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Mexico Institute in the News: Obama Keeps Eye on U.S. Politics at Latin America Summit

Andrew Selee

President Barack Obama attended a summit in Latin America that may have as much resonance in domestic politics as in hemispheric economics. Discussions at the meeting of North and South American leaders in the resort city of Cartagena, Colombia, covered trade, economic growth and the battle against drug trafficking.

Bloomberg, April 13, 2012

President Barack Obama leaves today for a trip to a summit in Latin America that may have as much resonance in domestic politics as in hemispheric economics.

Discussions at the meeting of North and South American leaders in the resort city of Cartagena, Colombia, will cover trade, economic growth and the battle against drug trafficking. Yet the White House is mindful that about 16 percent of U.S. residents trace their roots to the region, and that group may play an outsized role in the November presidential election…

…Latin America managed to largely escape the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Brazil (BZGDYOY%) is the world’s sixth largest economy, and the ranks of the middle class have swelled. The World Bank classifies most countries in the region as middle- income or higher. As countries in the region have grown more prosperous, they are less reliant on the U.S., the world’s biggest economy. That growth also comes as the Obama administration has made a deliberate pivot to focus more on Asia.

[President Obama] is “quite comfortable with the diminished role of the United States in the hemisphere” and that it’s “the natural order of things”

said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.

“The U.S. is going to continue to be engaged but no longer has the domineering authority it once did"

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About the Author

Andrew Selee

Andrew Selee

Former Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute;
President, Migration Policy Institute
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Mexico Institute

The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. A binational Advisory Board, chaired by Luis Téllez and Earl Anthony Wayne, oversees the work of the Mexico Institute.   Read more

Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more