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TheObamaadministrationdecidedtopaymoreattentiontoLatinAmericasincepresidentialcampaign,criticizingharshlytheBushadministration’s neglect of the hemispheric issues. When in office, he trumpeted a New Partnership for the Americas looking future rapprochement in the Americas. But the gulf between his good-mannered and rosy rhetorics and stiff actions done in the crucial tests for the first year disappointed many Latin American leaders. Even though he modified some policies on Cuba allowing free travels for Cuban Americans, the administration's benign neglect of the military coup and recognition of the subsequent regime in Honduras showed the propensity to realist calculation as a regional hegemon with much weaker commitment to democracy. The agreement to lease 7 military bases in Colombia also imprinted the image of U.S. as a hawkish superpower to South American nations. The military cum humanitarian occupation of Haiti after the earthquake also smacks of the same flavor. Why Obama failed to fill the gap between the rhetorics and the actions? First, recalcitrant rightist Republicans in the Congress blocked new initiatives and the inertia of bureaucratic politics beleaguered with Pentagon’s War on Terror also made the business as usual model keep going. The priority on Latin American issues still lags behind. Second, the resurgence of extra-hemispheric powers like China, Russia, Iran, India and other non-aligned countries gave Latin American countries more room to act autonomously. Latin American nations’ drive toward self-determination and autonomy has grown more rapidly than expected during the Bush administraion with a changing power configuration in global arena. The Obama administration will face much difficulties in harmonizing the interest of hegemonic power in the Americas with shrinking power resources and more audacious regional responses.
