EoW September 2007

Transat lant ic Cable

The increasingly vexed question of immigration Mr Bush is told no in a Senate vote heard round Latin America The defeat, on 29 th June, of an immigration bill before the US Senate provoked extraordinary bitterness in Central America and Mexico. The measure, an awkward patchwork, even so would have eased the way to legal-resident status and ultimate citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented people now in the US. In the view of El Salvador’s President Elías Antonio Saca its defeat was ‘a pity.’ Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón called it ‘a grave error.’ Manuel Roig-Franzia, reporting from Mexico City for the Washington Post , observed that Mr Calderón has been taking a more aggressive stance toward the US than his predecessor, Vicente Fox, whose personal friendship with US President George W Bush had appeared to enhance the prospects for an immigration accord. Mr Bush pushed hard for the bill, which represented probably his last chance to put his personal stamp on important new federal policy. Mr Roig-Franzia noted that governments in Latin America have long hoped for a comprehensive reform package that would include guest-worker provisions and a route to legal status for the uncredentialed migrants in the US – about half of whom are Mexican. At the same time, he wrote, ‘the Calderón administration has tried lately to lower expectations, in the belief that immigration reform is unlikely until after a new US president is elected in November 2008.’ [‘Sharp Reaction to Immigration Bill’s Defeat,’ 30 th June] The Mexican newspaper El Universal condemned ‘a state that sends troops to the Middle East to try to implant democracy and respect for human rights [but] does not practice such supreme values in its own territory.’ The editorial also declared it ‘highly hypocritical that the US “admits migrants as peasants but does not accept them as citizens.”’ [Note: El Universal did not mention a notable anomaly of US immigration policy: service by illegals in the country’s armed forces. In Baghdad on 4 th July, the US Independence Day holiday, 161 soldiers raised their right hands to recite the oath making them American citizens and paving the way to citizenship for their families]. In Guatemala, the editorial ‘12 Million Victims’ in the daily Prensa Libre struck a similar note, declaring the Senate vote ‘deplorable’ and the US ‘a country hostile toward immigrants.’ The newspaper predicted damage to the economies of the US and Guatemala but foresaw as well a subtler, more damaging effect: “Little by little, the number of people who lose their appreciation [of the US] will grow. With what happened 29 th June, everyone loses, sooner rather than later, and there are fewer possibilities of healing that wound.” A 47-nation survey finds anti-Americanism extensive and growing The loss of US prestige predicted by a Guatemala City newspaper editor (see above) is in fact well advanced, to judge from the results of a major international opinion poll by the Pew Research Center. Conducted in April and May and reported on 27 th June, the survey found that distrust of the US has intensified across the world.

The largest such polling effort by Pew in five years covered 47 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, and gathered the opinions of more than 45,000 people. The survey focused on the global image of the US, which was broadly positive after the attacks on NewYork andWashington in 2001 but entered a steep decline with the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Favourable ratings of the US have decreased ‘in 26 of the 33 countries for which trends are available,’ Pew said. The Pew Research Center is a strictly non-advocacy ‘fact tank’ with headquarters in Washington, DC. The main findings of the organisation’s Global Attitudes Project were summed up by Meg Bortin in the International Herald Tribune for 27 th June: Majorities in 43 of the 47 countries surveyed want a quick US troop withdrawal from Iraq. In the US, 56% of respondents expressed this opinion Majorities or pluralities in 40 countries also want US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. This view, strongest in the Muslim world, was also held in many NATO member countries Support for America’s so-called war on terrorism has plummeted since 2002, especially in Europe where US practices at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons have been harshly condemned There is a widespread perception that the US acts unilaterally in making international policy decisions. This view is especially prevalent in Europe, held by 90% in Sweden, 89% in France, and 70% or more in Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Slovakia, and Spain. A full 83% of Canadians believe that their neighbour to the south ignores their interests. Middle Easterners overwhelmingly share this view, as do many Asians, including South Koreans and Japanese Majorities in almost every country believe that the US promotes democracy mostly where it serves American interests. Only in Nigeria did many say they believe that the US ‘promotes democracy wherever it can’ Pew also found that confidence in President Bush, which was already sagging, dropped further in most countries over the year to mid-2007, as the war in Iraq entered its fourth year. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, co-chair of the Global Attitudes Project, linked the diminution of America’s reputation directly to the Iraq war. Ms Albright, who served in the administration of former president Bill Clinton, told the Herald Tribune: “I think Iraq will go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy.” ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈

Matters of trade

The US trade deficit with China lags that of Europe

For the 12 months to mid-June, China’s trade surplus with the US was $154 billion, as Chinese exports rose almost 22% while its imports rose less than 20%.

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EuroWire – January 2006 EuroWire – September 2 07