It is hard to say if President Bush's seven-day visit to five Latin American countries improved or worsened U.S. relations with that region.

He visited Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, yet went with such a weak hand to play and so little to offer that it might have been better if he had stayed home.

U.S. aid to Latin America this year amounted to $1.6 billion, with the lion's share going to Colombia to fight drug trafficking and an old insurgency. That sum is less than six days' cost of the Iraq war and is scheduled to drop next year in any case.

Uruguay, as one example, resents U.S. farm subsidies. The United States has signed a trade agreement with it, but prospects of congressional approval for the accord are shaky.

With Brazil the stress was on ethanol, which is produced there from sugar cane. The problem in that country is a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff and a 2.5 percent tax that the United States applies to imports of Brazilian ethanol, to protect U.S. farmers who grow corn to produce the alternative fuel.

Mr. Bush has asked Congress for another $3.9 billion for Colombia, on top of the $4 billion it has received already in recent years. There is also a substantial U.S. military presence in Colombia. That country remains, nonetheless, the world's largest producer of cocaine. Its right-wing death squads have targeted union leaders and academics; the death squads and some of Colombia's drug traffickers have links to President Alvaro Uribe's government. Colombia, too, is awaiting approval of a U.S. trade agreement.

Guatemala is hoping to increase its exports to the United States under the Central American Free Trade Agreement passed last year, but has a problem with child labor and illegal immigration to the United States.

Mexico is a long story. Jilted for Mr. Bush's attention in favor of anti-terrorism and the Iraq war, the limping duck U.S. president is probably unable to address Mexico's greatest concern with respect to America -- passage of a new immigration law that is more responsive to Mexican concerns. Instead there is the pending construction of a 700-mile wall and 6,000 U.S. National Guard troops stationed along the border. Mr. Bush promised Mexico a new effort with Congress on an immigration bill. Given his administration's sour relations with Congress, it is hard to imagine that he will succeed.

If Mr. Bush's purpose in visiting south of the border was to try to sweeten the tea and thus counteract the growing influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it was probably a waste of time. Mr. Chavez is splashing Venezuela's oil money around freely, for health care, education, housing and discounted gas -- popular and important areas of aid where Mr. Bush cannot compete.

If U.S. policy toward the region had been more sympathetic during his six years in office, or if he or Vice President Dick Cheney or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had paid more personal attention to Latin America, or if the Iraq war weren't soaking up so much money that no margin is left for other efforts, Mr. Bush's visit there might have been better received and, on balance, more worthwhile.

As it was, it is hard to say whether the trip was worth the time and gas.