Questions have been raised about the extent of his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. As a staffer to Senator Jesse Helms, Noriega helped draft the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, intensifying the Cuban blockade. He was George W. Bush’s ambassador to the OAS in 2001 and later served as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Noriega has been a lifetime proponent of neoconservative US foreign intervention to extend neoliberal policy and has worked, spoken and written against left-wing governments in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela and Cuba. He is a vociferous supporter of US economic domination of Latin America, including sanctions on governments across the region.
Noriega is the founder and serves on the advisory board of the Hispanic-American Foundation. He is also managing director of the lobbying firm Visión Américas LLC, which advises US and foreign clients on international business issues and was contracted to support the 2009 coup in Honduras against former president Manuel Zelaya. On the company website, Tal Hanan and his company Demoman International are listed as associates.
