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The Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, 20-22 April, provided a backdrop for a variety of protesters and the opportunity for a class picture for 34 American heads of state. But beyond that, nothing major was accomplished except to signal approval of progress already made on such matters as democratic governance and trade

There were 17 items on the agenda as planners feverishly worked and reworked the list of topics before the Summit. Canada even wanted to make connectivity to the Internet a prominent theme. Few other participants thought that was a priority. Some subjects, such as education, public health, and gender equality, seemed important during the proceedings but will be ignored later because they interest almost no government officials back home. Thus, political and economic issues took center stage once again, because they characterize much of what the hemisphere south of the Rio Grande needs and because substantive change will take a long time.

President George Bush was not able to use the occasion to propose a new U.S. policy toward the region, as President Clinton did in 1994, because his administration is not ready to do so. Most of the Latin America slots in the State Department and other agencies are still occupied by holdovers from the previous administration. As a result, Bush's major thrust was to solidify support for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) introduced by Bill Clinton at the 1994 Summit. He was largely successful in that regard; even Brazil expressed its commitment to the project. The only holdout was Venezuela, which would rather improve commerce with Iran, Iraq, China and Cuba.

So, where do hemispheric relations go from the Quebec City Summit? Curiously, when diplomats talk about the hemisphere in this way, it is mainly about Latin America. The United States and Canada are industrialized, stable democracies, with security and with trade ties around the world. The rest of the region is at issue because of its need to achieve political stability, control security threats, and to promote economic reforms in order to unleash its human potential.

The Summit handled these matters by agreeing to a so-called "democracy clause" to limit participation in the Summit to countries with freely elected leaders. Somehow this codicil is to be woven into the FTAA as well, but could well prove a contentious issue. Transnational crime, such as drug trafficking, was identified as a major security threat, but was largely glossed over as an expression of support for the Organization of American States (OAS) drug trafficking self-monitoring and evaluation mechanism that some countries would like to see replace the U.S. counternarcotics certification process. Finally, trade--the star of the Summit--was advanced in the form of the FTAA, even though the Bush administration has committed itself to bilateral deals as a hedge against the possible failure of the FTAA process.

Left to their own devices, summits of this sort can only take small, incremental steps because they represent the lowest common denominator of agreement. With an economy four times the size of all of Latin America and an active interest in the region, the United States and its policies play a much more important role in influencing reforms. Following eight years of benign U.S. neglect, what role should occupy the talents of new Bush appointees in Latin American posts for some time to come?

On Democracy

The administration will find that a summit clause and commitments are not enough. With the exception of Cuba, all countries in Latin America hold elections to determine their leaders. Yet many of the region's political institutions still mirror traditions of authoritarian rule: strong presidencies, weak legislatures and judiciaries, highly centralized national governments, weak or nonexistent state and municipal governments, no rule of law, and rampant deal-making with unaccountable actors. Chile, Uruguay, and now Mexico are on the road to reform. Costa Rica has had 50 years of rich democratic experience. But elsewhere, democracy still struggles for a foothold.

In addition to promoting elections by funding observer delegations, the Bush administration should finance relatively inexpensive civic education programs to help build knowledge of concepts such as separation of powers, decentralization, and core administrative competencies. It should increase support for party-building and grass-roots, political skill-building programs overseen by the National Endowment for Democracy. Education programs that use nongovernmental organizations to improve primary and secondary education can help bolster literacy and citizenship skills. Finally, the Administration of Justice program needs to be expanded beyond the handful of countries where rule of law is taking root, such as Uruguay and El Salvador.

On Security

As far as security is concerned, mutual support for a multilateral self-reporting system on drug trafficking is not enough. Drug and arms traffickers have tentacles that reach from Argentina to Alaska. Colombian cocaine is a $50 billion a year business--the equivalent of Peru's gross domestic product. Moreover, arms trafficking and drug- and guerrilla-related violence is spilling over Colombia's borders into Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela.

Because the previous U.S. administration did little to alter the old Cold War hemispheric defense paradigm, the Bush Administration should start building working partnerships with neighboring countries for cooperative defense against transnational threats. To do so effectively, the United States should first iron out its own inefficient methods of dealing with menaces that have both military and civilian components, allowing U.S. military and police assistance to flow in a more coordinated fashion. Second, the United States should facilitate cooperation and collaboration among our regional allies to halt violence and interdict illicit drugs coming out of Colombia. Third, we should be wary of confiding too much in multilateral organizations such as the OAS or the Summit to tackle these issues. Despite the fact that the secretary-general of the OAS is Colombian, Colombia's problems have never been seriously discussed in the general assembly. This is a matter in which the United States should take a leadership role for the foreseeable future.

On Trade

The development of economies open to trade and less dependent on statist, import-substitution schemes during the last 20 years has encouraged Latin American nations to lower some tariffs and open some markets. Free trade is still mostly a concept and economic reforms have not been wholly implemented. More than a third of Latin American citizens still get by on less than $2 a day because local oligarchies won't permit open competition with their family businesses, the lifting of imposing barriers to the creation of new business, or the extension of private property guarantees to others in their societies.

The Bush administration should continue to push for free-trade agreements with our Latin American neighbors because free trade opens the door to competitive enterprise, helping to unfreeze systems of privilege and monopoly. However, more than four years ago, the Clinton administration ceded leadership on the FTAA to Brazil, allowing the FTAA to develop more along the lines of a customs union, like Brazil's own Southern Cone Common Market or Mercosur. Getting it shaped back into a simple free-trade arrangement is going to be a tough task.

Pursuing separate bilateral relationships is a tactic that the president's lead negotiator, Robert Zoellick, has proposed as a hedge against failure and to apply pressure on holdouts to join. But it would make far more sense for the United States to decide on the criteria of what reforms a foreign country would have to achieve in order to gain automatic free-trade status. Such a "Global Free Trade Association" concept advocated by The Heritage Foundation trade experts wouldn't rely on lengthy or uncertain negotiations. Countries desiring access to the United States' $9 trillion economy would simply have to drop barriers to foreign and domestic investment, open their own economies to the creation of small- and medium-sized businesses, protect private property, and develop the rule of law. A multilaterally agreed upon FTAA doesn't allow for such depth of reform.

To sum up, there is a lot of work to do on democracy, hemispheric security, and economic issues. All of it really depends on local political will. In countries where elites rule and their interests may be threatened by the prospect of citizen participation and open markets, neighbors like the United States will have to do some gentle prodding. How the Bush administration plans to do so remains to be seen. But you can be sure that it will affect the lives of 800 million people and a combined $12 trillion dollar hemispheric economy.

This report was prepared exclusively for the National Security Report by Stephen Johnson, a policy analyst for Latin America at the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.

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