Barack Obama

A growing coalition of worker and immigration activists are demanding that President Obama issue a general pardon for immigration status infractions. 

In March 2016, President Barack Obama visited Cuba and Argentina, a historic trip for his Latin America policy. In this

While Washington won’t be able to break apart Latin America’s “pink tide,” its new stance on Cuba is a test case for reasserting U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

On Friday, May 3rd, President Obama gave a speech in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. Speaking to a small crowd of mostly Mexican students, Obama said that the time has come for the U.S. public to look beyond the "sensational headlines" of violence associated with the drug trade and for the United States and Mexico to begin working together on "mutual interests and [with] mutual respect."

At the very least, we can hope that Obama, in his second term, will show greater tolerance for the debate on drug-policy alternatives that has blossomed across Latin America.

Rather than a "free trade" agreement between the United States and Colombia, the plan that will be sent to Congress should be understood as a corporate and financial liberalization agreement. Workers, in Colombia and the United States, have little to gain, and everything to lose. This article was originally published in the May/June 2011 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas.

During President Barack Obama's five-day trip to Latin America from March 19-23, many throughout the hemisphere waited to hear whether Obama would demonstrate the new era of "mutual interest and mutual respect" with the region that he had promised during his campaign. What they heard was mostly "más de lo mismo" (more of the same), dressed up in a language of "partnership" and cooperation.

The United States is courting Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, about U.S. business interests in the country. President Obama will meet with Rousseff in Brazil on March 19-20 to lobby for Boeing to get a multibillion-dollar contract to make 36 fighter jets for the Brazilian Armed Forces, and to broker other economic opportunities for U.S companies around offshore oil reserve exploration, improving its tourism and transportation infrastructure, and strengthening its security operations before and during the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement has slid off the radar, but the deal is far from dead. It has been more than three years since the Colombian congress approved the deal, but it is still awaiting congressional approval in the United States. The agreement was a political hot potato for President Obama and congressional Democrats, who decided to put the agreement on the back burner in 2008. This year's mid-term elections have shifted the balance of power in the House, but it isn't clear whether or not there will be a push to ratify the controversial agreement.

In 2008, 70% of the 10 million Latinos who voted in the U.S. election supported Barack Obama. But since that election, hope has turned to despair for many Latinos who still face racial profiling, deportation, and family separation under an administration they enthusiastically supported. In exchange for their loyal votes, Latinos are expected to join what we can call the Obama–Democratic Party Consensus on immigration reform. This consensus requires that the president and his party build a more efficient immigration-control apparatus, while Latinos are expected to settle for symbolic appointments in government. This article originally appeared in the November/December 2010 edition of NACLA Report on the Americas.

The election of Barack Obama presents us with a unique window of opportunity, but it is a window that will not likely remain open for long. The direction of Obama's Americas policy is likely to be decided very soon, as he assembles his administration—and we do not have the luxury of complacency. It is up to us, as advocates for justice in the hemisphere, to ensure that an Obama administration ends the long legacy of using Latin America's blood and gold for U.S. ends. Now is the time to ensure that the next administration brings to the Americas not just change, but justice.

Opinion divides sharply on whether the Democratic candidate's platform for U.S. policy in Latin America is really the stuff of "Change We Can Believe In." Looking at it closely, the picture gives reasons for hope, but also some important points to work on. Electoral posturing aside, the cards have been laid out for a first reading on the hemispheric future. Obama's approach, more than the policies themselves, gives us much to work with in turning disaster into a genuine good neighbor policy for the region.