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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 09/04
U.S.–Latin American Relations: The Prospect
Mark Falcoff
July 2004
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract
This series began more than a dozen years ago with an essay titled “U.S.–Latin American Relations: Where Are We Now?” Since this is the last issue of Latin American Outlook, it seems worthwhile to pose the question again.
The answer is bound to be less optimistic than when it was first asked. For one thing, in the intervening years many Latin Americans have become disillusioned with economic reform, privatization, and “neo–liberalism”—as they call it—and are looking once again to the state to solve all their problems. For another, corruption and jobbery have discredited much of the political class at all levels. The most recent, lurid example has been a spate of lynchings of small–town officials in Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia. For yet another, the “Washington consensus”—the commitment to more open, freer economies—is now regarded as an unfortunate episode forced upon the region by a selfish, grasping, and unfeeling United States. The project for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) sponsored by the first Bush and Clinton administrations is often depicted as a conspiracy to exploit and subjugate Latin economies. In its place many now look to the creation of regional trade blocs as a better alternative. At the same time, there is a deep resentment against the Bush administration for allegedly ignoring the region and its problems.
