The Clark Memorandum Myth

1977 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Gene A. Sessions

For nearly three decades after the turn of the twentieth century, the United States took upon itself the policing of the Caribbean and Central America. Under an expanded interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine known as the Roosevelt Corollary, American policymakers justified numerous military interventions in those small republics until Monroeism became a synonym in Latin America for imperialism and expansionism. By 1930, this policy of attempted hegemony by force was a failure: Public opinion at home and abroad had opposed the “big stick” concept of hemispheric relations almost from the beginning; the interventions seldom achieved their nebulous goals.

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.


Author(s):  
Brian Loveman

U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in the 19th century initially focused on excluding or limiting the military and economic influence of European powers, territorial expansion, and encouraging American commerce. These objectives were expressed in the No Transfer Principle (1811) and the Monroe Doctrine (1823). American policy was unilateralist (not isolationist); it gradually became more aggressive and interventionist as the idea of Manifest Destiny contributed to wars and military conflicts against indigenous peoples, France, Britain, Spain, and Mexico in the Western Hemisphere. Expansionist sentiments and U.S. domestic politics inspired annexationist impulses and filibuster expeditions to Mexico, Cuba, and parts of Central America. Civil war in the United States put a temporary halt to interventionism and imperial dreams in Latin America. From the 1870s until the end of the century, U.S. policy intensified efforts to establish political and military hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, including periodic naval interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, reaching even to Brazil in the 1890s. By the end of the century Secretary of State Richard Olney added the Olney Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (“Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition . . .”), and President Theodore Roosevelt contributed his own corollary in 1904 (“in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power”). American policy toward Latin America, at the turn of the century, explicitly justified unilateral intervention, military occupation, and transformation of sovereign states into political and economic protectorates in order to defend U.S. economic interests and an expanding concept of national security.


1966 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold F. Smith

The Nearness of Cuba to the United States, lying as it does a scant ninety miles from the coast of Florida, has always provided a strong reason for American preoccupation with the “Pearl of the Antilles.” This geographic proximity has been a source of political consideration and concern for over a century. The historical roots of the western hemisphere, with Columbus’ landings in the Caribbean, the Spanish, English, and French colonization and imperialism, and our own interest, expressed most notably in the Monroe Doctrine, have kept Cuba central in our thoughts. Our continued interest during the twentieth century, following the removal of Spanish control from the island at the turn of the century, has intensified through the years, partly because its sugar has been important to our economy, and partly because the island has become politically unfriendly in the past decade.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
N. Yu. Kudeyarova

Latin America is one of the high level migration activity regions. The mass migration flows are the part of the Western Hemisphere South nations history for more than a century and a half. Both the structure and direction of that flows have been significantly transformed during that period. While being the transatlantic flows recipients at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries, the Latin American States turned into donors of human resources in the second half of the XX century due to the profound demographic transformation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the demographic transformations impact on the emigration mobility models development in Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Demographic changes were manifested in different ways in countries with a large share of European migrants and those that were not affected by mass migrations flows at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. The Central America countries and Mexico have experienced the most profound population explosion that subsequently affected the intensity of the migration movement to the United States. The paper examines the main migration directions of Latin America and the Caribbean residents, identifies two basic mobility source areas that demonstrate different strategies via different destination countries choice. While the United States has become the leading destination country for Latin American migrants, accounting for 93% of migrants from Central America and Mexico, the South American migration is mostly intraregional. The largest regional integration associations migration policies implementation reflects this difference. Spain has become a significant extra-regional migration destination for South America. At the end of the second decade of the XXI century, global economic transformations affect the migration dynamics of Latin American subregions, producing powerful migration crises and local tensions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 107 (706) ◽  
pp. 58-64
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Erikson

The era when the United States could treat Latin America and the Caribbean as its backyard … is receding ever faster into history.


2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Soares

This article discusses the Carter administration's policies toward Nicaragua and El Salvador after the Sandinistas took power in Nicaragua in July 1979. These policies were influenced by the widespread perception at the time that Marxist revolutionary forces were in the ascendance and the United States was in retreat. Jimmy Carter was trying to move away from traditional American “interventionism” in Latin America, but he was also motivated by strategic concerns about the perception of growing Soviet and Cuban strength, ideological concerns about the spread of Marxism-Leninism, and political-humanitarian concerns about Marxist-Leninist regimes' systematic violations of human rights.


Subject Growing remittances to Latin America. Significance Family remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been growing strongly in a year when immigration has become a central and controversial election issue in the United States. Impacts Strong remittance growth will have a positive impact on millions of low-income families in the region. A Trump presidency could lead to reduced LAC-US migration and a tax on remittances, probably slowing growth in 2017-18. LAC migrants and their families are set to benefit further from an expected continuing fall in sending costs.


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