Headline: AMERICANS MUST ACCEPT INTERCONTINENTAL COOPERATION
Date: February 14, 1994 Section: FORUM
Page: B07 Edition: FOURTH
Word Count: 1103
Author: ABRAHAM F. LOWENTHAL
Column: GREAT DECISIONS
Index Terms: Column
Text:
Summary: Latin American gains, U.S. domestic problems put shoe on
other foot
Latin America's promising but highly vulnerable turns during the 1980s
toward democratic governance and market-oriented economic reforms offer
new opportunities to build Western Hemisphere cooperation. But unless
President Clinton can convince Americans people of a strong
self-interest in Latin America's growth and in hemispheric cooperation,
the next few years will likely see a great deal of inter-American
strife.
Frictions over trade and protectionism, commodity prices, advanced
technology, arms sales, population growth, immigration, narcotics and
the environment will surely intensify if the American public,
frustrated by its domestic difficulties, turns -- nationally or at
regional levels to approaches that are more protectionist,
restrictionist, punitive and interventionist. The electoral followings
generated in 1992 by Jerry Brown, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot revealed
a large potential constituency for such approaches, as did the intense
Nafta debate.
President Bush's Enterprise for the Americas initiative in 1990 offered
a positive if sketchy vision of how inter-American relations should
evolve, but the Bush administration could not get very far in
translating that vision into policy because of the domestic
difficulties facing the United States.
Proposals to reduce Latin America's debt, facilitate U.S. investment in
the region or open U.S. markets cannot be implemented unless they are
part and parcel of an overall strategy for restoring dynamism to the
U.S. economy. Domestic interests -- small business, organized labor
and, particularly, affected firms and communities -- understandably
oppose proposals to aid Latin America's development if they think that
the region's prosperity will come at their own expense.
Where is the United States' self-interest in Latin American growth and
hemispheric cooperation?
*Latin America's first significance for the United States is economic.
As Latin American countries emerge from recession, the region has once
again become the fastest-growing market for U.S. exports, as it was in
the 1970s. Latin America bought more than $65 billion of U.S. exports
in 1992 and again in 1993, more than Japan or Germany, and the rate of
increase in U.S. exports to Latin America for the last three years has
been three times as great as that to all other regions.
Investment opportunities for U.S. firms are also expanding, as
investors realize that Latin America's combination of resources,
infrastructure, an educated work force and long experience with market
economies make it a better bet than most of the former Communist
countries.
*Latin America's second importance is its effect on major problems
facing American society.
The most dramatic example is narcotics. Latin American countries supply
almost all the cocaine, most of the marijuana and an increasing share
of the heroin that enters the United States. Although the drug curse
can ultimately only be reduced by cutting international demand,
especially in the United States and Europe, an effective anti-narcotics
campaign will also require enduring cooperation by the Latin American
nations where narcotics are cultivated, processed and trafficked.
As the site of some of the world's largest rain forests and as leading
destroyers of them during the past few years, Latin American countries
are also central actors on environmental issues and crucial test-cases
of the prospects for sustainable development.
*A third significance of Latin America today is as a prime arena --
together with the former Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern and
Central Europe -- for the core U.S. values of democratic governance and
free-market economics.
As both democracy and capitalism are severely challenged in the former
Communist countries, the worldwide appeal and credibility of these
ideas may depend importantly on whether our nearest neighbors can make
them work.
*Finally, and perhaps most important, the burgeoning Latin American
pressures for emigration create additional links between those
countries and the United States and enlarge the U.S. stake in the
region's social, economic and political conditions.
Almost half of all legal immigrants to the United States came from
Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1980s, together with many
more than half of undocumented entrants. Latin Americans come to the
United States no longer in isolated or temporary waves, but in a
sustained flow, blurring the borders between Latin and Anglo America,
especially in Florida, Texas and Southern California.
If Latin America's advances of the past five years can be fortified and
if cooperative inter-American programs can be built, the United States
stands to gain a great deal: expanded exports and other economic
opportunities, some alleviation of immigration pressures, improved
international cooperation to resolve key problems, and a better
prospect for the success of core U.S. values.
The chances for positive U.S. policies to reinforce Latin American
progress and thereby advance U.S. aims depend more than anything on
revitalizing the U.S. economy. The United States cannot successfully
implement Nafta or help build a wider hemispheric economic community if
it does not at the same time rejuvenate its decaying infrastructure,
upgrade its technology, enhance the skills of its work force, retrain
displaced workers and assist uncompetitive industries and their
communities to adjust to change. The American public will not support
closer economic ties with Mexico or the rest of Latin America if the
United States fails to confront its accumulated domestic agenda.
In a sense, then, President Clinton's challenge is the flip side of the
one President John F. Kennedy presented to Latin America when he asked
Latin Americans to join the United States in an Alliance for Progress.
Now the real question is whether the United States itself is ready for
inter-American partnership.
Abraham F. Lowenthal, director of the Center for International Studies
at the University of Southern California, is the scheduled speaker for
Tuesday's Great Decision's lecture on "Argentina, Brazil, Chile:
Democracy and Market Economics." The World Affairs Council of Oregon is
sponsoring his appearance at noon on the mezzanine level of Two World
Trade Center, 25 S.W. Salmon St.