Governments in South America have turned their back on US financial aid. Central Americans have seen tens of thousands of minors depart for the US under the pressure of poverty and violence. And the Caribbean is turning increasingly violent as drug cartels have reclaimed abandoned trafficking routes. Aside from more economic aid, Biden could be left with little more than rhetoric to offer a region that in 2011 ranked President Obama the most popular leader in the Americas.

US Vice President Joe Biden begins a four-nation trip across Latin America on Monday, starting with some World Cup action at the US-Ghana game in Brazil. Biden will fly directly to the flood-stricken city of Natal to cheer on the United States as they face the Black Stars in their first Group G clash on Monday.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on 100,000 Strong in the Americas on Friday, January 17, 2014, at 2:45 p.m. at the Department of State. The event will also feature remarks by Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson, and Special Advisor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

The meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday was an occasion to affirm the strength of the six-decade-old alliance between the two nations at a time of rising geopolitical tensions in East Asia. The message of bilateral friendship, however, was temporarily lost among some of the reporters who were there to cover the event.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday he would discuss China's air defence identification zone with US Vice-President Joe Biden in Tokyo to co-ordinate their stance after apparently contradictory responses. China raised regional tensions with its declaration last weekend of the zone, which covers islands in the East China Sea at the centre of a dispute between Beijing and Tokyo. Aircraft traversing the area are required to submit their flight plans.

Last month’s U.S.-India strategic dialogue in New Delhi was widely viewed as a failure. As Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, a former Indian diplomat, put it, “The India-US Strategic dialogue, by all accounts, accomplished little….

The trip should consolidate U.S. partnerships not just with these three nations, but send a message that a new form of engagement with the United States is now possible. The days of U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere are over, and a president and vice president no longer travel with a packet of aid.