Latin Opportunity

Why Mexico's President Is Counting on Barack Obama

AS HE TOOK office eight years ago, George W. Bush promised to make
relations with Latin America a priority.

The president's first foreign trip was to the ranch of Mexican
President Vicente Fox, where Mr. Bush expansively promised "to boldly
seize the unprecedented opportunity before us." There was no
compelling reason for this hemispheric focus, other than the fact that
Mr. Bush had been governor of Texas and was more familiar with Latin
America than other parts of the world.

That may explain why Latin America quickly dropped from the top of the
administration's agenda after Sept. 11, 2001.

Though he preserved the tradition of meeting early with the Mexican
leader last week, Barack Obama starts from a very different point.

He has never visited Latin America and spoke little about it during
his campaign; his most notable interventions were to criticize
standing or pending free-trade agreements with Mexico and Colombia,
the two closest U.S. allies in the region.

After sharing tortilla soup with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in
Washington, Mr. Obama blandly stated: "The friendship between the U.S.
and Mexico has been strong. I believe it can be even stronger."

The paradox here is that Mr. Obama, unlike Mr. Bush, has an objective
and urgent interest in investing some of his diplomatic capital in
Latin America -- as Mr. Calderon pointed out during his visit here.
The Mexican leader noted during a stop at The Post that Latin America
in 2000 was ruled almost entirely by democracies. Since then, "what I
have seen is an increase in anti-American feelings, which is
worrisome," Mr. Calderon said. "And I have seen some threats to the
principles and values we stand for: democracy and human rights, the
market economy, property rights and the rule of law."

Some of those threats are well known to Americans, thanks to the
grandstanding of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. But others have received
surprisingly little attention -- like Mr. Calderon's own fateful
battle against the drug cartels that threaten to destroy Mexico's
relatively fragile institutions. By the president's own account, some
6,000 persons were killed in drug-related violence during 2008, a
level of bloodshed exceeding that of Iraq. The Bush administration
initiated a $1.4 billion aid program to help Mexican security forces,
and Congress has appropriated the first $400 million.

But little has been done to stop the massive flow of weapons -- not
just guns but grenade launchers, night vision equipment and high
explosives -- from the United States to Mexican gangs.

According to Mr. Calderon, Mr. Obama said that he would work on the
smuggling problem; the two leaders talked about infrastructure
projects on both sides of the border that could improve security and
speed passage.

While he raised labor and environmental issues that are covered by
side accords to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Obama did
not propose reopening the treaty itself, according to Mr. Calderon.
That's a step in the right direction -- but even better would be a
concerted effort by the new president to counteract the region's
larger drift away from democracy and free markets. Mr. Obama will have
an opportunity to launch such an initiative soon, at the next summit
of the Americas in April. "In this particular moment," Mr. Calderon
said, Mr. Obama "has the leadership and the credibility to change that
situation quickly and restore the leadership of the United States --
the natural leadership, if I can say that -- of the region." That
sounds like an opportunity to be boldly seized.