Another Obama speech that didn’t mention Latin America
A guest piece by Silvio Canto JR.
It is getting harder and harder to take President Obama seriously. Can someone explain to me how last week’s “campaign speech” contributed to fixing our problems, or even understand them?
I agree with The Dallas Morning News: President offers programs but no debt solution
He wants Congress to vote but forgets to tell us that the Senate Democrats have not passed a budget or even brought any of the Obama proposals to a vote. Does anybody remember the last time that the Senate Democrats put a serious issue to a vote?
Am I the only one who feels insulted by this man’s total lack of seriousness or disregard for reality?
Tuesday night, President Obama continued his disregard for Latin America. I guess that President Obama must think that Latinos just spend the whole day thinking about “immigration reform” or anticipating ”5 de Mayo” speeches.
Down under, and I mean south of Texas, we see violence exploding in Central America. The cartels are getting crushed in Mexico so they are finding fertile terrain in little countries like Guatemala and Honduras.
We spoke yesterday on my show with Ray Walser of The Heritage Foundation & Juan Gutierrez, a businessman who ran for president of Guatemala. They are both alarmed by what is happening in the region.
Even more dangerous, we see growing signs of Iran’s influence in Latin America.
Benny Avni reminds us of the Caracas-Tehran romance that will not promote US interests in the region:
“Western intelligence agencies have been watching Venezuela’s dealings with Iran with increasing alarm. Iran and its allies (including Syrian President Bashar Assad) get gasoline from Venezuela, which in return buys Iranian know-how – perhaps in housing, but surely in arms and other sinister stuff.
Trade between Iran and Latin America rose to $3.6 billion in 2011. With the exception of Brazil, the largest trading partners (Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela) were largely motivated by anti-Americanism.” (Avni)
This is happening 3 hours south of Miami!
President Obama’s indifference has divided Latin America into two blocs: The leftists who love preaching socialism and doing business with Iran; and the success stories, like Colombia, Peru, Chile & Mexico, who must be wondering if President Obama understands what is happening south of the border.
Frankly, it’s frightening to watch how President Obama has mastered the art of pandering, from calls for minimum wage & telling “hispanos” what they want to hear.
At the same time, it is even more frightening to see how Latin America is getting away from us because we have a leader who does not understand that “leadership” is also part of the job description.
Silvio Canto JR is author of the book, Cubanos in Wisconson, runs the US/Latin American talk radio show and writes here
It’s a shame that this article tries to use disingenuous tactics to discredit the Democrats and Obama by completely ignoring the issue imposed by the obstructive Republican and Tea Party legislators.
The failure to /pass/ a budget rests squarely on the shoulders of the Republican party due to the fact that they continually revise their demands for budget cuts (they fail to reach a consensus amongst themselves) and because their EXPLICIT intention is to damage the country’s economic strength under Obama’s term so as to ruin the political capital of the Democratic party.
The Republicans are touting privatization of nearly every important service of the government, which would lead to a free for all monopolistic grant to major corporations whom continually export wealth away from the country and exploit the resources of the USA and around the world. The major issues involve health care, higher education, and the financial sector.
If the Republicans were to achieve power (beyond simple obstruction) in the US, Latin America will feel the pain of reduced support in the form of aid and security, and increased imperialistic activity and exploitation by multinational corporations run amok.
I’m very disappointed by the poverty of this analysis. Explaining, Latin American politics based on right and left labels hides several layers that define the foreign policy of individual countries as well as their posture at the Sub-Regions in Latin America. It does not address the implications for the United States in terms of foreign policy nor it gives substantive arguments regarding the impact in the Relations Between the US of A and Latin América.
Thanks for your comments Myriam, I´ll pass them on to the author of this article. I´m sure he´ll disagree, but thanks for your comments.