MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Another Clinton hand joins Obama’s team as head of hemispheric affairs

US President Barack Obama named Tuesday Arturo Valenzuela, a US-Chilean citizen and former member of President Bill Clinton’s administration as the new head of hemispheric affairs in the State Department reported the White House press office.

Valenzuela will replace Thomas Shannon once his nomination has been confirmed by the US Senate. Shannon has been on the job since 2005, when he was named by former president George Bush.

The next Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Department of State is a prestigious academic currently Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

He was previously Professor of Political Science and Director of the Council on Latin American Studies at Duke University. He holds a Doctorate and a Master's degree in Political Science from Columbia University and a BA summa cum laude Political Science and Religion from Drew University.

Valenzuela was born in Chile and moved to the United States at the age of 16 in order to attend college. His studies focused on politics in Latinamerica. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs in the US Department of State by President Bill Clinton during his first term.

His primary responsibility under Clinton was United States foreign policy towards Mexico, a country of which he is considered an expert.

In President Clinton's second term in office, Valenzuela was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the national Security Council at the White House.

Valenzuela has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, the University of Sussex, the University of Florence (Italy), and the Catholic University of Chile. He has served on the board of directors of Drew University, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the National Council of La Raza and the advisory boards of the America’s Watch and the Institut des Amériques in Paris.

Valenzuela is a man of “great contacts and much knowledge of the region”, said Michael Shifter, Vice-president for Inter American Dialogue.

Shifter also mentioned that besides Mexico, “one of Obama’s priorities”, Valenzuela has long argued in favor of “dialogue and an opening towards Cuba”.

In a recent interview with Chile’s El Mercurio Valenzuela said that “what the US has to do is listen more. But if it does so, then the region must also have proposals. The US has other foreign relations priorities in the world, so what is most important is to an interlocutor”.

In respect of former president George Bush’s policy, Valenzuela said it had been a time of “big distancing with Latinamerica” and the challenge for the incoming administration “will be to try and rebuild that relation”.

President Obama also nominated another Latinamerican, María Otero, of Bolivian origin, for the post of Under Secretary of Global Affairs, Department of State, which addresses issues as democracy, human rights and migration among other issues.