Issues in International Political Economy: What Can the Western Hemisphere Expect from Obama and McCain?

Just about every American who studies or writes about U.S. relations with countries in the Western Hemisphere is asked regularly to provide thoughts about which of the two main presidential candidates will be better for Mexico (or Canada or Latin America or the Caribbean—or all of these together). What the questioners want is not what they can read in the public record, but rather to learn about the innermost thoughts of the candidates—and most of us don’t really know much about this. I suspect the candidates don’t really have many “innermost thoughts” because both they and their vice-presidential running mates know little about the hemisphere. Many things were said during the two primaries and are now being released in the early stages of the campaign that are unlikely to be carried out when the winner occupies the oval office in the White House.