We go through this little dance every time a new US president is elected.  Everybody goes running around proclaiming 'A New Era of Western Co-operation' is at hand  wherein 'The US Vows Not to be a Swaggering Bully.'

Doesn't happen.  The sad truth, it seems, US citizens:

1.  Know little about the Caribbean, Latin, and South America (CLSA)

2.  Could care even less

Now the HOPE this time is President Obama was elected by a stunningly large majority of the Latino¹ vote, who know something about conditions in their homelands, and care about US policy towards their homelands -- where their relatives still live and this will translate into a right-about face in US policy and actions.

Not impossible of course but highly unlikely as the Obama administration seems, at this point, to be focusing on domestic policy and issues.  However, noises from within the administration seem to indicate a change, of some kind, towards Cuba.    

For me, that's the key.  A substantial change in US policy in the CLSA region requires a change in policy towards Cuba and the amount of change is pretty adequately reflected in the quantity and quality of change.

¹  Casting the entirety of the CLSA into one category like that is ignorant.  But that's what they do.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre