ABSTRACT
George Bush's reelection bid against Bill Clinton in 1992 generated an exceptional tide of sympathy for the Republican candidate, from Argentina to Mexico. In the past Latin Americans routinely favored the Democratic candidates, whose platforms on economic and social reform they found more congenial than the Republicans'. In Latin America, as in other regions of the world, the Arkansas governor was perceived as a provincial with little interest in, or understanding for, the nuances of foreign policy. Clinton portrayed the Miami summit as a pivotal event in the history of hemispheric relations. The discrepancies between words and action should not have surprised anybody from the outset of his administration; Clinton's foreign policy was marked by fluctuations and contradictions. The direction of hemisphere policy had already shifted to the administration's economic team, where it remained to the end of a Clinton presidency whose foreign policy was based on the premise that economic globalization was inevitable.
