Latin America will not be a major U.S. concern over President George W. Bush's next four years in the Oval Office, according to a panel during a discussion titled "Impact of the Elections on U.S. Policy toward Latin America" held in Kay Spiritual Life Center yesterday.
"Frankly, the Latin American agenda is not the U.S. agenda, and it is not the Bush agenda, either," said Vice President of International Affairs Dr. Robert Pastor.
Pastor, a former White House adviser on Latin America, listed the war in Iraq as an important issue, noting that Iraq was nearly the only foreign policy issue discussed in the first presidential debate.
William Leogrande, dean of the School of Public Affairs, highlighted the United States' lack of interest in Latin American affairs as a major problem.
"The next Bush administration is not going to pay much attention to Latin America," Leogrande said. "That means that the policy in Latin America is going to be left [to] mid-level officials, giving them enormous discretion and control in shaping policy."
However, Sergio Aguayo, founder of Alianza Civica Mexico, a civil society organization, said Latin Americans have different takes on Bush's re-election.
"The truth is that Bush will be in the White House for the next four years," he said. "In Latin America, we are extremely divided about how to deal with the Bush administration."
However, Kimberly Stanton, deputy director of the Washington Office on Latin America, said that although Latin Americans saw no significant differences in Bush's and Kerry's platforms toward the region, the Washington Office "saw Kerry as a more capable candidate."
She said that Bush's foreign policy in the next four years would consider trade agreements and securing collaboration in the war on terror as its top priorities in Latin America.
Margaret Daly Hayes, a political scientist and principal of EBR Associates, which helps companies find employees, discussed the possible problems with future Latin American foreign policy.
"We want the region to respond to our policy issues and aren't necessarily interested in what Latin America is concerned about," said Hayes, a former faculty member at National Defense University. "We need to think about the situation from a Latin American perspective as well as our own."
School of International Service professor Phil Brenner attended the event to introduce the experts.
During the question-and-answer session, policies on education, free trade and the conflation of the war on drugs with the war on terror were debated.
Some students enjoyed the debate.
"Events like this show the internationalism that AU is known for as far as universities go," said Justin Arrington, a freshman in SIS.
The event, which the Interdisciplinary Council on Latin America and the Society for Awareness of Latin America sponsored, fell on the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Washington Office on Latin America.
"I thought it would be appropriate to host an event in conjunction with [the 30th anniversary]," said Joe Eldridge, university chaplain.
