ANDRES OPPENHEIMER Paying attention to Latin America

Likely Democratic candidate John Kerry's Latin American policy, unveiled last week, may not be the most far-reaching plan ever devised for the region. But it is a huge improvement over what the Democrats proposed for the hemisphere in the 2000 race, which could be summed up in one word -- nothing.
Unlike former Democratic candidate Al Gore, who did not devote a single speech to Latin America during his 2000 campaign, Kerry spent much of his June 26 speech at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) laying out his vision for a "Community of the Americas." Days later, on Wednesday, he published an article in The Miami Herald in which he detailed his plans for the region.
One of the top proposals in Kerry's regional agenda is supporting a five-year, $2.5 billion Social Investment and Development Fund for the Americas. The proposal is contained in a congressional bill that would expand U.S. aid for education, health and small startup businesses in the region.
Kerry's proposal would mark a dramatic change in current U.S. policy to the region, his aides say. They charge that the Bush administration's policy toward Latin America is almost exclusively based on promoting free trade, and that almost 60 percent of the steadily declining foreign aid funds to the region go mostly to military and counternarcotics assistance.
What foes say
Bush administration officials say these calculations are twisted, because much of the anti-narcotics aid goes to alternative work programs that help the poor.
Granted, President Bush is also proposing an increase in foreign aid. Bush announced at the 2002 U.N. antipoverty summit in Mexico that he would create a Millennium Challenge Account to increase by 50 percent U.S. aid to poverty-stricken democratic countries that pursue sound economic policies.
But only three Latin American nations -- Nicaragua, Honduras and Bolivia -- have qualified as beneficiaries of Bush's program. Middle-income countries such as Brazil, Argentina or Mexico, which have regions with more poor than the entire population of many Millennium Account beneficiary countries, are left uncovered.
"A sense of Community of the Americas that goes beyond trade is fundamental," Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the brain behind the Social Investment and Development Fund, told me last week. "While trade is very important, it won't take the 43 percent of people in Latin America who are poor out of poverty."
Polls
Citing polls showing growing anti-Americanism in Latin America, Menendez says Washington is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Latin Americans and that this is bound to create security problems for the United States. "This isn't just about being a good neighbor; this is about our vital self-interest," he says.
Conservative critics are skeptical about the Kerry-supported fund. They say Democrats may be trying to shift attention from their anti-free-trade stands, which may hurt Latin America, and that the Kerry-backed fund may amount to throwing money into an empty barrel. Without demanding sound economic policies in exchange for U.S. aid, the money will only perpetuate policies that produce poverty, they say.
"The problem is not that Latin America needs money," says Stephen Johnson, a Latin America expert with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, noting that wealthy Latin Americans have hundreds of billions stashed in Miami, Caribbean and Swiss bank accounts. "The money is there. When people feel secure to make investments, then they'll do it. But when they feel they are going to be ripped off by corrupt officials, loan sharks and greedy monopolists, they won't lift a finger, and they will send their money abroad."
But, wherever you stand on the foreign aid issue, the very fact that Kerry has devoted a campaign speech to Latin America is good news, even if it's just an election-driven move.
A recent Zogby International/Miami Herald survey showed that 91 percent of registered Hispanic voters care about U.S. policy toward Latin America.
Now, Kerry has become the second U.S. presidential candidate in recent memory to devote a full campaign speech to Latin American affairs. (The first one was Bush, in August 2000.) That will most likely force Bush to double the bet in coming weeks, which can only do good.
XAndres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.