By Jiang Guopeng

By easing restrictions on Cuba, outreaching to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his allies, US President Barack Obama's low profile and approachable debut before his Latin American counterparts has well illustrated his policy toward the region – from partnership to leadership.

The president's initiative for reducing tensions with Havana and Caracas highlighted the Fifth Summit of the Americas, held here from Friday to Sunday in the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.

More remarkably, by setting the tone for the US-Latin American relationship as "partnership", Obama has been trying to assure the Western Hemispherical countries that the new US administration wants to build an "equal relationship" with them.

Should the American countries believe or accept such a doctrine, it would mean that they actually reaffirm the leadership of the United States in the hemisphere, as analysts believe that promoting partnership is an effective way for the US to finally achieve leadership in the region.

Partnership first

At the summit, President Obama told the other 33 American leaders that Washington wants to change its relationship with its neighbors by building "an equal partnership".

"There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations, there is simply engagement based upon mutual respect, common interests, and shared values," said the president in a 15-minute speech at the opening ceremony of the summit on Friday evening.

Obama did not use the word "leadership", which Obama's predecessors had preferred to use in their speeches, claiming that the "new chapter of engagement" will be sustained throughout his administration.

The softened stance was viewed as a manifestation of the diplomatic philosophy of pragmatism pursued by the Obama administration, whose top priority is to promote US economic recovery.

The administration has realized that the United States cannot confront severe transnational challenges by itself, and that the best way to reduce global threats and seize global opportunities is to sponsor and lead international cooperation.

The challenges facing the United States and the other American countries, such as economic crisis, climate change, energy supplies, illegal immigration, drug trafficking and organized crimes, have made a hemispherical cooperative partnership possible and necessary.

Therefore, "engagement" would be the first and maybe the best choice for the Obama administration in dealing with other countries, especially with those called "rouge states" by the Bush administration, such as Cuba, on which Washington has maintained embargo for nearly 50 years.

Engage to change 

The US-Cuban relationship has been one of the key issues in the US policy toward Latin America for decades, and tensions between the two countries have obviously hindered Washington's efforts to strengthen its dominance in the region. Therefore, a sustainable and healthy US-Latin American relationship depends much on a sound US-Cuban relationship.

At the summit, Obama vowed to engage the Cuban government on "a wide range of issues", and said "I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking. But I do believe that we can move US-Cuban relations in a new direction."

The president, ahead of his departure for the summit, also announced easing restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, and opening green light to US firms to explore the markets of telecommunications, satellite radio and TV services in the Caribbean country.

Obama's recent goodwill gestures to Cuba were seen as a major policy shift from the Bush administration's hawkish approach and the first step in comprehensively developing cooperative partnership with Latin America.