Iran and China are making "disturbing" gains in Latin America and Washington can no longer afford to shun leaders from nations like Venezuela and Bolivia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. "The prior administration tried to isolate them, tried to support opposition to them, tried to turn them into international pariahs. It didn't work," Clinton told foreign service officers at a meeting at the State Department.
China, Russia and Iran were making gains in Latin America, she said, opening large embassies and creating close economic and political ties with leaders who had been hostile to Washington during the Bush administration.
"If you look at the gains particularly in Latin America that Iran is making and China is making, it is quite disturbing. They are building very strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders," she said. "We are competing for attention and relationships with at least the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians," she said, and it was not in the US interest to turn its back on any country in the hemisphere.
The Obama administration is working to improve relations with Latin American nations, including Venezuela. President Barack Obama was photographed shaking hands with President Hugo Chavez at a summit of the Americas last month.
AMBASSADORS TO RETURN Clinton said Washington was also seeking better ties with Bolivian President Evo Morales who expelled the US ambassador in September 2008, accusing him of conspiring against the Bolivian government. The US responded in kind. "We want to see if we can figure out how we can get an ambassador back and work with Morales in Bolivia," Clinton said. Venezuela expelled the US ambassador last September in solidarity with its ally, Bolivia, and Washington responded by sending the Venezuelan ambassador home.
Clinton also met Chavez at the summit in Trinidad. They discussed an exchange of ambassadors, which Clinton expected would happen "at some point." The United States also wanted better ties with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa as well as Nicaragua and its former guerrilla leader, President Daniel Ortega, Clinton said. "The Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua and we can only imagine what it is for," said Clinton of Tehran's new embassy in the Nicaraguan capital.
The United States is at loggerheads with Iran on a range of issues, from its nuclear program to what Washington sees as meddling in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Clinton said the new approach might not work with leaders like Chavez who had a different view of the economy, politics and "so much else" - but it was worth trying.
"My bottom line is what is best for America? How do we influence behaviour that is more in our interests than not." Obama has also said he wants to "recast" relations with the communist government in Cuba.
Last month, he lifted restrictions on Cuban Americans, allowing them to travel freely to Cuba and send money to relatives. But a US trade embargo imposed on Cuba after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution will remain in place. Clinton said Washington had faced a "united front" of opposition from allies over its approach toward Cuba.
"Every country, even those with whom we are closest, is saying, 'You have to change, you can't keep doing what you are doing,'" Clinton said. But she said Cuba's President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel Castro must show some reciprocity on issues such as political prisoners and human rights.