The double standard that warps U.S. policy toward Latin America—and how to fix it
By a regulated optimist who grades in pencil, votes with both hands, and still believes maps should tell the truth.
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I. Two rulebooks, one hemisphere
Americans often behave as if we have two foreign-policy manuals: the Rules for Allies (deferential, consultative, patient) and the Rules for Neighbors (sanctions first, waivers later, and "we'll get back to you" on dignity). Europe gets the first book. Latin America gets the second. The irony is that the United States is a Spanish-American nation in demography and geography. We live inside the neighborhood we keep treating as a power-point. That mismatch breeds policies that are loud, short-term, and self-defeating.
This essay is not a lament; it's a field guide. We'll walk through four case studies—Venezuela, Haiti, the Darién migration corridor, and El Salvador—and then sketch a practical platform for a neighborly foreign policy that is boring on purpose and generous by design.
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II. Venezuela: sanctions as a metronome, waivers as improvisation
In October 2023, Washington tested a calibrated opening with General License 44, allowing transactions in Venezuela's oil and gas sector to encourage electoral concessions. When the Maduro government failed to deliver, Treasury let the license expire on April 18, 2024 and issued a wind-down GL 44A through May 31. That is defensible conditionality; it is also whiplash for a region that must plan investments and fuel flows by the quarter, not the tweet.
Even as the broader relief ended, Washington carved sensible exceptions: narrow authorities for legacy U.S. operators and refined licenses elsewhere—including, in October 2025, permission for Trinidad and Tobago to negotiate a gas deal with Venezuela under specific terms. That last move is good policy: it stabilizes Caribbean energy without materially enriching Caracas. It also reveals the core problem: we are doing case-by-case mercies inside a sanctions machine that still behaves like a switch, not a dimmer. Markets read the strobe, not our intentions.
Fix the method: make conditionality predictable. Publish a quarterly scoreboard—electoral benchmarks, prisoner releases, human-rights access—paired to specific license apertures ("X met → GL reissued at scope Y"). Diplomacy by spreadsheet is less romantic; it is far more legible to the people we claim to be helping.
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III. Haiti: outsourcing security, renting time
Haiti remains the hemisphere's hardest test of neighborliness. In 2023, the U.N. authorized a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by Kenya and bankrolled largely by the U.S. The mission staggered forward through 2024; by September 30, 2025, the Security Council had voted to transition the MSS into a more muscular Gang Suppression Force, while U.S. officials warned publicly that American funding would expire by year's end absent fresh authorization. We are juggling mandates and money while Haitians juggle survival.
Fix the method: stop behaving as if Haiti were a grant cycle. Pair the new force with a five-year U.S. baseline package that is boring and specific: police salaries, judicial protection, prison health, port security, and electricity for public services—disbursed through a trustee mechanism that survives politics. If we will not do state-building, we should at least fund institutional maintenance that endures beyond headlines. (It is cheaper than re-intervening every two years.)
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IV. The Darién corridor: externalized borders, internalized costs
Through 2023–24, a river of people—Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Haitians, and beyond—crossed the Darién Gap into Panama, then north. Washington responded with "Safe Mobility Offices" in third countries and with training and logistics that helped Panama tighten the corridor after July 2024. By mid-2025, crossings plummeted, a success the U.S. Department of Homeland Security touted as a 99.98% drop for May–June relative to prior peaks. Panama's president, José Raúl Mulino, spoke of barbed-wire fencing, stepped-up removals, and a crisis "managed." All of that can be true—and still incomplete.
Fix the method: if we externalize the border, we must internalize accountability. Pair corridor control with two guarantees: (1) real quotas of lawful pathways (seasonal work visas, family-reunification parole, refugee referrals) published monthly so would-be migrants have credible alternatives; and (2) a humanitarian floor in transit (identification, medical stabilization, child protection) audited by third parties. Otherwise we are simply outsourcing risk and congratulating ourselves on numbers.
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V. El Salvador: the strongman exception
When Nayib Bukele won a second term amid judicial contortions that critics say breached El Salvador's constitutional bar on consecutive reelection, the United States sent a high-level delegation to the June 2024 inauguration and publicly softened criticism, citing migration cooperation and gang suppression. The pivot reflects hard interests. It also signals that illiberalism is tolerable if it keeps the numbers down. That is a corrosive message for a region where rule-of-law norms are fragile and admired.
Fix the method: keep talking with San Salvador; also tie new security assistance to due-process benchmarks (access to counsel, pretrial release rules, independent prison monitoring). If we are going to praise safety gains, we should pay for—and demand—the institutions that make them lawful.
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VI. Trade and finance: the lever we keep forgetting
The USMCA review arrives in July 2026. Article 34.7 is not a bureaucratic ritual; it is the best chance in a decade to rebuild the economic half of neighborliness. Launch the process as if we mean it: a trilateral labor-and-energy annex that aligns supply chains with grid reliability, clean-power goals, and real enforcement; a cross-border data/AI chapter that protects rights while keeping North American firms competitive; and a standing infrastructure working group that treats transmission interties, water, and ports as shared assets. The three countries are already opening domestic consultations; use them.
On finance, the U.S. has backed Argentina's serial IMF programs—most recently with 2024–25 staff-level agreements unlocking funds under a reworked Extended Fund Facility—and, according to major outlets, weighed or executed extraordinary support this October as markets wobbled under Milei's shock therapy. If we can move that fast for Buenos Aires, we can move faster on regional development tools that help neighbors meet climate and migration pressures before crises metastasize.
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VII. The diagnosis: salience drives severity
Why the double standard? Because public salience substitutes for policy. Americans can place Prague on a postcard; fewer can locate Pasto or Posadas. Low familiarity lets hard tools dominate (sanctions, interdiction, episodic missions) while soft tools (patient financing, municipal capacity, media cooperation) wither. We are not cruel; we are inattentive. The fix is not moral lecturing; it is institutionalizing attention so methods don't swing with polls.
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VIII. A neighborly platform (twelve boring, transformative moves)
Sanctions with scoreboards. Publish quarterly, bilingual benchmarks → license apertures for Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Predictability is leverage.
Haiti, five-year floor. Lock police/judiciary/port/health financing behind a trustee; keep the Gang Suppression Force honest with public metrics.
Darién reciprocity. Tie corridor control to monthly lawful-pathway quotas and independently audited humanitarian standards.
El Salvador due-process compact. Condition new security cooperation on courtroom and prison metrics, reported quarterly.
USMCA for the grid. Use the 2026 review to create a North American transmission & reliability annex with cross-border projects eligible for blended finance.
Water as foreign policy. Stand up a Border Water Facility that funds sewage treatment, aquifer recharge, and desal with strict energy/brine criteria; publish a binational scorecard. (The treaty pages have taught the valley to read a ledger; give them a better one.)
Municipal muscle. Shift a slice of State/USAID toward city-to-city compacts (permitting, procurement, heat management, transit operations). Mayors solve what sovereigns perform.
Scholar exchange, southward. Tripled Fulbright-García Robles/Colciencias/Conicyt-style placements for U.S. students in Latin America; people protect what they can pronounce.
Diaspora bonds. Pilot tax-advantaged bonds in major U.S. metros with large diaspora communities, co-funding resilient infrastructure back home; let remittances build pipes as well as dinners.
Spanish-language media parity. Federal agencies should treat Spanish-language outlets as primary in the hemisphere: embargoes, briefings, and data feeds simultaneous with English.
Climate migration insurance. Capitalize a hemispheric loss-and-damage window that triggers work-visa expansions after climate shocks, to replace chaos with corridors.
Human-rights early warnings. Fund independent local monitors (press, bar associations, universities) whose alerts automatically escalate to State/OAS desks—because by the time ambassadors disagree, people are already in prison.
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IX. Three short scenes (because policy is a place)
Port-au-Prince, dusk.
A police cadet toggles a donated body-cam on and off, not as theater but because the trustee-funded salary cleared and the charger works. The precinct posts weekly arrest and abuse metrics; the line outside the passport office shortens.
Colón, Panama, noon.
A nurse scans a QR code on a tarp—humanitarian standard achieved—before a bus departs south, not north. A billboard 100 meters away lists this month's lawful pathway quotas to the U.S., Costa Rica, and Spain. Choices replace rumors.
Houston, a classroom, 10:14 a.m.
High-schoolers file into "USMCA Lab," where a map of proposed cross-border transmission lines glows next to a table of labor-enforcement cases. The teacher says, "We live on this map." Two students nod; one's father works the port; the other's grandmother watches the Spanish evening news.
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X. Epilogue: Courtesy as statecraft
Vonnegut would wish us luck; Borges would hand us a map keyed in two languages. I will settle for courtesy—not the etiquette of adjectives, but the discipline of methods that don't lurch. Sanctions with calendars. Missions with pay stubs. Borders with doors and inspectors. Trade reviews that behave like planning, not brinkmanship.
Our neighbors are not a problem set; they are family. Family deserves more than exceptions; it deserves a rule that keeps its promises even when nobody is watching.
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Sources (validated)
• Venezuela sanctions — State Dept. notice of GL 44 expiration (Apr. 17, 2024) and OFAC GL 44A wind-down FAQ; background on remaining authorities; OFAC license for Trinidad & Tobago to negotiate gas with Venezuela (Oct. 2025).
• Haiti security — U.N. documents on the MSS mission and transition to a Gang Suppression Force (Sept. 30, 2025); Reuters on U.S. funding timelines; CSIS analysis.
• Darién corridor — CFR explainer (July 2024 updates); Al Jazeera reporting on early-2025 drop and Panamanian measures; DHS release citing 99.98% reduction for May–June 2025 vs. prior peaks.
• El Salvador — AP on U.S. participation in Bukele's 2024 inauguration and softened tone.
• USMCA 2026 review — CSIS overview; Brookings and law-firm briefings on Article 34.7 processes and timelines.
• Argentina/IMF — IMF press releases on 2024 staff-level agreement and Eighth Review completion; contemporaneous reporting (FT/AP) on unusual U.S. support moves in Oct. 2025.