Will an Obama admin act differently towards South America?

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

Will an Obama admin act differently towards South America? It may have no choice says Mark Weisbrot

***

Sent to me from Joel at the Real News Network

Obama and the Americas

Will an Obama Administration act differently towards South America? It may have no choice says Mark Weisbrot

Will a probable Obama presidency herald the birth of an Obama doctrine replacing the Monroe doctrine – in terms of a new, more equitable relationship between the US and Latin America? Economist Mark Weisbrot is not so sure.

Although the Obama camp seems to understand slightly better than the McCain camp some ground breaking transformations that took place in Latin America during the Bush years, Weisbrot argues that they will have to be really creative to restore US credibility in the region,  “The United States has lost enormous influence in Latin America over the past decade, in fact I would say that most of Latin America is now more independent of the United States then Europe is.”

Weisbrot says he doesn’t “see Obama as being a transformational president” in terms of changing U.S. policy towards Latin America.  Although he doesn’t discount the possibility given Venezuela’s current strength and independence- “it may change because all the historical forces are going in that direction………they (Obama’s administration) may just decide to accept it.”

The U.S. government fails to understand that real fundamental changes have occurred in Venezuela under the Chavez regime, a regime with a 76% approval rating that has effectively created a democratic state. According to Weisbrot “most of what you’re seeing in the U.S. media is false and misleading.”