Biden’s plan finally turns lost US attention to Latin America

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Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana hints at common ground with President Biden on Latin America,

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana hints at common ground with President Biden on Latin America,

AP Photo

The Biden administration’s announcement that it will begin negotiations with 11 Latin American and Caribbean nations to create a hemispheric economic cooperation agreement has not generated a lot of enthusiasm. Most countries see it as too vague, and too timid, to get excited about.

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But it’s a welcome sign that Washington is beginning to talk about Latin America as an opportunity, after years of seeing the region as a nuisance.

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The China factor — the fear of further disruptions in U.S. supply chains from because of pandemics or trade tensions, as well as China’s growing inroads into Latin America — is starting to move some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, to turn their attention to the Western hemisphere, which is long overdue.

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Biden’s Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), originally announced at the June Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and launched on Jan. 27, includes Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Barbados.

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Not included, at least for now, are South America’s two biggest countries, Brazil and Argentina. U.S. officials say the list of participants may grow as negotiations go forward.

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Biden’s APEP is a far cry from the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas that former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush pushed for in the 1990s and early 2000s.

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Rather than seeking a hemisphere-wide free-trade agreement, it calls for greater cooperation to promote labor standards, solving supply chain bottlenecks, coordinating pandemic responses and working together on climate issues.

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Jose Fernandez, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, told me in an interview that the plan is not centered on reducing trade tariffs, because eight of the participating countries already have free-trade agreements with the United States.

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“We’re trying to find ways to make the region much more competitive, because what companies tell me almost daily is that, “I don’t want to invest in Country ‘X’ in Latin America because there is too much uncertainty, there’s too much bureaucracy, there’s not enough transparency there,” Fernandez said. “So what we’re trying to accomplish jointly is to help each other become more competitive.”

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The political climate for an inter-American economic deal is far from ideal. Most South American countries are ruled by leftist or left-of-center governments, many of which have little appetite for closer economic ties with Washington.

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And Biden faces strong resistance at home to new free-trade deals. Many labor unions and key sectors of Biden’s own Democratic Party believe that free-trade deals hurt U.S. workers; an increasingly nationalist “America First” Republican Party thinks along the same lines.

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“Many doubt that the Biden administration will risk any headline-grabbing trade and investment accords as the 2024 elections draw near,” wrote Richard Feinberg, a former Clinton administration official, in the Global Americans blog.

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He added that “with Florida and Texas increasingly appearing to be out of reach for the Democratic Party, the path to the White House runs through the Rust Belt states, where politicians eschew any positive mention of international investment and trade — associated there with economic dislocation and job loss — like the plague.”

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That’s very true. But, as Feinberg admits, the China factor is drawing growing interest in Latin America from both parties in Washington.

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Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, is circulating a draft bill called Americas Act that would gradually expand the U.S.-Canada-Mexico free-trade agreement to all democracies in Latin America willing to join it. Senate Democrats are studying the proposal and may co-sponsor it.

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Asked about Biden’s APEP plan, Cassidy told me in an email that, “We need a policy for Latin America that lasts longer than an election cycle” and it should be “focused on lowering trade barriers.” He added, “It’s good the White House has joined the conversation, but our Americas Act offers a stronger approach.”

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That’s not exactly an endorsement of Biden’s plan, but — in Washington’s climate of political polarization — it sounds like a sign that both parties can find common ground.

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It’s too early to know whether APEP will materialize. But the mere fact that people at both sides of the aisle are beginning to talk about improving economic ties with Latin America is reason for hope — and we have China to thank.

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Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 7 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera

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