Somewhere in the confluence of ambition, inertia, perceived interests and ideology, the Clinton Administration will spend the next few years crafting-and maintaining-a relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. And as that relation- ship is crafted, new opportunities may emerge for progressive forces in the hemisphere. The following pages examine some of Clinton's key appointments, the ways in which specific policies might mesh with overall objectives, the pressures on policymakers, and the conse- quences of all this for Latin America. The new Administration comes to power in a reconstructed world order, with a political agenda somewhat at odds with that of the previous two administrations. But administrations don't make policy precisely as they please. Despite the replacement of the Reagan-Bush team with a Democratic administration, and despite the end of Cold-War politics, the United States continues to have powerful long-term interests in the region. Any change in policy will be severely constrained by these continuing interests, by the bureaucratic legacy of past U.S. policies, and by the dynamics set in motion by past events and the policies of previous U.S. administrations. The new Administration, for example, inherits government bureaucracies with agendas of their own. As Kate Doyle explains, whatever the Clinton people finally decide to do about the hemi- spheric drug trade, they will have to deal with the plethora of federal agencies with a stake in con- tinuing the "drug war." And, as Cecilia Mufioz argues, an inherited dynamic exists that prevents the Administration from devising its own immigration policy without dealing with the expectations and contradictions created by former refugee and asylum policies, and by recently passed immigration restrictions and employer sanctions. And above all, the structures of the U.S. economy and social order often dictate policies of their own. Doug Henwood argues that the globalization of U.S.- based capital is doing just that in the case of U.S. economic policy. As the political leader of the home country of a great deal of the world's transnational capital, Clinton is not likely to do anything to upset either the solidarity among the leading economic powers, or the country's position of dominance in the hemisphere. Some forces, says Henwood, are larger than personnel and political party. U.S. dominance in the hemisphere, established and reestablished many times over in two cen- turies of declaration and practice, has given rise to a long series of interventions-both overt and covert-from Santo Domingo to Santiago de Chile. Today, as Burbach and Henwood both argue, "free trade" is becoming the new tool of U.S. domination. Yet, the Administration must also stake out positions on other facets of hemispheric policy-development, drugs, immigration, and that thorn in the side of nine U.S. presidents: Cuba. By focusing on these areas of concern in this Report, we hope to develop some insight into the constrained transformation of U.S. hemispheric policy that may be in the offing.
