The US still treats Latin America as a front of unending problems

The U.S. still treats Latin America as a front of unending problems to be dealt with as time permits: drug trafficking, anti-U.S. politics in Venezuela, illegal immigration, competition in global markets. The harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric in the Republican presidential primaries panders to some instinct in the national psyche to deal with Latin America by walling it off and forgetting about it. Few politicians really envision Latin America as I do—as an increasingly successful neighbor and a potentially reliable partner in many global initiatives.