Shaping influence on US foreign policy in Latin America

Shaping influence on US foreign policy in Latin America
Credit: LinkedIn/Ongresso

The Monroe Doctrine was significantly revised as part of US foreign policy in Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine served as a warning to European nations against further colonization of the Western Hemisphere throughout the 19th century. It did not suggest that the US had the right to meddle in the internal affairs of other US republics. The initial wave of “21st-century socialism” appeared to have been vanquished between 2015 and 2018. The National Assembly in Venezuela was overrun by the opposition; the Peronist government was overthrown by Argentine voters; center-right candidates defeated communist-backed rivals in Chile and Colombia; and Evo Morales, the left-wing Bolivian leader who had ruled since 2006, was forced to leave the country in 2019 due to widespread protests and a decline in military support.

Cold War containment in US foreign policy in Latin America

US intervention in Latin America in the early 1900s, However, by the early 1900s, a pervasive sense of economic insecurity strengthened isolationist sentiments and prompted new laws that severely restricted immigration to the US, especially from Asia. The United States was concerned about fascism’s threat to world peace in the 1930s, but its readiness to take action was limited by the Great Depression. A key foreign policy objective in this setting was to keep the country out of ‌developing conflicts in Europe and Asia. However, the United States did not withdraw into total seclusion. Government support for foreign private investment had to continue due to the need for commercial growth. Consequently, US relations with Latin America in the 1920s became more involved in the reconstruction of Europe in the 1920s as well as in Latin America. The United States also had a significant impact on the development of pacts intended to ensure permanent peace as well as international discussions to establish armaments control. 

Interventions and US foreign policy in Latin America

Progressive lawmaker Gabriel Boric forged a coalition with the Communist Party after he easily won the 2021 presidential election in a runoff. After his former finance minister was elected president in 2020, Morales’ Movement for Socialism regained control of Bolivia. In June 2022, Hugo Chávez’s advisor and former guerrilla fighter, Gustavo Petro, was elected president of Colombia, where the United States has spent $12 billion on unsuccessful anti-drug initiatives since 2000. US relations with Latin America today, As the union looks to expand its trade with Asia, Singapore became the first associate member in early 2022. The agreement, which removed tariffs on 92% of the goods traded inside the union, came into force in 2016 and calls for the remaining 8% to be phased out by 2030. There was a comparable trend between many Latin American nations and the European Union, Canada, and China, among others. 

The war on drugs and security policies

The Pacific Alliance only admits countries that agree to fully comply with its lofty aims as members, and it requires strong pledges to freer movement of people and commerce. However, it is unclear if protectionist regimes will continue the bloc’s liberalization efforts. Invoking economic nationalism, Castillo of Peru, for example, pledged to renegotiate all of his nation’s free trade agreements (FTAs), including the deal with Mexico, which is a key component of the Pacific Alliance. Petro pledges to renegotiate all of Colombia’s free trade agreements, including the one with the US. These agreements established similar norms for rules of origin and nontariff regulations, and they short-term consolidated any prior market access. As the protracted tariff phaseouts came to an end, meaningful market liberalization was supposed to occur in the following decades. After twenty years of liberalized trade in the hemisphere and beyond, protectionism is expected to return in the coming years.

Economic engagement and trade agreements

In a similar vein, Gabriel Boric, the president of Chile, pledged to change his nation’s free trade agreement with the United States to impose many local content criteria on American investors. This way of thinking stands in stark contrast to previous Chilean governments, even ones on the center-left. After all, the US coup in Latin America was less than ten years after Mexico formally joined the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1995; the administration of social Democrat Ricardo Lagos inked Chile’s historic free trade agreement with the United States in 2004. Washington then negotiated trade agreements with the Dominican Republic (2006–2009), Peru (2009), Panama (2012), Colombia (2012), and the Central American countries. Although several governments in the region had certainly flirted with closer ties with Europe as a counterweight to its large neighbor to the north, the Europeans had to take a backseat as the US’s interest in Latin America as a result of the Cuban Revolution, which was seen as a threat, forced them to do so.

Evolution of US Foreign Policy in Latin America

Latin America suffered greatly as a result of imperialism. Numerous individuals lost their lives as a result, and the continent as a whole was brought under the control of American and European interests. To preserve its power, the United States adopted its Pan-Americanism policy and forewent unpopular military intervention. Strong domestic leaders, national guard training, cultural and economic penetration, export-import bank loans, financial supervision, and political subversion were all encouraged by this approach.

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  • NYCFPA Editorial

    The New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs (NYCFPA) is a policy, research, and educational organization headquartered in New York State with an office in Washington D.C. NYCFPA is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, institution devoted to conducting in-depth research and analysis on every aspect of American foreign policy and its impact around the world. The organization is funded by individual donors. The organization receives no corporate or government donations.

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