Pass trade pact with Panama

(MiamiHerald ) A hot issue in the new Congress, and one of the areas that could gain bipartisan support, will be free-trade deals in Latin America, specifically with Colombia and Panama.

Because we want to stop the flow of drugs to the United States from the South, and alternative crops would reduce drug cultivation, it’s common sense to do everything possible to promote legitimate-product trade deals with Latin America. On Dec. 4 the United States and South Korea concluded a free-trade agreement that will hopefully be profitable — experts say possibly by billions of dollars — to the United States.

Yet the Colombian deal is languishing. The Colombia trade agreement was negotiated three years ago. But there is now hope. The new Congress may be more supportive.

The United States has serious work to do in Latin American countries.

On the morning following the rescue of 33 Chilean miners, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera thanked the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, the Israeli Prime Minister and the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister for their help. Missing: the USA.

America’s NASA created the escape capsule. U.S. companies made the drill. U.S. psychiatrists and scientists led the closed-space survival and health monitoring strategies. Regardless, the Chilean president’s immediate thanks were to a host of other countries. Only a full day after the worldwide publicized congratulations and thanks in the Chilean president’s speech to every country but ours was there an Obama-Piñera telephone exchange. Damage control was done after the fact.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right when she said, “I thought the president of Chile and his government and all the experts, including ours from NASA and elsewhere, just had a superb cooperative effort.” But why would the president of the country whose high profile problem we largely solved give no credit to us?

Are Latin American leaders so jealous, and at the same time so afraid, of the Yankee and Big Brother image we’ve had in the past that political survival means ignoring us?

It was not always so. Consider the throngs that surrounded John and Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s on their trips south of the border. The videos, now online, document the tons of confetti thrown around them and the hundreds of thousands of supporters cheering as their car weaved through parade routes.

Clinton’s challenge is to revitalize relations with Latin America and South America. A revamped Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress and Thousand Points of Light — the real “people to people” programs the United States has offered in the past but has since emasculated — could make a huge difference.

Our Latin American volunteer programs have crashed to near zero. Every country in Central America now has fewer than 250 Peace Corps volunteers. South America is even worse. Venezuela’s program closed in 1977, Brazil’s in 1981, Argentina’s in 1994, Uruguay’s in 1997 and Chile’s in 1998. Bolivia’s is currently suspended with zero volunteers. Colombia, a country that would benefit from a large volunteer base to develop crops other than drugs, has nine volunteers total. There are only 807 Peace Corps volunteers in all of South America.

The Alliance for Progress, which helped reduce illiteracy and doubled or tripled college attendance in many countries, was dissolved in 1973 (under Nixon and Ford) likely because it was a Kennedy creation. It may be no coincidence that without such people programs, 13 of the 22 governments in South America at times have turned into military dictatorships.

Clinton must begin a discussion with the Peace Corps about reopening countries, including Chile, and should dramatically increase volunteers in critical countries like Colombia. In addition, she should revitalize the Alliance for Progress. In the spirit of bipartisan efforts, she could encourage a Thousand Points of Light organization in Latin America — it now only exists in the United States.

People-to-people programs work. It’s time to rejuvenate the relationships between the United States and Latin America. Trade deals can turn economics into popular support for the United States. The Chilean miners are a lesson — and Clinton’s challenge.

Robert Weiner is a former spokesman for the White House National Drug Policy Office and was chief of staff for Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Miami). Caitlin Harrison is a senior policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates.