Does anyone really believe a handshake between President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro heralds a new positive direction for American foreign policy that will actually benefit the people in both the United States and Latin America? Really?
President James Monroe: He Got All The Credit
The United States began to stake out Latin America as its own turf in 1823 when President James Monroe told the Europeans that any attempt to recolonize the Western Hemisphere would be considered “dangerous to our peace and safety.” This
Europe Keep Out message became known as the Monroe Doctrine. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was furious because the initiative had been his idea and he thought it should have been called the Adams Doctrine.
In 1845, President James K. Polk, spoiling for a fight against our weaker southern neighbor, ginned up Congress and under the guise of Manifest Destiny extracted a Declaration of War against Mexico. In short order, the United States stole Texas and the California and New Mexico territories collectively known as the Mexican Cession. To this day, Mexicans are acutely aware and most Americans utterly clueless about the irony when jingoes complain about “all these damn Mexicans sneaking into our country.”
President James K. Polk: They Can't Stop Us So Let's Just Take It
President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, telling the world that if there is any problem in the region the United States will handle it. Newspaper cartoons at the time portrayed Uncle Sam in a policeman’s uniform straddling the Caribbean and Central America. TR summed up this approach by declaring, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Freudians in the newly emerging field of psychoanalysis quickly concluded that this guy had serious issues.
President Theodore Roosevelt: My Stick Is Bigger Than Yours
Teddy’s successor, President William Howard Taft, preferred “Dollar Diplomacy,” blatant economic imperialism that encouraged American investors to thoroughly penetrate Latin American economies so the United States could control the government without the expense and international embarrassment of having to use troops. Taft, tipping the scales at way over 300 pounds, reportedly remarked, “It’s the least I can do, I love Mexican food.”
President William Howard Taft: His Favorite Was Arroz Con Pollo
President Woodrow Wilson intervened disastrously in the Mexican Revolution, surmising that American troops storming ashore at Veracruz would be welcomed as liberators. He declared, “I’m going to teach the South Americans to elect good men…,” failing to understand that Mexico is not even in South America and thoroughly embarrassing the History Department at Princeton.
President Herbert Hoover’s State Department issued the Clark Memorandum deliberately abrogating the Roosevelt Corollary. Thus was born the Good Neighbor Policy whereby the United States promised to stop intervening in Latin America at the drop of a hat. Hoover’s public relations skills ensured that the new approach would forever be associated with the next President, Franklin Roosevelt.
In the thirties, United States officials attended Pan American summits and promised Latin Americans economic cooperation and aid for development. During World War II the entire region lined up behind the United States like ducks on a pond with the exception of Argentina. Some diplomats at the time surmised that President Juan Perón loved watching Evita attempting to goose step in high heels.
In the late forties and fifties, the United States threw itself into the Cold War and focused its foreign policy almost entirely on Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Finally, Latin Americans realized they had been lied to. Hardly anyone noticed how angry the people were down there until Vice President Nixon embarked upon a “goodwill” trip. The dictators tried to welcome him but the masses turned out to spit, heckle, protest and kill him if they could get close enough. President Eisenhower, probably with some ambivalence, put Army units on alert in case they were needed to get the Veep out alive. It was rumored at the time that Nixon fled incognito dressed in drag as Carmen Miranda.
Carmen Miranda: Or Is It Nixon?
Ike freaked out over Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution and John Kennedy proceeded along the same lines, understanding that no one in America could be elected dog catcher without frantic conniptions at the mere mention of communism. The Bay of Pigs invasion failed miserably and President Kennedy railed about the incompetence of the CIA telling himself,
I’m the President, what can they possibly do to me?
JFK did institute the Alliance for Progress, a massive 80 billion dollar economic aid program… kind of like a Marshall Plan for Latin America. But the Alliance floundered and flopped. The dictators refused to allow fundamental changes such as land reform and crop diversification, and they used the money for their own purposes building soccer stadiums and elaborate police barracks and printing teeshirts reading, NICARAGUA IS FOR LOVERS! President Johnson curtailed funds for the Alliance for Progress and reportedly told critics, “Who cares, there’s no Vietcong in Brazil.”
President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had no sympathy for the indigenous movements rising up in Latin America against the oppressive pro-American right-wing dictators. When the citizens of Chile democratically elected leftist President Salvador Allende, Nixon approved a coup by conservative Chilean generals that resulted in Allende’s murder. To this day, Kissinger refuses to admit culpability and covers his ears when critics chant, “Liar. Liar. Pants on Fire.”
President Gerald Ford was not sure where Latin America was located.
President Jimmy Carter pontificated about “human rights” and threatened to cut American aid to dictators who continued to resist the spread of democracy. The revolution in El Salvador proved it was all just talk, and the United States provided assistance to the side that assassinated Archbishop Óscar Romero and raped and murdered nuns. When an aide asked for a few minutes to discuss Latin American policy during the lead up to the Camp David Accords, Carter reportedly replied, “Not now, I’m trying to do something important.”
Archbishop Óscar Romero: A True Martyr For Justice and Peace
After the debacles of Vietnam and Watergate, the United States really needed something to feel good about. President Ronald Reagan’s easy butt-kicking of the left leaning government on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada served just such a purpose, and a lot of Republican jingoes beat their chests like they had just won a homecoming football game.
Reagan was outraged when a majority of Congress, realizing America’s proxy war in Nicaragua was destroying that country, prohibited further aid to the anti-communist Contras. The Constitution busting Iran-Contra Affair was an attempt to sneak around that and, when asked if he knew anything about it, Reagan reportedly replied, “I drink my milk with a spoon.”
President George H. W. Bush used military force to oust the corrupt dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, who was trafficking drugs into the United States. A panicked Noriega took refuge in the Vatican’s Panamanian Embassy whereupon US troops surrounded the compound and tried to smoke him out by blasting heavy metal music. Supposedly, Noriega held out for as long as he could and only surrendered when the soldiers switched to Barry Manilow songs.
President Bill Clinton pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through Congress, having no idea that in 2016 his wife would have a terrible time trying to explain that one to American factory workers. Other events took his focus off Latin America, which was ironic because Monica Lewinski’s famous blue dress has been said to have been sewn together in a sweat shop in Rio de Janeiro.
President George W. Bush did not show much interest in Latin America once he was assured by the CIA that neither Paraguay nor Uruguay were attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction.
None Of Them Came Close To Making Latin America A Priority
President Barack Obama addressed the challenge of illegal immigration on our southern border by proposing an immigration policy overhaul that includes a sensible and fair path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. But because so many conservative Republican bigots are apoplectic about new immigrants moving into their
Leave It To Beaver neighborhoods, serious discussion on that issue remains in limbo in the black hole that is Congress.
Obama has reached out to Cuba to normalize relations. The more than fifty year embargo of that island has failed utterly to bring about regime change. All it has done is hurt the Cuban people and prevent American investors from making some serious cash down there. Now comes a historic handshake with Cuban President Raúl Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama and a promise by both sides of further engagement to address differences. Even Venezuela’s bellicose President Nicolás Maduro offered some conciliatory comments, possibly out of desperation because even his own official residence has now been impacted by his country’s chronic shortage of toilet paper.
Unfortunately, before you get your hopes up for a genuine improvement in relations between the United States and Latin America, Senator Bob Corker may soon announce that, by his reading of the Constitution, the Senate has both the right and obligation to undermine President Obama’s legacy and sabotage any rapprochement between the United States and Cuba. Then expect a letter penned by Senator Tom Cotton and signed by at least 47 Republican senators – most of whom accept campaign donations from American tobacco companies – to be sent directly to the Cuban President informing him that Congress and only Congress has the right to remove the embargo on Cuban cigars.
Come on, when it comes to United States relations with Latin America over the last couple of centuries, you just have to laugh… because it hurts too much to cry.