Why the Americas have drifted apart

"In much of Latin America, antiterrorism is code for how you deal with groups you don't like," says Richard Feinberg, director of the University of California at San Diego's APEC Study Center and an expert in the Americas summits. "They think the US is obsessed [with security], while they tend to see it in terms of their past. They would have trouble making it a priority."

But others say different, deeper trends have altered the context for hemispheric relations. Globalization, the economic rise of China and other nations in Asia and Europe, and subregional unions such as the Brazilian-led Mercosur trade group, have all yielded a hemisphere very different from the one the first President Bush envisioned as one seamless trading area, says Mr. Peña.

Noting that the president will travel later this month to Asia, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in South Korea and a trip to China, UC San Diego's Mr. Feinberg says Bush may have an easier time there. That's because Asia is growing and casts fewer doubts on the prevailing international economic model than does Latin America, he says.

Another factor is that the APEC meeting focuses on economics over political issues like democratization.

Still, hemispheric leaders can take heart from the fact that no countries have "fallen completely off the bandwagon" in terms of democratic rule, Feinberg says. That reality, he says, should act as a boon to future efforts to solidify democracy's hold in the region.

Although the US image has "deteriorated," particularly in the hemisphere's southernmost countries, "relations with governments in the region are good," says Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

This summit, the fourth to be held, has the theme of job creation through good governance. Without the driving goal of a free-trade area and given the "diversification" of approaches, the summit is likely to deliver little more than bland calls for poverty reduction and trade growth, say some officials and experts. "I think we'll see a reiteration of past goals," says Mr. DeShazo.

To move beyond that, Peña says, something "dramatic" needs to happen at the summit "to capture attention and get it off the negative."

His suggestion: that Bush announce a relaunching of the goal of a hemispheric trade area with a US commitment to talks with the Mercosur trade group - a proposal Bush could take with him on his visit Sunday to Brazil.

Others have different ideas. US Rep. Robert Menendez (D) of New Jersey proposes a $500 million social investment and economic development fund, to be matched by Latin countries, to place the US squarely in the region's battle for democratization and poverty reduction.

"It doesn't have to be my idea, but something has to be put out there to get the ball rolling again," Peña says. "That's what the first President Bush did" with his goal of the free-trade area, "and we need something like that again."

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