On December 10, 2021, the sixth lecture of “Liangxiang Forum” hosted by Institute for International and Area Studies of Tsinghua University of the autumn semester of 2021 was successfully held. This lecture is given by Guo Jie, associate professor in the Department of International Relations of Peking University. The theme of the lecture is “From Trump to Biden: The Changes and Consistencies in the U.S Policy towards Latin America”. Zhou Yan, assistant professor of the IIAS, presided over the lecture. Researchers of area studies, and doctoral students attended the lecture.

At the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Guo Jie introduced the global background of the evolution of us Latin American relations, and briefly described the historical changes of US foreign policy in the imperial era, the Cold War era, the end of the cold war and the post-9.11 era. Mr. Guo said that there are three core variables in the U.S. policy towards Latin America, namely, the definition of U.S. national interests, the importance of Latin America in global strategy and the cognition of foreign competitors. From the perspective of the changes of these three variables, observe the changes and invariance of the US policy towards Latin America during the two presidents from trump to Biden. By analyzing various files, Prof. Guo Jie demonstrated and analyzed to the audience the pull policy during the trump administration, as well as the orientation and background of the current Biden administration’s pull policy. Prof. Guo summarized that the overall U.S. policy towards Latin America from the trump administration to the Biden administration continued more than changed, including the embargo and sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela. In addition, Prof. Guo Jie also shared Biden’s “top ten questions and answers” about Latin America and the data of the recent research report on democracy in Latin America.

During the Q & a session, Prof. Guo Jie had a warm interactive exchange with online and offline listeners on some hot events in Latin America and the Caribbean area, including the assassination of the president of Haiti and the multi-party impact of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Nicaragua and China. In addition, Prof. Guo Jie also shared the potential of comparative political research in Latin America, in order to light up the guiding light of students’ future academic research. Finally, the lecture received unanimous praise and warm applause from the audience, and the students said they had benefited a lot.

Guo Jie, doctor of law, associate professor, School of international relations, Peking University. She has successively visited or studied in institutions such as the University of Hong Kong, the EU headquarters in Brussels, the Caitlin foundation of the United States, the Pacific University of Peru, the American dialogue in Washington, the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, the College of Mexico and so on. At present, she is mainly engaged in teaching and research in Latin America and countries, China Latin America relations, comparative politics and other related fields. Four monographs have been published and about 40 academic articles have been published. Recent achievements include cutting the distance: benefits and tensions from recent active engagement of China, Japan, and Korea in Latin America (coauthored with Professor Nobuaki Hamaguchi of Kobe University in Japan and Professor Kim Jong sup of Seoul National University in Korea), “What connects two worlds apart?: trans Pacific Relations between East Asia and Latin America” (Harvard Latin American Review Magazine Revista), the “cycle of political Carnival”? – an analysis of populism in Latin America (International Political Studies, Peking University), etc.

Text by: Xu Shuai
Typesetting by: Cheng Yao
Reviewed by: Cheng Yao