The recent economic downturn in the United States and across the world has caused significant alarm in Central America, especially due to the region’s close links with the US economy. Some Central American officials have begun to question the wisdom behind integration with an economy that seems to be imploding, and are taking steps to immunize their own economies from the effects of the crisis. Member states of the Central American Integration System met on October 4, 2008 in Tegucigalpa, and agreed on a strategy to promote regional economic cooperation and development. The plan includes the investment of $5 billion into the region’s agricultural sector, with a special emphasis on grain production. However, it will be no easy task for Central America to withstand the economic decline of their number one trade partner, especially since economic integration with the US has been developing over the past several decades. Costa Rican economist Eduardo Lizano summed up the problem by stating: “The chief hope was that Central America would receive increased investment to produce goods for export to the United States. With a considerably lower level of consumption in the United States, those investments will not be made and the expected benefits will not materialise, or will be diminished.” This points to one inherent danger of global integration: that it leaves countries vulnerable to the ripple effects of poor economic decisions made elsewhere in the world.

Two years into the agreement, DR-CAFTA has failed to fulfill its promises in Central America. The pact has been controversial since its onset, drawing criticism from across the globe and sparking numerous popular protests in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. DR-CAFTA has plenty of critics in Washington as well; it passed the U.S. Senate and Congress by very slim margins of 54-45 in the Senate and 217-215 in the House. A new administration under Barack Obama, who voted against DR-CAFTA in the Senate, may re-address the stipulations of the accord, as the President-elect has promised to do with NAFTA. However, solving the chronic problems caused by this trade pact would require a vast overhaul of U.S. foreign policy, as well as a fundamental shift in its economic ideology. The United States should promote a foreign policy that values and promotes strong and stable allies through a fair-minded economic program that no longer rewards global exploitation. A major reassessment of DR-CAFTA, and the unbridled capitalistic profiteering which it embodies, could be an important step in this country’s path to progress and positive change in Latin America, and across the globe.