The U.S.’s Declining Influence in Latin America

These days, few doubt that the United States is losing influence in Latin America.

“It is beyond doubt that the position of Washington in the Western Hemisphere is in decline,” says Cynthia Aronson, director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, which is located in the U.S. capital.*

Riordan Roett, director of Western Hemisphere Studies at John Hopkins University, shares this point of view.

For him, the irrefutable proof of this notion is the recent creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , which includes all the countries in the region except the United States and Canada. Its purpose is to counterbalance the traditional hegemony of the “giant in the North.”

What is not so clear, or at least not agreed upon, are the reasons behind this trend that Aronson describes as “complex.”

On paper – and on this a great majority of experts coincide – U.S. influence has eroded as a direct consequence of Washington’s abandonment of the region, particularly during the last decade and since the United States embarked on its crusade against terrorism in the Middle East and Asia.

With two active war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, the priorities – and the budget – were concentrated in that region rather than the inoffensive Western Hemisphere. To this, we must add the economic crisis that has been shaking the country since 2008, limiting its capacity for spending and investment and refocusing its interest on domestic politics.

This has created a space that others, especially China and India, have taken advantage of to make forceful incursions into a market once dominated by the Americans. Today, Beijing is the biggest trading partner of both Brazil and Chile, and it is Colombia’s second largest. Simultaneously, in the last decade, Brazil consolidated its status as a world-class economic power.

Brazil, together with Russia, China, India and South Africa, form the BRICS, countries that, together, could overtake the six largest Western economies in size before 2032.

Likewise, it is fitting to point out the enormous economic growth in the region, which has been experiencing growth rates of almost 5 percent per year. Meanwhile, the United States and Europe are still wobbling thanks to their respective financial crises and the growing risk of recession.

This context has given power to the Latin American voice on the political scene. This is reflected in Brazil’s position regarding the nuclear ambitions of Iran or the almost region-wide recognition of a Palestinian state. “Our enemies no longer fear us since our influence in the region has dwindled dramatically,” Guillermo Martínez wrote in the Miami Herald recently.**

So much so that at one point, the United States even saw the suspension of its relationships with three countries – Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia – who expelled U.S. ambassadors and managed to avoid creating greater regional tensions.

Although all of these variables doubtlessly matter, Aronson believes this is a natural and inevitable phenomenon. The decline of influence is not so much caused by abandonment by the United States as it is “related to the growth of Latin America and the consolidation of stable economies and democracies.”*

“From my point of view, it was an inevitable development that growing political and economic coherence in the majority of countries in the region is driving a repositioning on the political stage and the search for diversity, no only economic, but also in foreign policy. The formation of [the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States] is a reflection of this independence and autonomy,” the analyst affirmed.*

According to Aronson, this doesn’t mean that the anti-American agenda of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, an organization made up of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, will end up prevailing, for the majority sees Washington as a partner on many fronts.

It is perhaps Gregory Weeks, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, who best sums up the idea. According to him, Washington has been giving little attention to Latin America for the last 200 years, but this does not itself explain the current phenomenon.

“There are international economic forces at work that go far beyond U.S. policy. We cannot control them … [For example], China is hungry for raw materials … [and it] is willing to pay handsomely for the commodities it wants … These economic relationships have nothing to do with the United States, and would have moved forward no matter what the administrations of George W. Bush or Barack Obama did,” Weeks maintains.

Washington, in this way, no long enjoys the absolute hegemony that characterized almost the entire 20th century. Now, it is a relative, impartial hegemony whose path isn’t determined by paternalism, but by economic and social forces no longer under its control.

*These quotes, while accurately translated, could not be verified.

**The original article attributes this quote to the Miami Herald, but it is actually from the South Florida Sun Sentinel.