History Of The Foreign Policies Of The U.s. Towards Latin America

U.S. first started to get involved in Latin America in the 19th century with its focus on limiting the influence the Europeans had in Latin America with all their economic and military forces. This led for a policy called the Monroe Doctrine to be created by the president at the time, James Monroe which was the that European colonialism in the Americas needs to be stopped.

The U.S. was determined to encourage American commerce in all of Latin America and become significantly more aggressive as the Manifest Destiny was just introduced which eventually lead to wars in Venezuela, Panama, Spain and Mexico. The Manifest Destiny was the belief that the expansion of the Us throughout Latin America was justified like the Spanish-American War.

More recently John F. Kennedy created the Alliance for Progress in 1961 which aimed to improve economic cooperation in Latin America. Before this in the Late 1950s the U.S. Government had finally began to improve relations with them. In March 1961, John F. Kennedy proposed a ten-year plan for Latin America: This plan called for an annual increase of 2.5% in per capita income, the establishment of democratic governments, the elimination of adult illiteracy by 1970, price stability, to avoid inflation or deflation, more equitable income distribution, land reform, and economic and social planning.

In modern days the U.S. has a “immigration problem” stemming from Latin America which has tensed up the relations of these countries although still strong under the Trump administration. The September 11th has raised concerns about the possibility of terrorists crossing over from Mexico leading to a tightening of immigration laws, and even a Senate bill supporting the construction of a fence along the Mexican-American border. This proposition has been heavily criticized by democrats and Latinos for being racist and a waste of tax dollars.

Trump has succeeded in making a new border wall by using funds allocated to other government agencies such as FEMA and the military. Trump has also used other methods to curb the massive amounts of refugees and asylum seekers flooding the border by attempting to prevent them from even reaching the US-Mexico border. The methods he has used is threatening to close the border and threatening to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. He ordered these countries to stop the immigrants coming in caravans before they leave their country. Mexico has complied to a certain extent; it has stopped immigrants from coming from the north from Guatemala.