President George W. Bush has been a riot in Argentina:
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina – More than 1,000 demonstrators angry about President Bush’s policies clashed with police, shattered storefronts and torched businesses Friday, marring the inauguration of the Summit of the Americas as leaders began debating creation of one of the world’s largest free trade zones.
The violence reflected the often violent, worldwide debate on free trade as the United States and Mexico pushed to relaunch talks on creating a free trade area stretching from Canada to Chile. Past summits on free trade — including last year’s summit of Asian-Pacific leaders in Chile — have drawn bitter opposition and similar angry protests.
This AP story notes that Bush’s ideas have been opposed by his Latin-American nemesis Hugo Chavez:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez emerged as the most strident opponent of the plan, addressing more than 10,000 protesters hours before the summit convened in this normally tranquil seaside resort.
Chavez vowed to defeat the Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, once and for all. Speaking before a six-story banner of revolutionary Che Guevara, Chavez urged the throng — including soccer great Diego Maradona and Bolivian presidential hopeful Evo Morales — to help him fight free trade.
“Only united can we defeat imperialism and bring our people a better life,” he said, adding: “Here, in Mar del Plata, FTAA will be buried!”
It’s too early for a definitive reading on this trip, but the imagery hasn’t been pretty: rioting in the streets, Chavez’s ringing declarations, and Bush being peppered with questions by reporters who want to know about things such as Karl Rove’s legal problems in Plamegate and GWB’s own sinking poll ratings.
Cable news this morning carried Bush’s press conference live, showing a smiling Bush fielding questions (about his myriad woes) lobbed at him by persistent reporters. Most of the time, he’d try to turn those thorny questions back to plugging his domestic agenda.
None of this sounds like the kind of imagery that will boost his standing at home or strengthen it abroad.
But it could have been worse: years ago his then-President father threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister. (That inspired a bunch of truly tasteless Bush upchuck jokes such as: “What’s the Dress Code at White House functions? Old Clothes. )
Still, the trip is coming off as awkward where the imagery is nearly overshadowing his substantive goals, as this New York Times piece attests:
President Bush’s troubles trailed him to an international summit meeting here on Friday as anti-Bush protesters turned violent just blocks from the gathering site, and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s fiery populist leader, rallied a soccer stadium filled with at least 25,000 people against the United States.
This is the kind of situation that is tailor-made for print and news media. The IMAGERY of point/counterpoint, the drama of the people in the streets, the response of the two key political actors — all of that is what most audiences around the world will take away from this trip. The issues? They’ll be explained…but the images are what usually linger.
Like this one:
Mr. Chavez, who has tried to use the summit meeting to stage a showdown with Mr. Bush, pronounced dead a free trade accord backed by Mr. Bush, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Left-wing groups throughout Latin America have long opposed the agreement, and some governments want more generous terms from Washington, so Mr. Bush had come here with hopes of jump-starting the stalled negotiations.
Mr. Bush spent his day away from the cacophony in the streets, either in meetings with Latin American leaders at the Sheraton Mar del Plata, on a heavily guarded bluff overlooking the Atlantic, or behind the barricades at the summit sessions.
The two were together in a group session, but Mr. Bush has so far refused to engage Mr. Chávez, and has tried to press the official summit themes of creating jobs and promoting democracy.
The president told reporters that if he saw the Venezuelan leader at the summit, “I will, of course, be polite.” Mr. Bush added, “That’s what the American people expect their president to do, is to be a polite person.”
Mr. Bush, who polls show is the most unpopular American president ever among Latin Americans, appeared to acknowledge the ruckus he was at the center of when he made a morning appearance with Argentina’s president, Nestor Kirchner, the host of the gathering.
“It’s not easy to host all these countries,” Mr. Bush said, addressing Mr. Kirchner. “It’s particularly not easy to host, perhaps, me.”
The irony is that Bush genuinely seemed to want his time in office to be noted for a solid Latin American policy. When he ran in 2000 he often talked about Mexico and Latin America and was proud of his ability to speak Spanish. One in office, it seemed as if Latin American policy would be a big priority.
And, the AP notes, he has had a specific agenda on this trip — and not to just improve his image:
Bush spoke on the first day of the Summit of the Americas being attended by leaders and officials of 34 nations. Nearby, an estimated 10,000 demonstrators shouting “Get out Bush!” marched in the streets of this seaside resort, illustrating the skepticism that many South Americans have toward U.S.-led negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas stretching from Alaska to Argentina.
One of Bush’s top goals at the summit is to revive momentum for that free-trade plan. He was making the call for liberalized trade and increased entrepreneurship while visiting Argentina, the summit host that adopted such reforms in the 1990s and saw its economy collapse.
Supporters of free trade say those policies aren’t to blame for the financial crisis and resulting bloody riots four years ago. Instead, they point to other mistakes, chief among them government corruption and Argentina’s heavy borrowing.
In his appearance alongside Kirchner, Bush didn’t specifically mention the free trade agreement. He urged Latin American governments to commit to democratic governance.
“The United States has common ground with countries that promote democracy and freedom and believe in the rule of law,” he said.
Relations between Bush and Kirchner, a populist leader elected in the political upheaval that followed Argentina’s economic collapse, have been chilly. The Argentine was an opponent of the war in Iraq and said before their meeting at the last Summit of the Americas that he would “win by a knockout” in his private meeting with Bush.
Each leader referred repeatedly to how “candid” their discussions were.
“Candid” means they didn’t agree and could have even laced into each other. The Washington Post:
Bush spent much of the day pressing his case with presidents of countries that do not share Chavez’s animosity toward free trade, including Colombia, Peru and several Central American nations.
Thomas A. Shannon Jr., assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, insisted that the idea of a vast hemispheric trade pact remains viable, saying there was still “significant support within the region for economic integration and for a Free Trade Area of the Americas.”
Why is Bush so unpopular in Latin America? Time Magazine explains:
President George W. Bush shouldn’t have been too surprised by the angry — and ultimately violent — welcome he received Friday at the 4th Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina. After pledging during his 2000 election campaign to correct Washington’s indifference to Latin America, the President is viewed as having all but turned his back on the region after most Latin American capitals declined to back his invasion of Iraq. But Bush’s hemispheric cold shoulder has backfired: It created a political vacuum that has been largely filled by neo-leftists like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was expected to join tens of thousands of raucous demonstrators Friday marching through Mar del Plata to denounce Bush and his all-but-doomed efforts to forge a hemispheric free trade pact.
Far from being the mejor amigo he promised to be, Bush today is arguably more unpopular in Latin America than any U.S. president in history. In Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, a recent poll showed 64% have a poor or very poor opinion of him. Elsewhere in the region, Bush’s approval rating usually falls below 25%. Part of the problem is broad opposition to the Iraq war; another is the perception that Bush is a Monroe Doctrine throwback to heavy-handed U.S. interventionism in the region.
In Newsweek, MarÃa Cristina Caballero, a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, writes about what Bush and his administration should really try to do in Latin America this week. This piece must be read in full but here’s a tiny taste:
What would be the right agenda to follow? Latin America urgently needs deep social and economic reforms that cannot simply be tied to market forces. The crude reality is that Latin American countries cannot compete in basic manufacturing or technology with developed nations. The Bush administration needs to be more open-minded and to embrace terms and comprehensive programs of cooperation toward development and institution building. A substantial package of aid to immediately assist millions of Latin Americans confronting extreme poverty would help. It could also help for the United States to exercise its influence to improve the tough payment conditions of many Latin American countries’ debt.
Those steps could begin to break the Latin ice that Bush is probably feeling now. More than 10,000 police officials are surrounding the blocks where the summit is taking place in Mar de Plata, Argentina. Their main task? To protect Bush from thousands of protesters.
But Bush’s task has not been an easy one. Unlike some Presidents in the past who’ve gone abroad and faced anger from demonstrators over policies, there seems to be an almost personal anger here. And some icons of the culture have also stepped into the frey: Argentine football great Diego Maradona labeled Bush “human rubbish”.
But the New York Times, in a editorial, noted that Bush deserves some credit:
A decade of retrenching in the United States on trade, combined with economic and currency messes in several Latin American countries, particularly Argentina, have left governments with little appetite for opening markets. In fact, many governments south of the border blame the American-pushed model of free trade, open markets, privatization and fiscal austerity for the vast increase in social inequality throughout the region in the past decade.
It’s not surprising, then, that the summit meeting leaders have chosen to focus on more general issues, like employment and democracy. “Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance” is the mouthful that’s the theme of this meeting. American and Canadian officials are still pushing the free-trade message in the meeting’s final communiqué, but it will clearly be something far more vague than in the pact originally intended.
Still, a small step is better than no step, and perhaps it’s enough that after the last few years of putting Iraq and the Middle East above all else, President Bush is finally paying a small bit of attention to America’s own hemisphere.
Linked to the following weekend linkfests: Oblogatory Anecdotes, 10ft2ft, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Political Teen, MacStansbury, Publius Rendezvous,TMH’s Bacon Bits, Don Surber, Point Five, Wizbang, Stop The ACLU, Mudville Gazette, Random Numbers, Cao’s Blog, Something
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.