Americans ignoring Latin America

WASHINGTON — No wonder that presidential hopefuls from both parties have almost forgotten to mention Latin America in their televised debates so far: polls show that most Americans see the region as one of the least important ones to U.S. national interests.

Before we get into why this is a big mistake, in part fueled by Latino-phobic anchormen on CNN and Fox News’ nightly news shows, let’s take a look at a new Zogby International poll of 7,100 Americans — with a 1.2 percentage point margin of error — on how they perceive Latin America, and specific countries in the region. Among the results:

UAsked which region of the world they consider the most important to the United States, 42.5 percent said the Middle East, 20.3 percent said East Asia (China and Japan), 12.5 percent said Europe and Russia, and only 7.3 percent said Latin America. Only South Asia (India), Africa and South Pacific (Australia) ranked lower than Latin America.

UAsked whether most Latin American governments are friendly or hostile to the United States, 31 percent said that most Latin American rulers are anti-American, 27.6 percent said they are pro-American and 31.5 percent said neither.

UAsked which countries are the friendliest ones to the United States, 42 percent said Mexico, 34 percent said Costa Rica, 32 percent said Brazil, 21 percent said the Dominican Republic, 18 percent said Argentina, 14 percent said Colombia, 12 percent said Chile, 8 percent said Peru and 1.6 percent said Venezuela.

UAsked whether the 1994 free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada was good or bad for the United States, 48 percent said bad and 27 percent said good.

UAsked whether Latin America is a region showing signs of modernization or economic stagnation, 47 percent said the latter, while 28 percent said the region is modernizing.

The new poll pretty much corroborates the findings of a similar Zogby poll last year, which showed that only 20 percent of Americans are familiar with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and only 10 percent are familiar with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Not surprisingly, Latin America has been nearly totally absent in the Democratic and Republican primary debates, except for a few exchanges on U.S. immigration policy. And even that has been treated as a domestic issue, focusing on U.S. enforcement of border controls, with virtually no mention of the need to help boost Latin America’s development in order to reduce migration pressures.

“Latin America has gotten less attention this year than almost any time in the past,” says Peter Hakim, head of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington who has monitored Latin affairs for the past four decades. “And it has not gotten much attention in the past.”

Not threatened

Unlike in the 1980s and 1990s, when Latin American financial crises shook the U.S. banking system or Central American wars made headlines, the region is doing generally fine nowadays. Americans don’t feel worried about Latin America, nor threatened by it, said Hakim.

“Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is largely viewed as an annoyance, rather than a threat,” Hakim said. “When you go to Capitol Hill and talk about Chavez, people look at the sky.”

My opinion: The polls reflect what Americans read in the press about Latin America, which is virtually nothing. In most cases, U.S. media have yet to digest the fact that Hispanics are the biggest ethnic bloc in the United States, and will be an increasingly important market as more Latinos learn English.

In fact, Latin America is the world’s region that most affects Americans’ daily lives, whether we’re talking about immigration, trade, the environment or oil. How many Americans know that we import more oil from Mexico than from Saudi Arabia?

X Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.