This week, President George W. Bush began an eight-day tour of five Latin American countries — one of the most extensive trips he has taken to the region during his presidency.

With just two years left in his administration, many are looking to see if the visit will mark a return to the optimism toward developing relations with the region that blossomed at the onset of his first term. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, there were broad expectations that Bush's administration would prioritize hemispheric relations.

Efforts to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas floundered over the past decade due to objections championed by the Brazilian contingent, a concerned focus on the issue would have been the only means of achieving success. The war on terror and subsequent military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan hobbled those efforts significantly.

Between March 8 and 14, Bush will visit five different Latin American countries but the situation in the region is radically different than it was six years ago and the possibility of restarting the initiatives of his first administration seems unlikely.

Admittedly, the rocky road of U.S. trade relations in Latin America predate the Bush administration. In December 1994, President Bill Clinton promised a "Free Trade Area of the Americas from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego" But many in Latin America balked at the perception of the U.S. simply mandating its policies through an expansion of the existing NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Brazil pushed to be recognized on equal terms with its powerful northern neighbor and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez roundly denounced the entire enterprise as part of the ongoing domination of the region by the US.

The efforts to forward the FTAA were declared pretty much dead at the Americas Summit in November 2005 in the Argentine resort of Mar del Plata. The administration's strategy of pursuing a region-wide free-trade zone was swapped for the pursuit of bilateral free trade agreements with individual countries.

Several of these agreements have passed in recent years, most notably the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2002. But several are still awaiting congressional approval (Peru and Colombia) while others have only just begun negotiations (Panama.)

The conflict in Iraq and immigration issues have created a negative perception of the Bush administration worldwide but, as Oxford Analytica's summation of the Bush trip notes, there are two specific points of contention Latin America has in addition to those common issues.

"Stress on free trade and the underdevelopment of a socio-economic dimension in foreign policy has left Washington out of the increasingly mainstream South American debate on poverty," the group wrote last week. "There has been a tendency to view political developments in South America through the lens of security and the Cold War, and a repeated failure to engage with country-specific dynamics that are driving political change."

And these are the two points that Bush's bugbear in South America, Hugo Chavez, has capitalized on with gusto. And the Venezuelan leader is panning to mount his own continental tour during Bush's stay.

Starting in Argentina on the day Bush touches down in neighboring Uruguay, Chavez will then head through Bolivia and Ecuador — countries where leaders sympathetic to his cause have recently been elected. While these stops are certain to be filled with the colorful leaders' fiery rhetoric, the basic message he brings is one many in the region find very realistic — Bush's free trade platform is just another method of U.S. expanding its control over the region.

But simply painting the broad whole of Latin America as pro-Bush or Pro-Chavez is dangerously short-sighted. A report on Bush's visit by Mclachy Newspapers pointed out that both leaders have limited approval rating across the region as a whole.

A poll last fall of 20,000 residents in 18 countries found that Bush and Chavez were equally unpopular, with approval ratings of just 39 percent. Only Fidel Castro fared worse, with 27 percent

Perhaps the key for the Bush visit will be the mini-summit with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Although a moderate socialist, the newly-re-elected Brazilian head of state is considered a loose ally with the Bush administration. Bush has invited Lula to join him later this month at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

It remains to be seen if these meeting can begin to bridge the many divides between the two countries that the free-trade failures amply demonstrate. Patching up relations with the largest single power in Latin America may go a long way toward improving the U.S. standing in the region.

March 12, 2007

You wouldn't put a picture of George Bush with a Hitler moustache and a swastika in your magazine, would you? I'm not sure who decided to superimpose the president's face onto what's obvisously Che Guevara, but I think it's inappropriate for a magazine like ENR. Che was a mass murderer who was responsible for the interment, torture, and murder of thousands of minorities, homosexuals, Jews, and the like during the Cuban and South American revolutions. While this graphic might be appropriate to a publication such as the Village Voice, the New Yorker, etc. that would accompany it with an editorial stating that Bush's policies have been as destructive as Che's, you've done no such thing. You're article seems to be a factual accounting of Bush's efforts in South America that offers no opinions or editorial comment. To accompany it with a graphic that makes a statement such as this one is irresponsible and not worthy of ENR.

Gary Gardner

You're reading way too much into this graphic. The point was that after making huge but unfulfilled promises to his Latin American neighbors early in his first term, George Bush has decided late in his second term to revisit the region. What better way to rekindle the friendship than to "put on a new face" -- one that would no doubt be more warmly received in the streets? Che's misguided revolutionary misdeeds -- that are undeniable, but wildly overstated here -- have been eclipsed by the myth of the doctor-turned-guerilla who challenged yanqui imperialists and fought for the poor and disenfranchised. The world has changed greatly since Guevara's assassination in Bolivia four decades ago. In 1999, Ariel Dorfman wrote in Time magazine that "the peaceful transitions to democracy in Latin America, East Asia and the communist world, have all entailed negotiations with former adversaries, a give and take that could not be farther from Che's unyielding demand for confrontation to the death." One can only hope that Mr. Bush's own attempts to impose his own revolution in Iraq will turn out as well in 2047.

Andrew G. Wright, managing senior editor

March 9 , 2007

I believe you ought to remove the doctored photograph of President Bush in you article "Bush on Tour" and apologize for its use.

Rich Lambert