A recent editorial in The Weekly Standard by Ambassador Jaime Daremblum of the Hudson Institute calls for the maintenance of a tough diplomatic stance against the Evo Morales government of Bolivia, which last autumn lost Andean trade privileges that are tied to drug eradication efforts. 

The Bush administration was just when it suspended ATPA and ATPDEA privileges to Bolivia in retaliation for its refusal to cooperate on coca reduction, intelligence sharing and drug interdiction.  However, the step by Bush was a small, tardy blip in what should have been an eight-year effort to expand the reach of our drug enforcement partnerships and support capitalist democracies in the hemisphere.  Under Bush, LatAm policy suffered from an administration focus on post-9/11 security matters.  And what remained of LatAm policy—two free trade agreements in the region—was rendered impossible due to the 2006 Democratic takeover of the U.S. Congress.

The drug problem persists but now takes on a different dimension due to Mexico border instability.  Here in the U.S., the Congress is finally talking about the issue and policy experts are debating the merits of demand-side drug control strategies versus those of supply-side ones.  Because the violence stems from Mexican cartel infighting and President Calderon’s zero-tolerance response, the transit point of Mexico is getting more than its share of the foreign actors’ blame.  But what is clear is that there is a coordinated effort among LatAm’s 21st Century Socialists—Chavez of Venezuela, Morales, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador—to ensure that a healthy supply of drugs is there to meet U.S. demand, and European demand. 

Venezuela has also become a transit point for drug shipment and Bolivia a center of increased coca production.  Not wanting to be outdone, Ecuador has ensured that beginning late 2009, nobody will see a thing by cutting out the eyes and ears of the U.S. military.  It should be noted that the Correa administration expected trade privileges even as it went ahead with plans to write language into its new constitution banning the presence on Ecuadorian soil of any foreign military.  It appears that a hard line by the U.S. government – its executive and legislative branches – was needed as far back as 2006, too. 

The U.S. should begin to see the whole package of transnational threats such as trafficking in drugs and persons, Mexican border violence, and expulsion of U.S. military and diplomats as a trend that it must address with a response as comprehensive as the set of challenges themselves.  The fate of a western hemisphere that is peaceful and free of any undue socialist, Iranian, Russian and Chinese influence is at stake.