What do the notorious drug trafficker, Walid Makled Garcia, Barak Obama, and Hugo Chávez all have in common? They are all, either directly or indirectly, contributing toward the loss of the key US ally in Latin America.
Barak Obama has kept Colombia at arms length throughout his time in the White House. While the free trade agreement between Bogotá and Washington seems to have enough left in the tank to crawl over the finish line, Obama’s recent tour of Latin America made no time for a trip to El país del Sagrado Corazón. The days of Uribe and his close relationship with the Bush administration are gone. In their place, a cooler climate has emerged in which Juan Manuel Santos has understandably allowed realism to creep in.
Santos’ stand-out foreign policy agenda has been the warming of the relationship between Bogotá and Caracas; from foes to friends in roundabout a year. The showpiece of this renaissance is the decision to extradite Walid Makled Garcia, the drug trafficker who has shot to fame by claiming collaboration with some of Chávez’s most senior staff, to Venezuela, and not the US as originally scheduled. In return for this cover-up opportunity, Chávez has offered payment of circa $1 billion Venezuela owes to Colombian exporters and to end the foreign policy crisis between the two countries once and for all.
The rationale behind Santos’ shift is clear: he is seeking to reintegrate Colombia back into the Latin American neighbourhood since playing the right-hand-man to the US under the Obama administration is proving a gamble.
Obama has been weak on the Chávez issue, disappointing once again on his recent Latin American tour, this time in failing to even mention the crackpot authoritarian. And his weak leadership is costing the US. As the security situation in Colombia clears drastically (an achievement in which the US can claim a great deal of credit), could it be Chávez who takes advantage of the opportunity to invest? After years of heavy hand-outs, don’t blow it now Obama.
Good to read.
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