Press Memorandum: Latin America: The Bush Administration's Disappeared Foreign Policy and Kerry's Future Vision for the Region

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Council On Hemispheric Affairs
Monitoring Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western Hemisphere
Memorandum to the Press 04.77

Word Count: 1750

Monday, 25 October 2004

Latin America: The Bush Administration’s Disappeared Foreign Policy and Kerry’s Future Vision for the Region

• Negative opinions of the United States have mushroomed in Latin America since George W. Bush took office.

• The Bush Administration has done little to improve its strained relationship with the region; in fact it has increased tensions by offering pitiful economic assistance to the region, intervening in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, supporting coups d’état and insulting or threatening government heads and leading citizens in the region.

• Candidate John Kerry’s “Community of the Americas” plan offers greater hope for the future of U.S. – Latin American relations.

What Latin America is Thinking
According to a survey recently conducted by the Santiago-based polling firm Latinobarometro, negative opinions of the United States held throughout Latin America and the Caribbean have doubled since President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Voice of the People, an international polling service, reported that only in the Middle East is the general attitude towards the United States harsher than in Latin America. Last March, these opinions were physically manifested when all across Latin America, tens of thousands of angry citizens took to the streets in fiery anti-Bush demonstrations protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq one year earlier.

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This analysis was prepared by Anna Ioakimedes, COHA Research Associate.

October 25, 2004

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