Four More Years
By Alan Stoga*

Much to the surprise of most people around the world — and to quite a few in the United States as well — President Bush and the Republican Party have won a decisive election victory. With more than a 3 million vote margin and 51% of the vote, Bush is the first candidate since President Reagan in 1988 to win an outright majority of the popular vote. In addition, the Republicans added to their majorities in both the House and the Senate, and the leadership, as well as the critical mass, of the new Congress will be more conservative that their predecessors.

Both presidential candidates ran campaigns that were designed to motivate their political bases, rather than to appeal to what is left of the moderate center. Since the election, President Bush has understandably said that he views the election results as a strong endorsement of his vision for the country. There is no reason to believe that in victory he will now back away from the increasingly strong positions in both domestic and foreign policy that he defined over the last months. Indeed, the people who elected him would be outraged if he did.

In other words, President Bush is likely to move aggressively on his radical, conservative mandate — which is probably why much of the world hoped Senator Kerry would win.

Domestically, this means continued budget deficits, an effort to make tax cuts permanent, possible partial privatization of social security, and highly conservative social policies and judicial appointments. The President’s commitment to move the country in a socially conservative direction, which was the bedrock for the enthusiastic support he received from the tens of millions of evangelical Christians, will consume much of his political capital during the next two years during the time when his political strength will be at its peak.

Internationally, since Bush campaigned as a "war president," he will remain primarily focused on fighting the war against Islamic fundamentalism. All other issues are secondary, including any sustained effort to rebuild the badly frayed fabric of international cooperation. President Bush is not suddenly going to start signing treaties, adjusting his rhetoric, or deferring to allies simply to create a more hospitable international climate, since he does not see multilateralism as an end in itself.

In other words, there is no reason to expect from this election anything except a reconfirmation of the basic outlines of the foreign policies that the United States has pursued for the past four years.

For Latin America, more of the same is, unfortunately, a formula for continued benign neglect. The early days of relatively activist policies — engagement with President Fox, verbal support for President Sanchez de Lozada, confrontation with President Chavez, grudging cooperation with President Duhalde — were derailed by 9/11, and will not return. Latin America has no strong advocates in the White House or in the Cabinet, and it is hard to imagine that will change anytime soon.

There are two exceptions. The first is Plan Colombia which dovetails with the anti-terrorism policies of the Administration and will certainly attract continued support. The Uribe government will remain the only poster child in Latin America for the U.S. fight against terrorists, and Uribe the only beneficiary.

The second is the trade arena where Special Trade Representative Bob Zoellick has aggressively pursued bilateral trade agreements throughout the region and will undoubtedly push to complete the Andean trade agreements. However, persuading Congress to pass the Central American and Andean agreements may be another story. Trade agreements are never popular in Congress; when they succeed, they are passed by moderate majorities drawn from both parties. In the era of heightened partisanship through which we are now living, there may not be enough moderates left in Washington to find the votes for free trade. Nevertheless, it is possible that the President might be willing to put some of his political muscle behind the trade agreements, if only because the FTAA and a new global trade round seem increasingly tenuous.

What is hard to imagine is that there will be any substantial new initiatives in the coming years. Congress has shown little interest in significant migration reform. The Administration has been unwilling to try to define a project of sufficient scope to capture the imagination of the rest of the Americas, like President Kennedy did with the Alliance for Progress or the first President Bush did with NAFTA and the promise of hemispheric free trade. And, even if someone persuaded the current President Bush to give a forward leaning speech on Latin America, there is almost no real basis to restart a dialogue between the increasingly left leaning leaders of Latin America and the increasingly right leaning Bush government.

President Bush now can look forward to four more years. Unfortunately, so can Latin America.

*Alan Stoga is president of Zemi Communications.