Partnership, and its obstacles

摘要

Shortly after he took office in 2009, Ba-rack Obama attended a 34-country Summit of the Americas in Trinidad where he pledged a "new era of partnership" between the two halves of the region, in place of "stale debates and old ideologies". Honouring this promise has not been easy: Mr Obama has had other priorities, both abroad and at home, and events in the region, such as a coup in Honduras just two months after the Trinidad summit, revived some of those old debates. Nevertheless, the administration has taken some modest initiatives in Latin America. But now the new partnership risks falling victim to partisan infighting in Washington.