President Obama, the Crisis, and Latin America

Since his election in 2008, President Barack Obama has tried without success to disguise U.S. military initiatives and the neoconservative milieu inherited from George W. Bush without changing any of the government's strategic goals. He has developed an economic plan similar to that of his predecessor, merely replacing fundamentalist neoliberals with pragmatic ones. More broadly, Latin America has practically been erased from the map in the White House. In particular, his administration has failed to deliver in three areas: ending the Cuban embargo, respecting democratic institutions in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and abandoning its military agenda (the Colombia Plan, the Merida Initiative, the Fourth Fleet). Whatever changes Obama's presence may have introduced into the White House, Latin America remains forgotten.