The Inter-American Dialogue, a nonpartisan policy group whose members include a number of high-profile current and former policymakers from the Western Hemisphere, released a list of 10 recommended goals on March 10 for the Obama administration’s policy toward Latin America. Called “A Second Chance,” the document does not advocate any radical changes in U.S. policy toward Latin America, but suggests concrete, relatively limited goals for the new administration, which has yet to articulate a comprehensive Latin American policy.

As indicated by the title, the document seeks to point the way for the United States after years of deteriorating U.S.-Latin American cooperation. The goals take into account the Obama administration’s enormous policy challenges worldwide. And the Obama administration in fact does not have much spare capacity to devote to what essentially would be a revitalization of U.S.-Latin American relations.

The list recommends that:

1. The United States must speed its own recovery from the financial crisis that has slowed global growth. At the same time, Washington must avoid protectionist measures that would hurt Latin American countries, ensure the International Monetary Fund is sufficiently capitalized to effectively offer aid where necessary, and collaborate regularly with Latin American economic and finance officials.
2. Washington should consider “recasting” its relationship with Cuba.
3. The United States should “substantially expand security cooperation” with Mexico, with the possibility of creating a “joint border authority to better coordinate security activities.”
4. The United States should work to prevent arms smuggling to Latin America, engage in anti-crime initiatives with Latin American countries, and revisit anti-drug policy in the region.
5. The United States should initiate a comprehensive immigration reform, and immediately halt construction of the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
6. The U.S. Congress should ratify free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, re-establish preferential trade agreements with Bolivia and extend them to Paraguay. The United States should also consider approaching Brazil to form a “common approach to global and regional trade negotiations.”
7. The United States and Brazil should cooperate on “climate change, energy development, and world trade negotiations.”
8. The United States should seek to ease tensions with Venezuela by offering to re-establish diplomatic ties, but keep expectations low.
9. The United States “must rebuild its diminished credibility on democracy and human rights issues.”
10. The United States should build cooperation with Haiti, and aid Haiti through immigration policy and seeking to reduce Haiti’s debt burden.

Of these ten items, the top three are the most likely to see real progress in the near future. In the first place, they already are on the Obama administration’s agenda. A U.S. recovery from the economic crisis is not only a priority for Washington, it would be an enormous boon for Latin America, as the United States is the largest or second largest export market for most Latin American countries.

Revisiting relations with Cuba already has begun, with initiatives in the recent spending bill allowing Cuban-Americans to visit family members in Cuba once a year, as opposed to the once-every-three-year limit imposed by laws passed under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush.

U.S. relations with Mexico are perhaps the most important item on this list, and the trickiest to recommend real policy options for. Washington already cooperates a great deal with Mexico (more, perhaps than with any other country in the world), and the two partners have a limited number of options remaining. This is particularly true given the do-it-yourself nature of Mexico’s counternarcotics policy and the difficulties involved in having the United States share actionable intelligence with the Mexican government, which struggles with an enormous corruption problem.

The rest of the items certainly will be discussed and taken seriously by U.S. policymakers, but it is not clear when the Obama administration will be able to get to them. At the same time that U.S. President Barack Obama has sent special envoys to far-flung corners of the world, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has offered to “reset” relations with Russia, the Obama administration has not even gotten around to switching out the Bush representative to Latin America (Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon). That Obama is (so far) still relying on the same policy team for Latin America makes it appear unlikely that Washington is ready to revitalize relations with its southern neighbor just yet.