Whirlpool: US Foreign Policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean

1994 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-314
Author(s):  
Michael Dunne
Author(s):  
James Dunkerley

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Latin America and the historical evolution of US relations with the region. It first considers the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny, which sought to contain European expansion and to justify that of the United States under an ethos of hemispherism, before discussing the projection of US power beyond its frontiers in the early twentieth century. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a less unilateral approach during the depression of the 1930s and an aggressively ideological approach in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. It also analyzes US policy towards the left in Central America, where armed conflict prevailed in the 1980s, and in South America, where the Washington Consensus brought an end to the anti-European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine by promoting globalization. Finally, it looks at the impact of the Cold War on US policy towards Latin America.


Significance The US foreign policy stance towards the Caribbean is likely to become more constructive under Biden. As previously, Washington’s main regional interests will relate to Haiti and Cuba. Biden’s stance towards the latter in particular will be scrutinised during his first few months in office. Impacts US economic stimulus plans and the evolution of the pandemic will have knock-on effects for Caribbean economies. A relaxation of restrictions on Cuba could facilitate increased investment into the country, especially in the tourism sector. Increasing Chinese engagement with the region will concern Washington, potentially fostering more US investment.


1969 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Preiswerk

For the leaders and people of every new state of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, independence has brought about a dramatic awakening with respect to the conceptualization of their position in world affairs. The loosening of ties with the metropolis, which had been the primary aim of the struggle for independence, suddenly appears in a double perspective. On the one hand, it contains the threat of distintegration of the established social and economic order and, on the other hand, it opens prospects for new bonds and opportunities. After decades or centuries of predominantly bilateral relationships between colony and metropolis, historical links are confronted with the pressures resulting from geographic proximity .The diversification of foreign contacts is a phenomenon of the very recent past. The leaders and inhabitants of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Niger, Trinidad and Venezuela, or Guyana and Brazil are only now realizing the full impact of their relationship as neighbours.


1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Abraham F. Lowenthal ◽  
Robert A. Pastor

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-132
Author(s):  
V. Romaniuk

The article examines the features of historical development of Venezuela since the proclamation of the country’s independence at the beginning of the 19th century up to the modern period of governing by the Venezuelan presidents Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. The article pays a special attention to an important event in the history of Venezuela - the 1914 discovery of a giant oil field in the region of Maracaibo Lake, Venezuela’s implementation and further development of the so-called oil-containing model and the impact of the oil and gas production and processing of carbon resources on the socio-political situation in the country and well-being of the Venezuelan people. The period of the reign of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (1998-2013) has been studied in more detail. The general thesis of the doctrine of the “Bolivarian revolution” have been considered and certain provisions end attainments of the program to construct the “Bolivarian socialism”, have been detected certain achievements and problems of implementing the participatory democracy in Venezuela. Certain foreign policy initiatives of the president and specific steps aimed at achieving the leading role in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean have been analyzed. The article highlights anti-Americanism as a peculiar trend of Hugo Chavez’s foreign policy and the sentiments of Venezuelan society, the peculiarities of Venezuela-Ukraine bilateral relations development have been emphasized. It has been concluded that it is advisable to further study the experience of creating the state and carrying out reforms in Venezuela for its possible further use in the development of our state, as well as using certain Venezuelan approaches regarding its leadership in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in order to enhance and strengthen the role of Ukraine in the European regional cooperation.


1974 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Murray

Canada became the odd man out in the Western Hemisphere when it declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939. Other than the Caribbean colonies of the various European belligerents, Canada was the only American country to become an active participant in the European war. The decision to go to war had been freely made by Parliament, but it was clearly determined by Canada's historic ties as a member of the British Commonwealth. As the only independent belligerent in the Americas, Canada's position clearly was anomalous, and the makers of Canadian foreign policy had to go to considerable effort trying to overcome the problems Canada faced as a nation at war in a hemisphere trying to avoid war.


Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Montoya

A fear of foreignness shaped the immigration foreign policies of the United States up to the end of World War II. US leaders perceived nonwhite peoples of Latin America, Asia, and Europe as racially inferior, and feared that contact with them, even annexation of their territories, would invite their foreign mores, customs, and ideologies into US society. This belief in nonwhite peoples’ foreignness also influenced US immigration policy, as Washington codified laws that prohibited the immigration of nonwhite peoples to the United States, even as immigration was deemed a net gain for a US economy that was rapidly industrializing from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. Ironically, this fear of foreignness fostered an aggressive US foreign policy for many of the years under study, as US leaders feared that European intervention into Latin America, for example, would undermine the United States’ regional hegemony. The fear of foreignness that seemed to oblige the United States to shore up its national security interests vis-à-vis European empires also demanded US intervention into the internal affairs of nonwhite nations. For US leaders, fear of foreignness was a two-sided coin: European aggression was encouraged by the internal instability of nonwhite nations, and nonwhite nations were unstable—and hence ripe pickings for Europe’s empires—because their citizens were racially inferior. To forestall both of these simultaneous foreign threats, the United States increasingly embedded itself into the political and economic affairs of foreign nations. The irony of opportunity, of territorial acquisitions as well as immigrants who fed US labor markets, and fear, of European encroachment and the racial inferiority of nonwhite peoples, lay at the root of the immigration and foreign policies of the United States up to 1945.


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