MEDIA REACTION SAO PAULO: Summit of the Americas

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000234 SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP XM XR XF BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION SAO PAULO: Summit of the Americas 04-20-2009 Media Reaction: Western Hemisphere: Summit of Americas Monday, April 20, 2009 Title-Warm times after the end of the Cold War Op-ed in business oriented Valor Economico (4-20) by Sergio Leo states: "On the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas....a discrete political agreement marked the beginning of one more turn around in U.S. foreign policy promoted by Barack Obama: in a meeting between Brazil's Defense Minister, Nelson Jobim, Brazil's Foreign Policy Advisor to President Lula, Marco Aurelio Garcia, U.S. National Security Adviser General, Jim Jones, and the White House Special Advisor to Latin America, Dan Restrepo, they talked for more than one hour about the future of the region and the need to change the axle of the relationship between the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean....the Brazilian government is making efforts to convince Obama's administration that the initiatives in the area of defense and the fight against drug trafficking taken by UNASUL [Union of South American Nations] are the best way to engage countries of the region to combat problems that worry U.S. anti-drugs and anti-terrorism authorities . Obama's government seems to have received with satisfaction the message.....The solution for the collapse of the U.S. model in the fight against drug trafficking in the Hemisphere is an important piece in the dialogue between the U.S. and its neighbor countries, where the suspicion on this subject is high. ....The most evident thing at the Summit was the complete burial of the free trade agenda for the Hemisphere." WHITE