Honduran President Porfirio Lobo signed a deal Sunday in Cartagena, Colombia, with the country's ex-President Manuel Zelaya, clearing the way for Zelaya's return to Honduras from exile. That the agreement was brokered by the governments of Colombia and Venezuela -- two countries from opposite ends of Latin America's political spectrum -- and apparently without any involvement by the United States is raising some eyebrows.
"A deeper reading of this has to do with the fact that Latin America has become more autonomous from the United States," says Kevin Casas-Zamora, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Casas-Zamora, who served as Costa Rica's vice president from 2006-2007, told Trend Lines yesterday that the development shows "the U.S. is no longer able to dictate what happens in the region."