June 11, 2009 3:06PM # Obama Congratulates Correa By [Juan Carlos Hidalgo](https://www.cato.org/people/juan-carlos-hidalgo) --- SHARE The White House [announced](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-by-the-Press-Secretary-on-the-Presidents-call-with-President-Rafael-Correa-of-Ecuador/) today that President Obama called Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to congratulate him on his recent re-election and “to commend the people of Ecuador for their commitment to democracy.” [I’ve lauded](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10144) Obama before for avoiding picking fights with Latin American populist leaders such as Correa. But I think that trying to befriend them sends the wrong signal to defenders of democratic institutions throughout the region. After all, a year ago Correa [confessed](https://www.cato.org/2008/06/26/quote-of-the-day/) that he wasn’t a democrat if that represented allowing the opposition to participate in the debate for a new constitution. More recently, he [stated](http://www.infolatam.com/entrada/ecuador_correa_elige_como_rival_a_lucio_-12754.html) (in Spanish) that he preferred “a thousand times” to be a friend of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez than be an ally of the United States. Obama should pick his friends in Latin America more carefully. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).