The intense debate in Washington and elsewhere in the Americas about Honduras, and especially about how the United States should respond to the forcible deportation of President Manuel Zelaya, illustrates how hard it is to overcome long-standing expectations about US behavior in the Americas.

As long ago as the mid-1970s,...

President Barack Obama accomplished his immediate objectives at the Summit of the Americas. He conveyed an attractive approach to Latin America that is consistent with his overall worldview: confident, open, genuinely interested in consultation but also committed to expressing U.S. objectives, and ready to move away from unilateralism and presumption...

President Barack Obama will travel to Mexico and then to the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad, beginning on April 16th. He would do well to remember Ronald Reagan's seemingly obvious but fundamentally important comment on returning from his first trip to South America as President:...