"The strategic equation in the Americas is changing and a lot is riding on Secretary Clinton's visit," says COA's Eric Farnsworth. "Managing the U.S. relationship with Brazil, a rising global power with big ambitions, is one of the most important strategic issues in the hemisphere," he added.

"Having taken decisions that are insular and singularly unhelpful to the US, Latin Americans cannot then complain when the US administration prioritizes other areas for its attentions," argues COA's Eric Farnsworth in this letter to the editor, published in the Financial Times.

With its vast tropical forests, Latin America can greatly benefit from efforts to limit deforestation, writes COA's Nicole Spencer in Poder.

The Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts could have an impact on U.S. policy in Latin America, writes COA's Eric Farnsworth. He adds that "an administration that has shown little appetite for pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, for example, will not likely decide that now is a good time to take action."

"Be it an earthquake in Haiti or the violent drug war fought in Mexico today, the United States can ill afford to turn a blind eye to our neighbors in this hemisphere," writes former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Antonio O. Garza in The Dallas Morning News.

"Haiti will quite literally need to be rebuilt from the ground up," writes COA's Eric Farnsworth. The United States, aided by partners in the international community,  "should work  together under a special new UN mandate to restore the nation and put it on a new path to long-term, sustainable development. This is where the true test of U.S. leadership will come," he added.

"Perhaps the best signal yet of a new U.S. approach to the hemisphere is on trade issues," writes COA's Eric Farnsworth in this op-ed arguing that the current administration must rekindle languishing U.S.-Latin American trade agreements.