American hegemony is undergoing a transformation – the once dominant Washington must now submit to the needs and demands of smaller geopolitical players.
Last month, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and a group of senior US officials boarded a plane bound for Mexico City to try to stop Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from delivering a planned fiery speech condemning the alleged US violation of Mexico’s national sovereignty. A trade dispute was brewing between US and Canadian officials and their Mexican counterparts over alleged Mexican favoritism in awarding contracts to local energy companies. Under normal circumstances, differences would have been resolved through the mechanisms of the Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. But the Mexican president is not a standard institutionalist.
For decades, Washington has been Latin America’s pillar of immigration, trade, drug policy, democracy, and human rights. The US leadership developed many free trade agreements and bilateral programs that seemed to help solve these problems. But in recent years, the United States has become hostage to this framework of engagement with the region. Trite platitudes and incoherent policies have challenged conventional wisdom about partnering with the US, all at a time when domestic US concerns about immigration and drugs are intensifying.
Once dominant in the Western Hemisphere, Washington turns out to be an unexpectedly weak partner, seeking to attract other countries rather than the other way around.
Blinken’s trip to South America, which also included stops in Peru and Chile, demonstrated the willingness of the United States to work with a new generation of elected leaders in the region. Many of these countries share domestic problems similar to those of the United States, including inequality and migration. But it is not clear whether the United States will seize this opportunity to develop meaningful and modern cooperation with Latin America, or whether it will continue to settle for low-attendance summits, infrequent high-level visits, and largely impotent sanctions.
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