Obama’s Final Stopover: Ignoring CAFTA Protests in San Salvador
• Obama meets Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes in San Salvador
• Leaders ignore demands for CAFTA renegotiation
• Salvadoran government, worried about environmental impact of gold mining, may have to pay USD 100 million to obdurate transnational investors
• A question of sovereignty, not money
President Obama arrived in El Salvador on March 22 in order to hold up that country as an example of what Latin American states can achieve through cooperation with the United States. Given the Central American country’s acquiescence in the militarization of Washington’s regional War on Drugs, and its enactment of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) after a bruising domestic struggle, Obama observed, “There are few better examples of both the opportunities and challenges facing the Americas today than here in El Salvador.”1 Obama and his counterpart, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, discussed a number of issues, including the advancement of military and civilian counter-drug initiatives, an additional USD two-hundred million in U.S. funds for Salvadoran legal institutions, and immigration reform affecting the nearly two million Salvadoran citizens in the U.S. conspicuously absent from the agenda however, there was a discussion of reforming CAFTA, which is a primary demand of civil society organizations in El Salvador. Such a renegotiation could profoundly affect not only El Salvador, but also carry consequences for the other signatories of the agreement: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.
This analysis was prepared by Research Associate Robert Cavooris
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