Latin America and US lawmakers strengthen ties ahead of crucial elections

Latin America is attracting the attention of US policymakers eager to establish ties in an often ignored region with growing geopolitical and economic influence.

This month, bicameral groups visited authorities in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala, seeking to expand their presence among regional powers at a crossroads following recent elections in the first two.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) led the delegation to Mexico, where lawmakers met with outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who in October will be sworn in as the first female and the first Jewish head of state in North America.

“Electing the first woman in the history of the country and not only that, a Jewish woman, in a country where the population is overwhelmingly Catholic – something is happening there. And I think it’s good. I think it’s encouraging,” Carper told The Hill.

Although Sheinbaum is López Obrador’s political protégé and chosen successor, the two have distinct personalities and backgrounds.

“Sheinbaum’s election is an opportunity for Mexico to reconnect with the US Congress after years of neglect by the AMLO administration, which chose to focus almost exclusively on the White House and the executive branch and at times openly attacked the Republican Party ,” said Duncan Wood. president of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Mexico’s disengagement with the US legislative branch has been chronic: diplomats frequently point out that in Washington, Mexico has the large embassy closest to the White House, while Canada’s, on the other hand, is within sight of the Capitol.

And most Latin American countries, with the notable exception of Colombia, have also historically centered their operations in Washington at the White House.

This focus on executive power carries a great risk – when administrations focus their diplomatic efforts on other regions, Latin American issues often fall completely off Washington’s radar.

House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairwoman María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) accused the Biden administration at a hearing this week of ignoring the region, while Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, defended the government’s stance before that. weekend elections in Venezuela.

“Over the last four years, President Biden and Vice President Harris have made it clear that Latin America is not a priority for this country,” Salazar said. “These decisions are disastrous for our economy, our national security and the well-being of our allies. If we lose Latin America, we will lose our home. Let’s wake up and defend our hemisphere.”

Biden in 2022 named former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) as his presidential adviser on Latin America; Dodd joined leaders from across the region who favor closed-door talks with a U.S. agent close to the president.

Congress, an institution that likes to be courted in public, has often prioritized its connections to Europe, the Middle East and East Asia.

But Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.) last week led a congressional delegation to Argentina — with additional stops in Brazil and Guatemala — to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the bombing in 1994 against the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA). where 85 people died and more than 300 were injured.

“When I first went to Argentina for the 10th anniversary of AMIA, there were no – I don’t remember any delegations from Congress or global Jewish organizations. It was mainly [the American Jewish Committee (AJC)] and maybe one — today, there were about 500 people from all over the world,” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs at the AJC.

Ironically, the re-prioritization of the AMIA attack and the high-profile guest list for the anniversary were due both to the normalization of Judaism in the deeply Catholic region and to the rise of anti-Semitism around the world.

Argentine President Javier Milei, a libertarian populist who was raised Catholic and took office in December, has taken public interest in Jewish mysticism and said he might convert.

His new passion for Jewish religious rites dovetailed well with his public support for Israel in the war against Hamas – a position not shared by many Latin American leaders – but it also aligned him with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last month granted Milei the Order of Freedom to honor the Argentine president’s support for Ukraine amid the Russian invasion.

For Democrats like Cardin, Milei’s aggressive pro-Ukraine stance is par for the course with a foreign leader who openly praised former President Trump and connected with ultraconservative movements in the US and Europe.

“We received an extremely warm welcome from him, we got along well. I mean, he – he’s very pro-USA. I don’t see him as a partisan figure. I think, as I told him and the ambassador, he says things that are very attractive to Democrats — very strongly pro-Ukraine, see it the way we see it,” Cardin told reporters in a call Tuesday.

Latin American leaders have historically avoided taking sides in geopolitics, in part because the region is relatively isolated from flashpoints and in part because of a lingering distrust in the international aspirations of the U.S. and Europe.

But Latin America is taking on new geopolitical importance, not only as a source of natural resources and migration, but also as a target of Russian influence and Chinese investment in the Western Hemisphere and, in the case of Mexico, replacing China as its main partner. United States trade. .

“We are working to reduce our dependence on trade with China and to encourage nearshoring and fair trade, which strengthens the economies of countries like Mexico and the south there. And by strengthening their economies, it provides an incentive for people who live in those southern countries to continue to live in those countries, to work in those countries, and to stay there and raise their families, rather than trying to cross the border. [to] enter the US,” said Carper.

While Milei’s pro-Western approach is unlikely to resonate with his colleagues in the region, especially left-wing leaders including Sheinbaum, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Chile’s Gabriel Boric, three decades of free trade between the The United States and Mexico have proven that the United States and Latin American countries can peacefully share these economic incentives.

Experts say foreign adversaries such as Russia and Iran seek to reignite distrust between the US and Latin America and sow instability in the Americas through any means necessary, including by fomenting anti-Semitism.

National Intelligence Director Avril Haines “several weeks ago identified Iran as responsible for fomenting anti-Semitism in the camps beyond, and they have clear evidence that this is happening and it is also happening in Latin America,” said SiegelVann[NationalIntelligenceAvrilHaines”severalweeksagoidentifiedIranasbeingresponsibleforstokinganti-Semitismmincampusesandbeyondandtheyhaveclearevidencethat’shappeningAndthat’salsohappeninginLatinAmerica”saidSiegelVann[InteligênciaNacionalAvrilHaines“háváriassemanasidentificouoIrãcomoresponsávelporfomentaroantissemitismonoscampiealémeelestêmevidênciasclarasdequeissoestáacontecendoEissotambémestáacontecendonaAméricaLatina”disseSiegelVann[NationalIntelligenceAvrilHaines”severalweeksagoidentifiedIranasbeingresponsibleforstokingantisemitismincampusesandbeyondandtheyhaveclearevidencethat’shappeningAndthat’salsohappeninginLatinAmerica”saidSiegelVann

“We also have Russia. Let’s remember that Mexico has also been identified as a country that has a lot of Russian spies and, you know, there is even a Russia-Mexico friendship policy convention in Congress, in the Mexican Congress, even after Ukraine.”

As the US elections approach, some Latin American officials are preparing for a potential second Trump presidency, and some like Milei – ideologically aligned and geographically isolated from Trump – could benefit from a like-minded character in the White House .

Sheinbaum, an avowed leftist who is not as transactional as López Obrador, would likely suffer more headaches co-managing a 2,000-mile border and $800 billion business relationship with Trump.

“Obviously, Claudia would do better with Harris – a continuation of Biden’s policies – than with Trump, who attacks Mexico as part of his populist campaign.” Senator J.D. Vance (Ohio), the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee, “has observed how Trump takes the easy way out of finding foreign culpability in the problems of the working class in the United States,” said a former Mexican diplomat and member of the Wilson Center Mexico Institute.

Carper, who is not seeking reelection, said the U.S. election could determine whether the two neighbors build on 30 years of integration or whether that progress stalls.

“I think the likelihood of us taking positive advantage of the great progress we’ve made in improving our relations, in deepening our economic interest, I think with Kamala as president, and with President Sheinbaum, I think it will only get better. President Trump, I don’t know. I’ll be generous, I’m just not very encouraged by the fact that the progress we’ve been making for years is likely to continue, and we need that to continue, both countries need that to continue,” said Carper.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story