In a recent speech in Washington, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan laid out the Biden administration’s policy approach to the Middle East. That strategy has come under criticism, including questions about whether the U.S. should maintain its military—and even political—engagement with the region. Similarly, the administration released a strategy document in February 2022 outlining its priorities for the Indo-Pacific. But there remains much debate in Washington over U.S. policy in the region, particularly how it should balance interests in Europe with emerging threats from China. Even the crisis unfolding in Sudan has renewed discussions about the role the U.S. should play in Africa.
But a key region seems to be flying under the radar: Latin America. What is U.S. policy toward its own neighborhood? Does the U.S. even have a policy toward the region?
At best, one could say that U.S. policy toward Latin America is a piecemeal and inconsistent amalgam of sporadic attempts at engagement. A case in point is last year’s failed Summit of the Americas, when a number of key regional leaders declined to even attend after Washington excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the gathering. The lack of coherence is unfortunate. We can debate U.S. engagement in Asia, Europe and the Middle East ad nauseum, and often do. But all of that takes a back seat to the importance of U.S. engagement to solidify relations with its neighbors.
First, while the U.S. public is largely indifferent to international affairs, there is one international policy issue that grabs their attention: immigration. This in turn points to the importance of U.S. relations with its immediate southern neighbors, as Latin American countries are the largest source of immigration into the United States.
But rather than engaging with these countries in ways that could meaningfully reduce the “push” factors driving people to leave their homes, the administration of President Joe Biden has continued a policy of walling the U.S. off from immigrants—and the region. As Stephanie Brewer of the Washington Office on Latin America argued last week in World Politics Review, “Under Biden, U.S. officials have prioritized a reduction of northbound migration at the border with Mexico at any cost.”
In addition to being ineffective, this goes directly against Biden’s promise to reverse course from the Trump administration on the issue to adopt a “root causes” approach to immigration. Former President Donald Trump’s “build the wall” mantra and the policies of his administration that grew out of it were shortsighted, hurtful and xenophobic. But at least he was consistent on the matter: He didn’t want immigration from Latin America and took steps to stop it. There is no such consistency to be found between the Biden administration’s declared intentions and its policies.
If a key pillar of the Biden administration’s foreign policy is creating a world that is safe for democracy, then there is no region of the world more important to that effort than Latin America.
Second, if a key pillar of Biden’s foreign policy is creating a world that is safe for democracy, then there is no region of the world more important to that effort than Latin America. According to Freedom House’s most recent Freedom in the World Report, less than 10 percent of the Americas’ population lives in “not free” societies, the only region in the world where that is the case. The vast majority of countries throughout the Western Hemisphere are “free” or “partly free.”
But the Freedom House report also notes that “the countries of the region continue to grapple with serious threats to political stability and fundamental rights.” Many of these democracies are relatively young, having transitioned away from military dictatorships in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the intervening decades, democracy has hung precariously in the balance in many countries across the region.
A notable recent example is Brazil, where supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government offices following the inauguration of his successor in January. In Venezuela, the country’s slide into dictatorship culminated in a presidential election in 2018 so illegitimate that many countries—including most of Venezuela’s regional neighbors—recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legal interim president. Even the United States’ next-door neighbor, Mexico, is experiencing democratic erosion under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Rather than seeking to shore up or establish democracies in other far-flung regions, the U.S. should be prioritizing the protection of democracy in its own neighborhood. But other than making statements to that effect, the U.S. is doing nothing to advance this objective.
Third and related, if a primary goal of U.S. policy in the 21st century is countering China’s influence in the world, particularly economically, then the U.S. must do more to stave off that influence in the Western Hemisphere. Latin American countries are increasingly finding China to be an attractive alternative to U.S. leadership. Part of that allure is economic, as China has steadily grown as a key source of investment to the region. With the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation multilateral forum largely defunct and the U.S. having closed the door to participation in trade agreements like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is no wonder that Latin American countries have few qualms about looking elsewhere—including toward China—for economic exchange.
But ideology also plays a role in China’s growing appeal to Latin American countries. Despite those who claim that the Global South should be grateful to the U.S. for the economic benefits generated by the post-World War II liberal international order, the truth is that many nations in the Global South chafe at U.S. hegemony. That is particularly the case in Latin America, where memories of Washington’s active support for Cold War-era dictatorships still rankle. These countries insist that the “rules” of the rules-based order must also apply to the U.S. and other major powers, and not just to the “developing world,” as has often been the case. Perceptions of hypocrisy are less evident in the case of China, which seemingly takes a “no questions asked” and no-strings-attached approach to international engagement. This may well explain why the largest country in South America, Brazil, is more closely aligning with China—and Russia—via the BRICS grouping comprising those three countries as well as India and South Africa.
The importance of the region for U.S. competition with China is well illustrated by Paraguay. While lacking the United States’ military might and influence, it is doing something that Washington stopped doing 50 years ago: diplomatically recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Of course, the stakes are much lower for Paraguay than for the U.S., as China is likely to view recognition of Taiwan by the U.S. as a threat, whereas by Paraguay it is little more than an annoyance. But it shows that Washington could be doing more to support Latin American countries that clearly have an ideological alignment with the United States.
Until World War I, and even long after, Latin America was the primary focus of U.S. foreign policy, embodied in the “Monroe Doctrine,” which aimed to prevent interference by European colonial powers in the region. While no one is advocating a return to the domineering and paternalistic nature of that policy, the Biden administration should return to the fundamental principle underpinning the Monroe Doctrine—that Latin America is the core interest of U.S. foreign policy. Doing so will require something that the Biden administration has thus far failed to come up with: a coherent policy toward the region.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.