Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
The United States, during the past several years, has squandered a heaven-sent opportunity to cement its already deep economic relations with Latin America. There is no certainty that the neglect will be altered in the near term.
A series of transformations made the 1990s an ideal time to consolidate improved economic relations with Latin America. The end of the Cold War meant that US dealings with Latin America could be based on mutual realities in the Hemisphere rather than be shaped through the one-way prism of East-West confrontation. There was a profound paradigm shift that swept just about all the countries of the Hemisphere, away from protectionism and toward open markets as the path to economic growth.