Michael Shifter
Michael Shifter
Michael Shifter is President of the Inter-American Dialogue and an Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the Council's journal Foreign Affairs. He is also a member of the Latin American Studies Association, and a contributing editor to Current History...
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There is powerful symbolism in what's happening in Costa Rica. Here is a country with enormous affinity with the United States, where there is a tremendous convergence of shared values ... and even they are not convinced that unquestioned support of the United States is in their best interests.
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Much in the way Fidel Castro did for a half century, he said what a lot of Latin Americans would like to be able to say about the United States in a public forum, but don't and can't afford to.
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She saw the problem, acted well and wisely, and cleaned up the mess. It repairs relations with key countries like Brazil and puts the United States in a much better position to play a leadership role going forward.
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Clearly in Latin America, things are not happening the way the United States would like to see them happen. And the question is: Will the US try to be more engaged and be supportive of the people who believe in the same thing as it does, or will it react to these trends as threats to the US, which could turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy?
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I think he's saying that the U.S. doesn't have to control everything ? that the U.S. is able to sort of yield, and when it does, things can go well,
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When you have that amount of concentrated power, bad things tend to happen.
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Those words must have been welcome to anxious business groups, who feared a fiercely confrontational tone. He hit some conciliatory notes.
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The fact that he is going is a credit to him, because there was a lot of speculation he wouldn't,
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The question is, when it comes time to confront those policy decisions, whether that could create more violence or unrest.
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Unless Flores embarks on ... social reform aimed at addressing the country's exclusion and inequality, political unrest could mount during her presidency.
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The possibility we'll have another Chavez acolyte in Peru represents a serious challenge to the economic model and a threat to democracy.
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With this move, he risks alienating natural and otherwise sympathetic partners like Brazil and Spain. Ordering the military to seize the natural gas fields is unnecessarily confrontational and antagonistic.
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Brazil is an absolutely critical player in the hemisphere. There is a limit to how much progress the U.S. can make on any issue, free trade included, without Brazil's support and cooperation.
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Brazil is an absolutely critical player in the hemisphere, ... There is a limit to how much progress the U.S. can make on any issue, free trade included, without Brazil's support and cooperation.