Peter Hakimis president emeritus and senior fellow of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank on Western Hemisphere affairs. He served as president of the Dialogue from 1993 to 2010... (wikipedia)
Nobody who sat across the negotiating table from the United States came out of the talks feeling they got a fair deal. And many feel they've been outright cheated.
What we do not know is how he will govern. There is a big difference between a candidate and a president.
That didn't work very well for the administration of Fox. There is no question that Mexico was hoping for a lot more. It did not come away a winner from the United States over the past years.
Years later, the US and Latin America are at the lowest point in their relationship since the Cold War.
Washington's tattered relations with Latin America have mainly translated into a series of lost opportunities for both sides. The US could end up paying a stiff price for the region's economic reversals and unsettled politics ... Washington can do better.
Even in countries that have thrown out presidents, almost every one of them has gone back to elections as the only way to choose new leadership. There's just no other way to do that now. That makes Latin America different.
an economic liberal with a big heart. He has been our guide for 17 years and we expect him to continue making enormous contributions.
Argentina has challenged the international community much more than other countries have dared to.
This is a man who won 54 or 55 percent of the vote, one of the strongest electoral victories in Latin America in the last 11 years. If the U.S. is prepared to support a democratically elected government that does not agree with its policies, this is an opportunity.
The U.S. doesn't like to have so much oil in someone like that's hands, ... Among Cubans and people who worry about Cuba, there's no question that Chavez's support for Fidel Castro has given Castro a second wind.
The U.S. doesn't like to have so much oil in someone like that's hands. Among Cubans and people who worry about Cuba, there's no question that Chavez's support for Fidel Castro has given Castro a second wind.
The U.S. is going to be worried about Bolivia's connections with Cuba and Venezuela.
It's certainly somewhat of a disappointment. This had been the planned time. But I think it is a momentary setback more than anything long term. And I think the Democrats were wrong to oppose CAFTA in the first place, and wrong to take pleasure in this setback.
All of a sudden, Latin America is saying that the U.S. is not playing by the same rules as everyone else and this provokes an underlying distrust of the U.S..
This is much more about politics than economics.
That is a dream that has been shattered, evaporated.
It will have a tremendous symbolic value that the United States is interested in having relations with the first indigenous president of a very poor country.
