In the early 1980s, while traveling through Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama, I encountered something unexpected. There seemed to be more young European travelers than Americans exploring these countries. What struck me was not simply their numbers but their apparent comfort with the societies they were visiting.
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They seemed to recognize something familiar. The languages, religious traditions, political histories, architecture, and social customs of Latin America carried unmistakable European influences. For many of these young travelers, Latin America was not an alien civilization. It was a distant relative.
Indeed, I had the impression that some felt more culturally at home in Latin America than they did in the United States.
I understood something of that attraction myself. I had spent three years in Liberia with the Peace Corps. Yet I eventually chose to settle in Miami. Its Latin American character and youthful vibrancy appealed to me. I recognized that same energy during my travels farther south.
I had also studied German for two years in college and become familiar with Spanish while living and working in Miami. These experiences made traveling through Latin America relatively easy. But language and cultural familiarity were only part of the attraction. There was a sense of youthful ambition and societies still discovering their possibilities.
At the time, I regarded these experiences as interesting observations about travel and cultural affinity. Four decades later, they suggest something considerably more consequential.
Europeans had recognized a cultural relationship with Latin America that Americans were only beginning to appreciate as a strategic opportunity.
Today, that relationship is undergoing a transformation.
Europe is increasingly preoccupied with its own divisions, economic difficulties, military vulnerabilities, and deteriorating relationship with Russia. The United States, meanwhile, is reconsidering the importance of its own hemisphere. These are not merely neighboring countries. They represent a potential community of productive, economic, and strategic partners.
This does not mean Europe has abandoned Latin America. Nor does it mean that Latin American nations have suddenly embraced a common political philosophy. But the direction of American strategic attention is changing.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives this development a recognizable face. His political experience is deeply rooted in South Florida. His foreign-policy interests have long included Latin America and the Caribbean.
The irony is striking.
For generations, the United States looked across the Atlantic for its principal allies. Meanwhile, Europeans traveled across that same ocean and recognized familiar cultural foundations in Latin America.
Now America is beginning to look southward with renewed purpose. Europe, meanwhile, struggles to resolve the political and security contradictions of its own continent.
Perhaps the deeper lesson is that the geography of alliances need not remain fixed by the conflicts of the past.
Europe must eventually find a sustainable security relationship with its permanent neighbor, Russia. The United States has an opportunity to build stronger relationships with the nations of its own hemisphere.
One continent faces the difficult task of reconciliation. The other has an extraordinary opportunity for integration.
Latin America’s youthful energy adds another dimension. Its potential lies not simply in resources and geography but in the productive capacity of societies still developing their possibilities. That was part of what attracted me to Miami decades ago.
The Atlantic alliance reflects America’s historical obligations. Hemispheric integration may increasingly define its strategic opportunities.
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Our brothers may have been to the south all along.
Image: NASA