US - Latin American Relations, history of
...e region “regarded the United States, not Europe, as the major threat to their freedom and independence (Bagby, 67).” Several other decisions made by the government of the United States contributed to the detrimental effects of the war with Mexico, the Roosevelt Corollary, and the interventions in Latin America. Businessmen in Texas funded the rebels during the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Also during that same time, U.S. President William Howard Taft began advocating his attempt to better the economies of Latin America by increasing U.S. investment in the region. This “Dollar Diplomacy” would eventually fail. Another crucial element in shaping the relationship between the United States and Latin America was the economic consequences of World War I. American economy has historically prospered during times of war, however, the nations of Latin America were hit hard economically with the loss of European trade and investment. American companies began to infiltrate the region, employing thousands of Latin Americans under harsh conditions, and exerting significant control over the regional economies. Needless to say, these events were all taxing on the relationship between the U.S. and Latin America. Fortunately, the 1920s and 1930s saw an easing of U.S.- Latin American tensions. In 1923 Charles Evans Hughes, then Secretary of State, renounced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe doctrine, in turn prompting the United States government to retreat from its previous, unpopular policy of interventionism. A new foreign policy of nonintervention emerged in 1933 with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. Roosevelt declared the “the definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention (Bagby, 75).” The first test of this policy came that same year after the U.S. government encouraged the Cuban army and Sergeant Fulgencio Batista to overthrow the Cuban government. Although the United States intervened in the political affairs of the nation and sent warships to its waters, no U.S. troops were ever landed on Cuba. After Roosevelt recognized the new President, Carlos Mendieta in 1934, he renounced the politically intrusive Platt Amendment and proceeded to cut tariffs on sugar exported from Cuba. Trade between Cuba and the United States quickly doubled. The year 1934 also saw the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Haiti and the Dominican Republic by Roosevelt and his declaration that the United States no longer had a right to intervene militarily in the latter. By the next year, the United States had removed every troop from every Latin American nation, with the exception of on bases in Cuba and Panama. Another controversy that would eventually improve relations was the 1938 nationalization of all foreign-owned oil companies by Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas. Although under intense pressure from American oil companies with holding in Mexico, President Roosevelt upheld the Good Neighbor Policy, forcing the companies to negotiate with the Mexican government themselves. An amicable agreement was reached and the “settlement facilitated a renewal of U.S. investments and a period of cordial U.S.-Mexican relations (Bagby, 76).” In fact, as a result of the Good Neighbor Policy, relations with nearly all Latin American nations improved, which consequently revitalized trade, allowed for cooperation during World War II, and most importantly, bettered Latin American perceptions of the United States. However this relatively amiable period did not last long. Post-World War II and Cold War policies hurt the economic and social environments of most of Latin America. A new post-war foreign policy adopted in 1947, the Marshall Plan, “funded European reconstruction and a new global economic structure restored the monetary and financial strength of the industrial powers, but ignored Latin America (Latin America-U.S. Relations).” Essentially the Good Neighbor Policy was abandoned and the southern neighbors of the United States were put on the back burner. America’s fear of communism prompted the adoption of the Rio Treaty in 1947 to provide for mutual defense against attack and also prompted the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948 to ensure American unity in the face of any Communist threat. A covert CIA intervention in Guatemala (1953) approved by President Eisenhower marked the definitive end of the Good Neighbor era. After Guatemalan President Arbenz Guzman appropriated United Fruit Company land, the U.S. helped CIA-trained exiles overthrow Arbenz. Although economic aid was given to the country, citizens of Guatemala lived under oppressive rule of a right-wing military junta backed by the United States, souring the relationship between the two countries. The people of Cuba also held a disdain for the United States because of her support of the military dictator Fulgencio Batista since his inauguration in 1952. In 1959 Batista’s brutal repression caused a revolt and Fidel Castro came to power, installing a Soviet-backed government. Once again, American fear of communism served to deteriorate relations in Latin America by invading the Bay of Pigs in 1961. The invasion failed and diplomatic relations were broken between Cuba and the U.S. Tensions escalated once again as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The reaction of the United States to Soviet influence in Latin America, particularly Cuba, was President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. This program greatly increased financial and technical aid to Latin America with the goal of reforming the economic, social and political programs of the region. The Alliance for Progress was only somewhat successful in that it was difficult to implement and because Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson did not enforce the program. Instead, Johnson returned to a policy of intervention. He provided covert support to the Brazilian military allowing them to overthrow President Joao Goulart and install a brutal dictatorship in 1964. The next year he sent U.S. troops to invade and occupy the Dominican Republic citing evidence of communist infiltration; evidence that would later prove to be extremely slender. Perhaps one of the most infamous U.S. interventions in Latin America was in Chile. Salvador Allende, in 1970, was the first Marxist to be democratically elected in Latin America. Although he never repressed the civil liberties of his people, Nixon launched an attack on the economy of Chile in attempt to oust Allende. In the famous military coup of September 1973, President Allende and his supporters were murdered and General Augusto Pinochet installed himself as an iron-fisted repressive military dictator for the next seventeen years. “Unlike Allende, [he] restricted freedom of speech, outlawed opposition groups, executed two thousand opponents, and sent many others into exile (Bagby, 276).” Under Pinochet thousands of Chilean disappeared and many have compared Pinochet to Adolf Hitler. The role of the U.S. in his rise to power is unforgivable in the minds of many Latin Americans. After all of the terrible Latin American policy decisions made by Johnson and Nixon, President Jimmy Nixon was elected in 1976. He improved relations with Latin America immensely, compared to his two predecessors. He moved human rights to the top of his list and began to halt aid to countries that participated in severe violations of those rights, like Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. This policy made him popular among the citizens of Latin America. President Carter also signed a treaty with Panama that surrendered control of the canal to Panama in the year 2000. In exchange, Carter arranged for permanent U.S. rights to defend the canal and to sail U.S. warships through it, though the treaty was still rather unpopular in the United States. President Carter was also the first to negotiate with Cuba in sixteen years, enabling him to significantly improve Cuban-American relations. In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected to the U.S. Presidency and began to intensify Cold War policies. In 1983 fear of Cuban Communist influence and Soviet military buildup in Grenada, along with the murder of President Maurice Bishop, motivated Reagan to invade. Six thousand troops were sent to evacuate over 600 American medical students and the communist government was defeated. American support for Great Britain over Argentina during the 1982 Falkland War further alienated Latin Americans. Throughout his presidency, Reagan continued to intervene in the region. His economic and military intervention in El Salvador from 1983 to 1984 succeeded only in facilitating civil war in the country. Reagan and his officials covertly sponsored contras in Nicaragua because he believed that the Sandinista government imposed a “communist totalitarian internal rule (Bagby, 329).” A CIA-backed revolution in Nicaragua was condemned throughout the world and in 1986 the International Court of Justice declared that the United States had violated international law. Obviously President Reagan’s policies did nothing to improve years of strained relations with Latin America. With the election of President George H.W. Bush and the end of the Cold War in 1989, Latin America began to take a backseat in the foreign affairs of the United States. Bush, Sr. was able to strike an agreement with Nicaragua, successfully disbanding the contras and requiring democratic elections in the country. Economic problems, humanitarian issues and the war on drugs became the new post-Cold War issues in U.S. relations with Latin America. To help ease Latin America’s debt crisis, Bush, Sr. adopted the Brady plan requiring “lending banks either to cancel part of the debt or to make new loans (Bagby, 333),” however little else was done. By 1989 Latin America had begun supplying eighty to ninety percent of the cocaine and marijuana in the U.S. prompting Bush to crack down on the war on drugs. General Manuel Noriega of Panama had been indicted in 1987 by U.S. courts for engaging in the international drug trade. In 1989 Bush launched “Operation Just Cause,” captured Noriega, tried him in Miami and sent him to prison. This was the first time the United States had put another country’s leader on trial for violating U.S. laws and was a controversial decision throughout Latin America. However, Bush’s popularity with the American public skyrocketed, as did the Panamanian drug traffic ironically. Economic policies in Latin America during Bill Clinton’s presidency improved relations. The North American Free Trade Agreement was created in 1993 and other trade agreements, such as the Uruguay Round, slashed tariffs, reduced or eliminated import quotas and cut tariffs. Trade began to flourish. By 1992 U.S. exports to Latin America doubled and by 1993 American investments in the region tripled. In 1995 Clinton was also rather successful militarily in Latin America. His U.N.-authorized restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a democratically elected leader in Haiti, was nearly bloodless. Current U.S.-Latin American relations have once again deteriorated under the newly re-elected President of the...