The presidency of Barack Obama ushered in a welcome honeymoon period in US-Latin American relations following eight years of the Bush administration’s polarizing policies towards the region. Early optimism has been tempered by the reappearance of tensions in hemispheric relations. They include the rise of Brazil as a regional power, the role of Venezuela and the continued strain in US-Cuban relations. Regional relations are further complicated by China’s growing economic presence in Latin America, increased ties with Iran and Russia, different US and Latin reactions to the June 2009 coup in Honduras, and the crisis response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Still, the US has potential to advance a strategy of substantive, issue oriented engagement designed to rekindle the early goodwill that resulted from Obama’s election to the White House.

Waterloo, Ontario – March 19, 2010 – Jorge Domínguez, a leading Latin American scholar at Harvard University, will give a talk at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) on March 26, as part of the International Governance Speakers Series.

As we approached the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, all eyes were set on health care reform and its ultimate fate in the Congress. In foreign affairs, the war in Afghanistan held center stage. Less attention had been paid to his policy toward Latin America. With a global financial crisis and two wars going on, there was no reason to think the Western Hemisphere would be a priority for the White House.

In early January, 2005, three weeks after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean battered Thailand and many of its neighbours, Jan Egeland, the head of the United Nations Emergency Relief Fund, appeared to undermine his own efforts to raise funds for the crisis by reminding donors that they also had a responsibility to continue to stand by the rest of the world's poor.