If the trip goes forward as planned, the Latin America Obama will encounter is more confident, more politically diverse and healthier economically since adopting sometimes painful reforms.

Chile and Brazil have looked to new markets beyond the Western Hemisphere and increasingly formed investment and trade links with China. Chile's trade with China, for example, is now more than double its trade with the United States, and China also has overtaken the United States as Brazil's top trading partner.

"South America, especially, feels much more autonomous economically and politically now," said Sergio Bitar, who served as minister of mining, education and public works under three different Chilean administrations.

Many Latin economies weathered the global economic crisis better and emerged more quickly than the United States.

The old days of U.S. paternalism are "over; it's ended," said Bitar, currently a visiting fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

For his first foreign trip of the year, Obama has chosen Brazil, an emerging world power; Chile, a dependable ally with a solid economy; and El Salvador, a Central American nation that emerged from civil war in the early 1990s only to find itself in a new war against organized crime, gangs and poverty.

On a more personal level, the president is expected to make the trip with wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia. Their presence will be an added attraction in family-oriented Latin America.

The first family is expected to receive a warm welcome in Brazil, their first stop and a country with a multiethnic society. "Brazil has the largest African heritage population after Nigeria. Obama is very popular in Brazil. He is the only foreign leader who polls above 50 percent," said Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Brazil, in particular, offers an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

Despite a long-standing and generally tight relationship with the U.S., former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's foreign policy was increasingly at odds with that of the United States in the latter months of his term.

Not only did he say that U.S. policy under Obama had "changed little or not at all," but Brazil's attempt with Turkey to broker a deal last year to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis also was not appreciated by the United States. Nor was Brazil's recognition of the state of Palestine based on the borders that existed prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.

But the new president, Dilma Rousseff, has indicated she wants a closer, more pragmatic relationship with the United States. "Brazil and the United States have to relearn how to relate to each other and this is an important step," Sotero said.

The Obama administration has said the trip will be an opportunity to engage this region of 590 million people. The trip also fulfills a promise the president made in his State of the Union address to visit the three countries.

For some, that engagement is a bit overdue. And it must produce results, said Carl Meacham, Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar's senior aide for Latin America and the Caribbean

"The trip will mean little if the president doesn't get anything substantive. ... Just showing up isn't enough," Meacham said. "We have excellent U.S. ambassadors in the region; unfortunately, we have not seen the same quality from officials handling the region in the Obama administration."

Among the needed measures, he said, are concrete steps to improve the United States' business relationship with Brazil as well as an indication of the administration's commitment to getting approval for the Colombia and Panama Free Trade Agreements.

But this trip may be a chance to make amends.

"With so much going on in the rest of the world, including in the United States with the recession, (Obama) has not been able to devote as much time as he liked to Latin America," said Susan Kaufman Purcell, director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami.

"While Latin Americans may have expressed some dismay that the United States hasn't paid enough attention," she said, "South America has been doing very well and in a sense they don't need the United States as much."

The visit, said presidential spokesman Jay Carney, will be an opportunity "to advance our efforts to work as equal partners to address the basic challenges facing the people of the Americas."

For Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S. Mauro Vieira, the trip "is a very good sign of the president's interest in strengthening relations in this part of the word. For us, it's very timely with our new president in place."

Obama is expected to sound some of the same themes he did in his State of the Union address: jobs, innovation, alternative energy sources, education and leadership in research and technology.

Despite advances, more progress needs to be made in Latin America in addressing poverty and social inequality, fighting drug trafficking and organized crime and increasing educational opportunities.

While no new policy initiatives are expected for Brazil and Chile, it is possible that Obama will propose a Central America regional security plan to help fight drugs and thugs that will include some U.S. money for additional security programs.

Already, Mexican drug cartels are moving south into Central America where borders are porous and local gangs seem only too willing to lend themselves to the drug trade.

"We're confident that the Mexican cartels haven't established a base in El Salvador but we must prevent this from happening," said Francisco Altschul, Salvadoran ambassador to the United States.

El Salvador has long served as a transit point for drugs coming from Colombia to the United States.

Center-left President Mauricio Funes has said he hopes the Obama visit will focus on poverty and the inequities that have given rise to other problems, such as crime and massive immigration to the United States.

And, said Altschul, El Salvador hopes there is a recognition that these are shared problems that need common solutions.

In general, Bitar, the former Chilean minister, said he thought the message of the trip would be empathy and a "vision for the future."

But that doesn't mean Brazil and Chile don't have wish lists:

Brazil would like a statement of support from Obama for its bid to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Obama gave such a thumbs-up to fellow emerging power India during his trip there last year.

It would also please the Brazilians if the phasing out of U.S. tariffs on Brazilian ethanol is discussed.

But Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the agenda would mostly focus on cooperation between the U.S. and Brazil, common initiatives for sustainable development and alternative energy and the environment "as a means of building a closer commercial relationship between the two countries."

Chile would like to become the only Latin American country to get a visa waiver that would allow Chileans to enter the United States freely. Only 32 countries - most of them in Europe - have such waivers. Argentina and Uruguay had them but they were revoked around 2007.

Such a program for Chile would give President Sebastian Pinera a big political boost and help solidify his forecast that Chile will become an "advanced economy" as early as 2018.

Chile also is interested in U.S. streamlining of inspection of its agricultural exports to the U.S. market.

But for Brazil, the trip will be more about a new relationship for a country realizing its potential.

"People in Brazil are not expecting Obama to arrive with gifts. It is not that type of relationship anymore," Sotero said.

*Miami Herald staff writer Andres Oppenheimer contributed to this report.