Latin America debate shallow, candidates offer few new policy proposals

Among the Republicans, Mitt Romney pledged to ''rebuild relationships of trust,'' while John McCain said Latin American nations are ``natural partners of the United States.''

Democrat Bill Richardson wants to resurrect the Kennedy-era Alliance for Progress, while rival Barack Obama promised a listening tour, starting with a visit to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has been critical of President Bush.

Such words are a welcome development for a region that largely sees Bush as too distracted by the war in Iraq to reverse the drop in U.S.-Latin American relations.

''Latin Americans are looking with a certain degree of enthusiasm for a new administration in Washington,'' said Peter Hakim, who heads the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. ``They're basically very unhappy with the Bush administration, and there is a degree of anticipation.''

But peel away the presidential hopefuls' lofty words, observers say, and there have been few substantive proposals on issues that matter the most to many Latin American governments: treatment of migrants and access to the U.S. market. Instead, there is plenty of fiery rhetoric condemning anti-U.S. leaders like Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro -- but few proposals that deviate substantially from what the Bush administration has done.