Message to the Media on Obama and McCain

COHA has been compiling and sorting out a good deal of information and analyses on the policies and personalities likely to be embraced in the eventuality of either a McCain or Obama victory in tomorrow’s presidential contest. Among the themes being assessed, and assuming an Obama victory, there follows a cluster of issues that COHA’s staff has been examining.

1. New departures under Obama for inter-American relations.

2. Washington’s reaction to the launch of UNASUR.

3. U.S. bilateral relations with Havana and Caracas.

4. How Washington will react to Brazil’s rise to near-superpower status.

5. What the likely outcome of the next meeting of the FTAA in Trinidad will be.

6. Prospects for a U.S.-Colombia FTA under Obama.

7. Obama’s predilections in dealing with South America’s left-leaning governments.

8. Obama’s immigration policies towards Mexico and whether Cuba will continue to have privileged refugee status as opposed to Haiti and all other Latin American nations.

9. Obama’s treatment of the drug-legalization issue.

10. Whether an Obama presidency will put pressure on Peru’s Garcia administration to review the status of U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, thereby extending humanitarian considerations by commuting her 20 year jail sentence, most of which she has now served.

11. Whether economic relief will be extended to the English-speaking Caribbean islands which have been battered by recent hurricanes and which have been hobbled by the lack of a viable economy.