Answering Latin Left, Bush Pledges To Help Poor

MÉRIDA, Mexico, March 13 — In the slums of Brazil, in the impoverished villages of Guatemala and finally here in Mexico, President Bush promised this week to deliver social justice to poor and struggling Latin Americans left behind by the global economy.

Mr. Bushs striking use of the revolutionary language of the left reflected an urgent attempt to stave off the growing regional influence of populist leaders like President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who have used the discontent of the poor to push an anti-American agenda.

Mr. Bushs tour, Latin American analysts say, signifies a new phase in a post-cold-war struggle for allegiance in South and Central America — regions that have fallen out of focus in Washington as Mr. Bush has pursued two wars and a wider campaign against terrorism in the Middle East.

At the fall of the Berlin Wall it seemed like Latin America was off limits to the enemies of the United States, said Álvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute, a Washington-based group that promotes free trade. Now, if Latin America goes the Chávez way in a pretty heavy way, clearly its going to be in play again.

Throughout the tour, Mr. Bush and his aides have bristled at what they have described as undue attention to Mr. Chávez in the news media as the Venezuelan leader, whose name Mr. Bush refuses to utter, has staged a competing tour this week.

Mr. Bush has shown open annoyance at suggestions that he has turned his back on this region, which he says ignore increases in United States aid and various humanitarian efforts during his tenure.

But aides acknowledged that the widespread anti-American feeling was hard to ignore — late Tuesday afternoon, for example, about 2,000 protesters tried to storm the United States Embassy in Mexico City.

Even Mr. Bushs host here, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico — who narrowly won election last year against a leftist whom Mr. Calderón portrayed as being in the mold of Mr. Chávez — said at a welcoming ceremony that in spite of Mr. Bushs pledge to make the relationship with Mexico a priority, unfortunately, the terrible happenings against the United States people, in a very understandable way, made the priorities change.

Nearly every move by Mr. Bush this week has seemed to be aimed at countering Mr. Chávezs message promoting the nationalization of industry and a severing of economic ties with the United States.

Mr. Bush has made stops highlighting American attempts to alleviate conditions for the poor in friendly nations — Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico — that were chosen to illustrate how they have made what administration officials considered the right choices in pursuing democracy and trade with the United States.

Pointing to American efforts to provide medical treatment to those who cannot afford it, Mr. Bush on Monday visited a makeshift military medical outpost serving poor Guatemalan villagers. He later spent time loading lettuce into a truck at a Guatemalan produce cooperative built with help from Usaid. In all of his stops, he has made a case that free trade with the United States will lift all boats and alleviate poverty if given a chance.

But the question, Latin American analysts say, is whether the effort will be large enough, or sustained enough, to make a difference as the frustration of the poor continues to grow as they watch their wealthier neighbors, who benefit from free trade, buy fancy new homes and as Land Rover dealerships go up next to their shantytowns.

Mr. Chávez has continued to up the ante on Mr. Bush this week, talking, for example, of investing $2.5 billion to build an oil refinery in Nicaragua while making an appearance there with the newly re-elected president, Daniel Ortega — the former Sandinista guerrilla leader who has returned to power and whose appearance with Mr. Chávez at a rally this week was a sign of his possible allegiance.

American assistance pales beside such sums. In an interview here on Tuesday, Rossana Fuentes-Berain, the opinion page editor for the newspaper El Universal, contrasted the $1.6 billion the United States gives in aid to the region annually with the cost of the Iraq war — and the sums Mr. Chávez is spending.

Carrying around boxes of lettuce in a colorful Guatemalan coat is not my definition of showing that hes willing to do poverty alleviation, Ms. Fuentes-Berain said of Mr. Bushs stop at the produce cooperative in Guatemala.

Jim Rutenberg reported from Mérida, and Larry Rohter from Buenos Aires. James C. McKinley Jr. contributed reporting from Mérida and Simon Romero from Caracas, Venezuela.

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