Obama's Hemi-tour: Next proving ground

by Peter Nicholas

Stepping back onto the world stage, President Barack Obama this week will meet Western Hemisphere leaders at a summit where he hopes to salvage alliances strained by grievances that the Bush administration ignored Latin America in its overriding focus on Iraq and terrorism.

Obama is a popular figure in the region and can expect an enthusiastic welcome in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. But he also will confront deep resentments over U.S. policies that he is reluctant to change. Other leaders want the administration to normalize relations with Cuba and resurrect a ban on the kinds of assault weapons being smuggled into Mexico, commitments Obama is unwilling to make.

Still, Obama is bound to get a better reception than George W. Bush, the least popular American president ever among Latin American countries, polls showed.

At the last summit, held in Argentina four years ago, violent protests broke out, dominating the news. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez himself took part in an anti-American rally of 25,000 people.

"The new president is going to be the focus," said Julia Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. "Even for someone like Hugo Chavez, who at the last summit made himself the focus, it will be virtually impossible to upstage Barack Obama." Prior to this week's trip, U.S. diplomats said a main U.S. goal was a modest one: showing the other nations that Washington wants to be a collegial partner.

See the full story on Obama's Latin American tour in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

In that sense, Obama is sticking to a template established at the recent G-20 summit in London. Heeding criticism that the U.S. tended to operate unilaterally under Bush, Obama is signaling that he wants to listen, as he did in Europe.

Imagery will count for a lot. At the 2005 summit in Argentina, Bush was once seen off by himself as other heads of state and government chatted in small cliques. Obama will be a more sociable presence.

"We see this trip as part of the process of the United States reengaging with this hemisphere," said Jeffrey Davidow, a former ambassador to Mexico and Venezuela who is advising the White House on the trip. Hoping to blunt criticism over the Cuban embargo, the Obama administration announced plans this week to ease travel restrictions.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) recently returned from Cuba after meeting Fidel Castro. In an interview, Rush said that Obama's actions had the effect of deflecting criticism of the U.S. "somewhat." Still, Rush predicted that Cuba will be "the 800-pound gorilla" at the summit.

Mexico may present the thornier diplomatic challenge during Obama's trip.

Obama seems in no hurry to resurrect a U.S. ban on assault weapons to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico. But Mexico wants more on that front.

"It must be said that since the ban expired in 2004, our seizures of assault weapons in Mexico have gone through the roof," Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview. "There's a direct relationship between the expiration of the ban and the increase in assault weapons coming into Mexico and being seized by Mexican authorities."