Weekly Report - 17 February 2011 (WR-11-07)

It has been a while coming but will it be worth the wait? Nearly two years on from his early initiation in Latin American diplomacy at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain in April 2009, US President Barack Obama is poised to conduct a mini-tour of the region from 17 to 23 March. For the most, there is a broad acceptance that the long hiatus between the summit and his first official visit is less a sign of neglect than that domestic economic and other foreign policy concerns have kept the region low on the US list of priorities. With destinations restricted to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, however, it is a less expansive itinerary than that of his predecessor George W. Bush in 2007. The omission of Colombia will also be felt all the more keenly in Bogotá after Obama's 2012 budget proposal included swingeing cuts to military aid for the counter-narcotics initiative Plan Colombia.