Latin America and the United States

Rabe examines inter-American interdependence in a concise, interpretive history of U.S. policies in Latin America, from the Monroe Doctrine to the present, focusing mainly on the period since 1898, accessible to college students.

The BASIC THEME of the text is:

• The United States has practiced sphere of influence politics in the Western Hemisphere: it has tried to maintain peace and order, exclude foreign influences, expand U.S. trade and investment, and shape Latin America’s development.

SUBORDINATE THEMES:

• There has always been an “asymmetrical” relationship between the United States and Latin America. The United States traditionally has wielded more “hard” power (political, diplomatic, financial) and “soft” power (cultural, social) than Latin America in the relationship.

• Latin Americans have characteristically resisted, countered, and co-opted U.S. power with varying degrees of success. Latin Americans are not mere victims. They are thoroughly capable of making political, economic, diplomatic choices on their own.

• U.S. citizens and Latin Americans have frequently misunderstood one another. The United States has habitually spoken of Latin America as “underdeveloped” and attached various explanations—race, religion, climate, etc. to explain this underdevelopment. Latin Americans have frequently depicted U.S. citizens as boors—ignorant of history, philosophy, literature, music.

• Latin America has been a testing ground for U.S. foreign policies; that is, policies developed for Latin America have been applied to other areas of the world. For example, the “neo-conservatives,” the architects of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, first developed their theories in the 1980s, waging war in the Central American nations of El Salvador and Nicaragua.

• In the past-half century, Latin America has begun to wield more influence in the United States through trade, migration, culture. The United States has begun to become somewhat dependent on Latin America for raw materials, labor, and culture. Increasingly, Latin Americans exercise “soft” power in the United States. The United States and Latin America are increasingly “interdependent,” although the relationship remains one of “unequal interdependence.”