ANDRES OPPENHEIMER Kerry needs a bold plan for Latin America

Likely Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has not yet laid out his Latin America policy, but in an interview earlier this month he gave me a hint of what will be his key selling point: that he will pay much more attention to the region than President Bush.
But will he, really? Or is it just empty rhetoric to win Hispanic votes in November?
Kerry's harsh criticism
In the June 4 telephone interview, Kerry told me that in his two decades in the U.S. Senate, "I've never seen an administration less focused, less involved, less directly proactive with respect to the region. I mean, it's just incredible, the disengagement."
He added, "Whether it has been Argentina or Brazil or the Venezuelan crisis, this administration is really not respected within professional circles as having a serious policy in the region."
I didn't have time to get deeper into it, because I had to ask him about the crises of the day. But over the next few weeks, Kerry will have to explain what he would do differently, beyond his vow to break Washington's current diplomatic loneliness and pursue a more multilateral foreign policy.
Bush record before 9/11
Charging Bush with "disengaging" from the region won't be enough. A dispassionate look at Bush's Latin American record shows that he made many mistakes, but lack of personal attention wasn't one of them, at least before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Consider:
UBush was the first president in recent memory to devote a full campaign speech to Latin America. Much like Kerry today, Bush criticized President Bill Clinton in an Aug. 25, 2000, campaign speech for allegedly not paying attention to the region, saying that "should I become president, I will look South, not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental commitment of my presidency."
USoon after Bush took office, he attended the April 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec in which, alongside 33 other hemispheric leaders, he pledged "to make this the Century of the Americas." (It now looks like it's going to be the Century of China, but that's another story.)
UBreaking with previous tradition, Bush made his first foreign trip to Mexico and invited Mexican President Vicente Fox as his first official guest to the White House. So far, Bush has made four visits to Latin America; by comparison, Clinton didn't touch the region during his first four years in office.
But, except for his trade policy -- in which he scored major victories, such as obtaining fast-track legislation from Congress to sign new free-trade agreements, signing free-trade deals with Chile and Central America and starting negotiations with Colombia, Peru and Ecuador -- Bush's commitment to Latin America pretty much fizzled after Sept. 11.
Today, few U.S. officials will seriously contend that the region is "a fundamental commitment" of the Bush administration, even if, according to U.S. figures, the Western Hemisphere supplies more oil to America than all Middle Eastern countries combined, and the $365 billion a year in U.S. trade with the region is projected to surpass America's commerce with Europe and Japan by 2010.
Suggestions for Kerry
My conclusion? Kerry is right in saying that America has isolated itself from much of the rest of the world, and that it needs to re-embrace multilateralism to regain its influence. But he will need more than vague promises of engaging with Latin America.
I wonder, for instance, whether he will pick a vice presidential candidate with strong connections to the Hispanic community and Latin America, such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson or Florida Sen. Bob Graham.
Or whether he will propose elevating the job of U.S. envoy to Latin America to a Cabinet-level position, so that whoever holds it will have easy access to the presidential office.
Or whether he will expand the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada from a trade consortium to a political partnership, like the European Union. Or whether he will call for a special deal under which South American countries will be immune from protectionist pressures by his big-labor supporters.
Moves like these will be the real test of Kerry's commitment to Latin America. The rest is like Bush's "fundamental commitment" speech: "palabras al viento," words into the wind.
X Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.