The Current Administration's Latin America Policy

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The latest statement by VP Pence clears up a bit the approach the current administration has adopted on Latin America. The statement was given at the 49th Washington Conference on the Americas, on May 7th, 2019. The conference was held at the State Department.

In this speech, Pence briefly mentions a couple of policy actions, to later enter at length on the Venezuelan issue. If we guide ourselves by this speech, we confirm our suspicion that Venezuela has replaced Cuba as the most important issue on Latin American policy and it will be for some time to come.

In this post, I would like to comment on the other couple of actions Pence mentioned. That is not to say Venezuela is not important, because it is a humanitarian emergency, but because we know much more about it than we know about the other actions. In prior posts I have talked about the meaning of a Trump administration for Latin America and the US's approach to the region.

Pence said:

"Under the BUILD Act, we’ve pledged up to $60 billion in development financing to help our partners build the infrastructure they need to grow. We’ve expanded access to affordable, American-made energy through our Americas Crece initiative. We’ve promoted free, fair, and reciprocal trade, forging a new trade deal, like the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement."

Mike Pence, The 49th Washington Conference on the Americas, May 7th, 2019, Washington, DC.

The BUILD Act

The BUILD Act or the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development Act is a law passed on October 2018 to basically restructure the US development aid institutional structure. The bill creates a new development aid entity called United States International Development Financial Corporation or USIDFC. Through this new entity, the aim of the bill is to "mobilize and facilitate the participation of private sector capital and skills in the economic development of less developed countries, as described in subsection (c), and countries in transition from nonmarket to market economies, in order to complement the development assistance objectives, and advance the foreign policy interests, of the United States (Title I, Section 102b)."


What does this bill do, you can read in more detail in this article from CSIS.

The America Crece Initiative

This initiative was first introduced by Undersecretary David Malpass in a speech at the CSIS on February 2, 2018. In his speech, Malpass defined 11 points by which this initiative would develop and what the aims of it were. The initiative was defined as: "The initiative increases trade and investment in energy and infrastructure, expand private investment flows, and develop deeper regional capital markets. We want to encourage a return to democracy in Venezuela, help increase transparency and combat corruption to improve the business environment, and support the Northern Triangle’s efforts to address economic and security challenges and stem the impetus for illegal immigration. Working with the region, we aspire to greater economic opportunity, higher median incomes, and a strong respect for the rule of law."

You can read the entire text in this PDF link.

It is basically seen by observers as the US taking the opportunity to tackle many issues with one shot, among them, dealing with Maduro, replacing Venezuela as the supplier of energy, exporting American natural gas, investing in infrastructure, gaining ground in regional influence, displacing China, development aid, economic growth, business development, reducing unemployment in the US, creating more employment in US and other countries, etc.

The United States - Mexico - Canada Agreement

Wikipedia defines this agreement as: the agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada is a signed but not ratified free trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The agreement is sometimes referred to as "New NAFTA" in reference to the previous trilateral agreement it is meant to supersede, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Compared to NAFTA, USMCA increases environmental and labor regulations, and incentivize more domestic production of cars and trucks. The agreement also provides updated intellectual property protections, gives the United States more access to Canada's dairy market, imposes a quota for Canadian and Mexican automotive production, and increases the duty-free limit for Canadians who buy U.S. goods online from $20 to $150.

The agreement has an own website and you can read the text here.

Fight Against Illegal Drugs

This is a long-standing and very controversial issue which by now it involves other regions such as Europe. The Trump administration wants to keep its efforts, especially in Colombia.

Strengthening Democracy

Strengthening democracy has also been a long-standing piece of policy towards the Latin American region, one that has bared fruits but has also had its own failures.

Aid to Venezuelan Asylum Seekers in Colombia and Brazil

The US is currently spending a lot of money to help the many Venezuelan asylum seekers in Colombia and Brazil. It has also deployed food and medicines and placed them along the Venezuelan border.

I also found another source at the State Department's website that outlined additional pieces of policy. This was a speech given by Kimberly Breier, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the 2019 Concordia Americas Summit Bogota, Colombia on May 13, 2019. Her speech carried the title: “A New Era in the Americas”. In addition to the above policies, it mentioned three more:

100,000 Strong in the Americas

The 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund is the public-private sector collaboration between the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassies, Partners of the Americas, NAFSA, corporations, and foundations working together to stimulate new higher education partnerships between the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

Young Leaders of the Americas initiatives

"The Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) builds linkages between young leaders across the hemisphere. YLAI addresses the opportunity gap for youth, especially women, by empowering business and social entrepreneurs with the training, tools, networks and resources they need to transform their societies and contribute more fully to economic development and prosperity, security, human rights and good governance in the hemisphere."


You can find the initiative's website here.


Americas and Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative.

Promote an enabling environment that increases women’s economic empowerment by reducing barriers and enhancing protections in policies, laws, regulations and practices (public and private) to facilitate women’s participation in the economy.