The Foreign Service Journal, February 2005

F O C U S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 by any evidence, as was made clear when Bolton refused to defend his statements before a Senate com- mittee. The recent imposition of new restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba, allowing only one trip every three years to visit imme- diate family members, has antago- nized recently arrived Cubans who want to maintain family ties on the island. But this voting bloc proved to be no match for an earlier gen- eration of Florida-based Cuban extremists — the bul- wark of exile support for Washington’s anti-Castro mania for decades. As a result, Powell never addressed Havana in the same spirit of constructive engagement that he preached for North Korea or other non-Cuban pariahs. Colin Powell’s Latin America policy team also lacked the basic sophistication to effectively grapple with one of the most significant regional devel- opments in decades: the rise of an informal coalition of left-of-center democracies increasingly skeptical of Washington’s neoliberal diktats. Led by Lula in Brazil, with the sup- port of Chávez in Venezuela, President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina and now Tabaré Vazquez of Uruguay, this increasingly tight- knit group could thwart the White House’s long-sought Free Trade Area of the Americas by refusing to consider any comprehensive pact in the absence of meaningful concessions on U.S. agricultural subsidies and other key commercial issues. In response to this regional unity, the administration adopted a divisive tac- tic of concluding bilateral agreements with compliant partners, led by Chile, Colombia and a six-nation group that united in the Central American Free Trade Powell never addressed Cuba in the same spirit of constructive engagement that he preached for North Korea or other non- Havana pariahs.