Thus far, 2007 has been a disappointing year for observers hopeful for a positive change in the attitude of policy-makers in Washington, DC towards Latin America. And, thus far, in the pre-campaign build-up to the November 2008 elections, there is little indication that new policy initiatives will emerge over the next eighteen months. While individual candidates have expressed dismay over the inability or unwillingness of the administration of George W. Bush to do more than pay lip service to the region, the Democratic candidates have not proposed anything specific, let alone radical. On the three policy areas in which the region has a strong interest, there appears little likelihood that either the Bush team or the new administration in January 2009 – either Democratic or Republican – will have the incentive to address pending immigration, trade or drug questions.

The stalemate in the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WT0) negotiations appears unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. The recent talks among the US, the EU, Brazil and India in Europe merely confirmed the unwillingness of the industrial countries to reduce agricultural subsidies; the developing nations will not yield on policy questions such as Intellectual Property Rights. President Bush will lose fast track negotiating authority midyear and there is little likelihood that a Democratic Congress will renew his ability to send the Congress a trade bill that they must vote up or down with no change of amendments.

On the question of immigration, the bipartisan effort that had hoped to bridge domestic political differences collapsed in early June. Efforts to renew the debate have been unsuccessful. The issue is less a foreign policy question than it is a deeply divisive social and political debate over the role of immigrants in American society and the economic imperative that drives them to the US – and the increasing counter argument that they are critical to American productivity. The deep divisions are almost less between the two parties than between factions in each of the two parties. In part geography drives the divide. But prejudice and ignorance of the real role of immigrants in American life are part of the bitter stand-off.

The debate over drug policy has become more raucous over the last few years. Does demand or supply drive the increasingly poisoned debate about what to do? Washington, DC politicians blame the producers; the producing – and increasingly consuming countries in the region – hopelessly point to US and European consumption patterns that are not receding but increasing. It is a dry debate with no middle ground. No one in the US campaign will want to be seen as “soft” on this or the other two major policy questions.

While there will be lip service in the campaign, there will be few, if any, positive initiatives from either party. These are too “hot” to handle in a campaign year. Thus, any hope of some bipartisan agreement on one or all of these questions will need to await the new administration in 2009. But given the heavy agenda related to the Iraq war, the twin deficits, the need to reform health care and many related issues mean that Latin America, will again, be a relatively low priority for the US.

* Riordan Roett is the Sarita and Don Johnston Professor of Political Science and Director of Western Hemisphere Studies at The Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.