Latin American Democracy

Caution—strong political headwinds are rising in Latin America.

Too busy with healthcare, Afghanistan and the climate ummit, the White House last November dropped the ball on the coup d’état in Honduras. 

Caving into the pressure of U.S. near-government organizations with strong ties to the movers and shakers behind the coup, U.S. bureaucrats with their own ideological agenda and a small band of Congresspeople, the Obama administration made a surprising U-turn, signaling it would recognize the results of a highly questionable presidential election Nov. 29.

Why should we care?

After all, Honduras— the eighth-smallest and third-poorest country in the hemisphere— looks like peanuts. Southwest Florida employs only a few hundred Honduran citizens, mainly as construction workers, maids and kitchen aides. And Honduran imports are minor, mainly fresh fruit to Port Manatee, while we export only used cars and construction supplies to this Central American nation.

Well, the issue is bigger.

What our government is doing in Honduras may set a bad example for our involvement elsewhere, curbing our potential business growth in a hemisphere that is economically expanding in times of global recession.

First, by respecting elections held under the tutelage of coup soldiers trying to hold off scores of outraged demonstrators, the United States is alone in the world. The broad hemispheric consensus, including that of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), is to not recognize these elections as legitimate. And that pits us against the rising power of the hemisphere, Brazil.