We have history. We have history in Iran. We have history in Indonesia and Central America,” he told the Atlantic. “So we have to be mindful of our history when we start talking about interfering, and understand the source of other people’s suspicions.”

He has also cut rivals down to size, however, particularly Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. “We made a very strategic decision early on,” Obama said in the same interview. “Rather than blow him up as this 10-foot giant adversary, to right size the problem and say, ‘We don’t like what’s going on in Venezuela, but it’s not a threat to the United States.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A man holds up an image depicting Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri, during a demonstration in Buenos Aires. Photograph: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters

Nonetheless, the White House subsequently initiated sanctions that declared exactly that.

Washington’s influence within the region has undoubtedly strengthened in recent years. Obama boasts that US trade with the region has doubled during his presidency. The value of the dollar has also appreciated enormously against most regional currencies. China’s demand, meanwhile, for minerals and food has slowed, and falling oil prices have hurt Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina.

“In 2008, the region was neglected and understandably so, given the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the financial crisis,” said Harold Trinkunas, director of the Latin America initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“An important shift in the Obama approach has been an attempt to work with these countries bilaterally on an equal basis. Cuba is a final step in that direction. The US is finally giving up its old approach of telling the continent what to do.”

The political pendulum has already swung in the latter. Macri has introduced a swath of market reforms and emerged as a vocal critic of Venezuela. Obama’s trip next week makes him the first US president to visit Argentina in more than a decade.

Argentina looks likely to become an ally, a step towards the regional “alliance” that Obama envisaged in 2008. But this is neither certain, uniform nor irreversible. Old suspicions about US intentions remain, and new doubts are growing about the future of Washington’s policy after Obama leaves office.

But for at least the next few days while he visits the former heartland of regional revolution, the US president should be able to bask in an unusually balmy political climate of a US president in Latin America.

