Port of Spain is not Prague. For one thing, the weather forecast calls for average temperatures around 90 degrees this weekend. But when President Obama arrives in the Caribbean on Friday for the fifth Summit of the Americas, climate will not be the only dramatic change from his recent European travels.
Festive will replace formal. Steel band music will replace pomp and circumstance. And the expectations will be almost reversed, too. Obama went to Europe asking for help with the world economic crisis and the war in Afghanistan; there is some debate about how disappointed he should have been with the European response.
But when the 34 summit member countries convene in the Trinidad and Tobago capital, Obama will be the one in a position to disappoint or deliver. Latin America has managed to escape the worst of the economic meltdown so far. Their primary concern now is how to keep U.S. troubles at bay and how soon Obama can engineer some kind of recovery. The ability to develop Western hemisphere countries to stave economic collapse may be one of the best indicators of the potential for a global recovery.
“Considering that he won't be able to deliver the big U.S. aid increases to the region that he promised during the campaign,” writes veteran journalist Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, noting that the president is already under attack at home for spending too much. “…Obama may focus on a few less grandiose but politically doable economic goals.”
Among other things, Oppenheimer suggests that Obama makes sure that some of the trillion dollars pledged to the IMF for global stimulus makes its way into the economies of the region.
The advertised theme of the Port of Spain Summit sounds like something right out of the Obama campaign: “Securing our citizens’ future by promoting human prosperity, energy security and environmental sustainability,” but the big issues on the table will be about what the United States is willing to do to prevent the global crisis from consuming the modest growth that has been taking place in the region over the last five years.
There are troubling signs. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the seven largest economies in the region grew by 5.8 percent from 2003 to 2007. Those same countries, the bank predicts, will see growth of less than 2 percent between now and 2013. And research from the World Bank says that the number of poor people in the region will grow by almost six million in 2009.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service: “Rising food prices and the global financial crisis threaten to erase the economic and social gains of the past decade in many countries of the region. Indeed, citizens of 17 of the 18 Latin American countries surveyed by Latinobarómetro in 2008 listed economic problems as the most important challenges facing their countries.” And the problems are so severe in some places, the report notes “…53 percent of all Latin Americans [are] saying they would be willing to live under an undemocratic government if it could solve their countries’ economic problems.”
That ought to make the “Strengthening Democratic Governance” portion of the event particularly interesting, even with Cuba absent.
Obama, undoubtedly, will be the star of the show, not only because he’s still a star just about everywhere or because American presidents tend to be stars at these gatherings, but also because the racial breakthrough Obama’s election represents carries special resonance in a country where the population is more than 90 percent non-white.
Obama’s decision to begin lifting restrictions on U.S. engagement with Cuba will only serve to heighten his popularity in the region, and it is fair to expect that the reception he receives will be considerably warmer than that extended to President Bush in Mar de Plata, Argentina at the last Summit of the Americas in 2005. Bush arrived to violent protests, bombings in the streets and more than 25,000 people shouting anti-American slogans.
Obama’s chief advantage at the moment is benefit of the doubt. There is a sense, particularly after he promised moves on Cuba, that this Summit could set a more hopeful tone for improved relations in the Western hemisphere. Still, there will be questions on how to deal with Caribbean tax havens, on unrelenting poverty in Haiti and on strained relations with Venezuela. And, of course, there will be that pressing age-old question: Does Washington have a Latin American and Caribbean foreign policy?
A reason for optimism is the hope that comes with a changing of the guard, as represented by Obama, but also by the other heads of state attending for the first time. There are new presidents in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru.
In advance of the summit, the president issued a proclamation recognizing Pan American Day and Pan America Week 2009. In broad strokes, it celebrates cooperation and unity among the nations of the Western hemisphere.
“Robust, bottom-up economic growth benefits all citizens and all nations, and remains a central goal of the Pan American community,” the proclamation notes. “Together, the countries of the Americas can prioritize and enact policies that ensure a shared and equitable economic prosperity.”
There is a saying in Trinidad—“we don’t live so”—which basically means “that is not how we live.” With typical Caribbean nonchalance and understatement, it is used most often to chide people for not living up to expectations, particularly in their treatment of others.
“The United States recognizes the common challenges and aspirations that unite the region and the boundless promise of our continuing partnership,” Obama says hopefully in his proclamation.
To those listening in Port of Spain, they hear in those words echoes of: “We don’t live so.” For now at least, countries in the region trust he understands how the U.S. should be living in relation to its American neighbors. Obama may not get the lingo, but they hope he gets the meaning.
Terence Samuel is deputy editor of The Root.