United States and Latin American Relations

U.S. relations with Latin America have varied during the course of history. As the internationalist Robert Russell indicates in his work “Latin America to the United States: Special, Contemptible, Coveted or Lost?”, they have been interpreted in distinct ways: Imperialist with foreign policy guidelines that have justified military interventions, special due to the concept that we share common values with the so-called Pan-Americanism, irrelevant because other matters are currently of greater importance, terrorism and its relation with the Asia-Pacific, and dwindling because overexpansion has brought the superpower into a period of decadence. However, these views do not describe the current outlook. They succumb to being simplistic and absolutist, and they try to explain a reality that is much more complex.

The level of influence that the United States has in Latin America varies from one region to another, and the relations are of less dependency than they were in the past despite the asymmetries of strength between the superpower and the Latin American nations. The so-called “backyard” presents more and more autonomy in a world with greater regional powers. This is made evident in the search for alliances and commercial exchanges with other intercontinental centers of power like China, Russia and Iran, and in the proliferation of integration blocs.

The recently created Community of Latin American States and the Caribbean, which excludes the U.S. and Canada, superimposes and takes the place of the Organization of American States (OAS). In particular, there has been observed a greater multiplicity of regional organizations in South America, like the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations (USAN) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). This last one was created by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as a response to the U.S. initiative to establish the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Its members oppose pro-market policies, advocate for greater state intervention in the economy and present Cuba as a model of resistance against the “Yankees.”

However, Chile, Peru and Colombia have free trade treaties with the U.S. Colombia in particular is a close ally. It receives help against drug trafficking under Plan Colombia, which has caused friction with Venezuela, [as it] understands that the U.S. could invade it through its neighbor. The relationship with Brazil, on the other hand, is called “shared responsibility.” That is, it has cooperation ties, but it respects the influential space of this rising power.

Without a doubt, the relationship is closest with nations that are geographically close due to common themes in the agenda, like organized crime, immigration and commerce, which form as much a part of the intergovernmental agenda as well as the transnational one. Mexico, along with Canada, is a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and benefits along with Central America from the safety program called the “Merida Initiative,” Central America and the Dominican Republic are members of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and El Salvador, Aruba, Curacao, Puerto Rico and Honduras host U.S. military bases.

The search for free trade agreements and cooperation indicates to us that Latin America is not irrelevant to the United States, even the areas of less influence and opposing blocks; that it does not exercise its power in a dominating way, nor does there exist a common identity in the entire continent, and its economic, political and military preponderance means the U.S. continues being the superpower. Undoubtedly, the current post-Cold War, interconnected world of today is different, as are the way the nations relate with one another.