Partnership for the Americas Commission
The Partnership for the Americas Commission released its report, "Rethinking U.S.-Latin American Relations: A Hemispheric Partnership for a Turbulent World." In an op-ed discussing the report, Ernesto Zedillo and Thomas Pickering, co-chairs of the Commission, urge the incoming Obama administration and Members of Congress to pursue a "hemispheric partnership to address common challenges" with Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin America, they argue, with 600 million people and a $3.5 trillion economy, has a significant impact on the lives of Americans.
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More about the Commission
The Partnership for the Americas Commission seeks to contribute to the discussion of how the United States can best engage the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to tackle key regional and global challenges. The Commission was first convened by the Brookings Institution in May 2008 and concluded its deliberations as the world was reeling under financial crisis in the autumn of 2008. It met in Washington three times and was staffed by the Brookings Institution’s Latin America Initiative.
Three features distinguish the Commission from many of its predecessors. First, this group of 20 men and women is evenly balanced between U.S. citizens and citizens of the LAC countries, including Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.
Second, this group is composed of senior decision makers with a wealth of experience in business, government, and civil society. It includes three former presidents, one former prime minister, one former vice president, two former foreign ministers, four senior business executives, five heads of research institutions, two senior diplomats, and two heads of media organizations.
Third, this Commission has sought to produce recommendations to help build a genuine partnership between the United States and its hemispheric neighbors. Rather than lecturing the United States on how it should act as a superpower or telling the LAC governments how to manage their own economies and political systems, the Commission has identified specific areas in which U.S.–Latin American engagement is essential for generating hemisphere-wide benefits and mitigating regional and global risks. The Commission’s members believe that this pragmatic approach is more likely to yield results because it recognizes that the context of U.S.-LAC relations has changed and that issues previously seen by many countries as purely domestic have become so deeply transnational that they can no longer be addressed effectively by any single government.
We believe that the future is bright for a closer, more effective partnership for the Americas, one that will improve the ways our citizens work and live. We hope that this report helps to advance this vision
Co-Chairs
Ernesto Zedillo
Former President of Mexico
Thomas R. Pickering
Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Commissioners
Nancy Birdsall
President, Center for Global Development
Jonathan Coles
Former Minster of Agriculture of Venezuela
Roberto Dañino
Former Prime Minister of Peru
Jeffrey Davidow
President, Institute of the Americas
John Deutch
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Peter Hakim
President, Inter-American Dialogue
Alberto Ibargüen
President and CEO, Knight Foundation
Suzanne Nora Johnson
Senior Director, Former Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs
Celso Lafer
Former Foreign Minister of Brazil
Ricardo Lagos
Former President of Chile
Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal
President, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brazil
Thomas “Mack” McLarty
Former U.S. Envoy to the Americas
Billie Miller
Former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Barbados
Moisés Naím
Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy Magazine
Jorge Quiroga
Former President of Bolivia
Thomas Ramey
Chairman and President, Liberty International
Eduardo Stein
Former Vice President of Guatemala
Strobe Talbott
President, Brookings Institution