In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbor, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped. This perception of inferiority was apparent from the beginning. John Quincy Adams, who first established diplomatic relations with Latin America, believed that Hispanics were lazy, dirty, nasty...a parcel of hogs. In the early nineteenth century, ex-President John Adams declared that any effort to implant democracy in Latin America was as absurd as similar plans would be to establish democracies among the birds, beasts, and fishes. Drawing on extraordinarily rich archival sources, Schoultz, one of the country's foremost Latin America scholars, shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries. We have combined self-interest with a civilizing mission--a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects. William Howard Taft felt the way to accomplish this task was to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace, while in 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles warned that the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children. Schoultz shows that the policies pursued reflected these deeply held convictions. While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America. Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbors as equals can it anticipate a constructive hemispheric alliance.
Central America has received renewed attention from U.S. policymakers over the past few years as the region has become a major transit corridor for illicit drugs and a significant source of irregular migration to the United States. These narcotics and migrant flows are the latest symptoms of deep-rooted challenges in several countries in the region, including widespread insecurity, fragile political and judicial systems, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. Although the Obama Administration and governments in the region launched new initiatives designed to improve conditions in Central America, the future of those efforts will depend on the decisions of the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America The Obama Administration determined it was in the national security interests of the United States to work with Central American governments to address conditions in the region. Accordingly, the Obama Administration launched a new, whole-of-government U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America. The new strategy takes a broader and more comprehensive approach than previous U.S. initiatives in the region and is based on the premise that efforts to promote prosperity, improve security, and strengthen governance are mutually reinforcing and of equal importance. The new strategy focuses primarily on the "northern triangle" countries of Central America-El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras-which face the greatest challenges. Nevertheless, it also provides an overarching framework for U.S. engagement with the other countries in the region: Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. The new U.S. strategy and the northern triangle governments' Alliance for Prosperity initiative have similar objectives and fund complementary efforts; however, they have prioritized different activities. Initial Funding and Conditions Congress has appropriated $1.4 billion to begin implementing the new Central America strategy, dividing the funds relatively equally among efforts to promote prosperity, strengthen governance, and improve security. This figure includes $750 million appropriated in FY2016 and $655 million appropriated in FY2017 (through P.L. 114-113 and P.L. 115-31, respectively). Congress placed strict conditions on the aid, requiring the northern triangle governments to address a range of concerns, including border security, corruption, and human rights, to receive assistance. As a result of those legislative requirements, delays in the budget process, and congressional holds, most of the FY2016 funding did not begin to be delivered to Central America until early 2017. The State Department has yet to certify that any of the northern triangle countries have met the legislative requirements for FY2017. Future Appropriations and Other Policy Issues Congress is now considering President Trump's FY2018 budget request, which would cut funding for the Central America strategy by $195 million, or 30%, compared to the FY2017 estimate. As Congress deliberates on the future of the Central America strategy, it may examine a number of policy issues. These issues include the funding levels and strategy necessary to meet U.S. objectives; the extent to which Central American governments are demonstrating the political will to undertake domestic reforms; the utility of the conditions placed on assistance to Central America; and the potential implications of changes to U.S. immigration, trade, and drug control policies for U.S. objectives in the region.
Central America faces significant security challenges. Criminal threats, fragile political and judicial systems, and social hardships such as poverty and unemployment contribute to widespread insecurity in the region. Consequently, improving security conditions in these countries is a difficult, multifaceted endeavor. Because U.S. drug demand contributes to regional security challenges and the consequences of citizen insecurity in Central America are potentially far-reaching, the U.S. is collaborating with countries in the region to implement and refine security efforts. Contents of this report: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: Scope of the Problem: Underlying Societal Conditions; Structural Weaknesses in Governance; Criminal Threats; (3) Efforts within Central America; (4) U.S. Policy: Background on Assistance to Central America; Central America Regional Security Initiative; (5) Additional Issues for Congressional Consideration: Funding Issues; Human Rights Concerns; Relation to Other U.S. Government Policies; (6) Outlook. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
The fifth edition of Understanding Central America explains how domestic and global political and economic forces have shaped rebellion and regime change in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. John A. Booth, Christine J. Wade, and Thomas W. Walker explore the origins and development of the region's political conflicts and its efforts to resolve them. Covering the region's political and economic development from the early 1800s onward, the authors provide a background for understanding Central America's rebellion and regime change of the past forty years. This revised edition brings the Central American story up to date, with special emphasis on globalization, evolving public opinion, progress toward democratic consolidation, and the relationship between Central America and the United States under the Obama administration, and includes analysis of the 2009 Honduran coup d'etat. A useful introduction to the region and a model for how to convey its complexities in language readers will comprehend, Understanding Central America stands out as a must-have resource.
"Violent crime in Central America -- particularly in the "northern triangle" of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala -- is reaching breathtaking levels. Murder rates in the region are among the highest in the world. To a certain extent, Central America's predicament is one of geography -- it is sandwiched between some of the world's largest drug producers in South America and the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs, the United States. The region is awash in weapons and gunmen, and high rates of poverty ensure substantial numbers of willing recruits for organized crime syndicates. Weak, underfunded, and sometimes corrupt governments struggle to keep up with the challenge. Though the United States has offered substantial aid to Central American efforts to address criminal violence, it also contributes to the problem through its high levels of drug consumption, relatively relaxed gun control laws, and deportation policies that have sent home more than a million illegal migrants with violent records. This report assesses the causes and consequences of the violence faced by several Central American countries and examines the national, regional, and international efforts intended to curb its worst effects"--Page vii.
Provides insight into U.S. and Chinese involvement in aid, trade, direct investment and strategic ties in Latin America In recent years, China has become the largest trading partner for more than half the countries in Latin America, and demonstrated major commitments in aid and direct investment in various parts of the region. China has also made a number of strategic commitments to countries like Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela which have long-standing policies opposing U.S. influence in the region. China, the United States, and the Future of Latin America posits that this activity is a direct challenge to the role of the U.S. in Latin America and the Caribbean. Part of a three-volume series analyzing U.S.-China relations in parts of the world where neither country is dominant, this volume analyzes the interactions between the U.S., China, and Latin America. The book series has so far considered the differences in operating styles between China and the U.S. in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. This third volume unpacks the implications of competing U.S. and Chinese interests in countries such as Brazil and Argentina, and China’s commitments in Nicaragua and Venezuela. This volume draws upon a variety of policy experts, focusing on the viewpoints of South American and Caribbean scholars as well as scholars from outside states. China’s new global reach and its ambitions, as well as the U.S. response, are analyzed in detail.A nuanced examination of current complexities and future implications, China, the United States and the Future of Latin America provides readers with varied perspectives on the changing economic and strategic picture in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This unique guide to the politics and recent history of Central America by one of its most distinguished commentators opens with a succinct overview of pacification and democracy in the region. Dunkerley focuses on the causes and consequences of the ending of civil war in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Drawing on a wide range of local and international sources, he stresses the variety of means by which peace has been sought and achieved. He also analyses economic performance, relations with the US, refugee and human rights problems, narcotics and corruption, and the issue of war crimes. The second section of the book comprises a detailed chronology covering all key developments between 1987 and 1993. the book concludes with indispensable appendices which clearly set out statistical profiles of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua for the decade since 1982. they document US economic and military aid to Central America, the dates and results of regional elections, and provide statistics on refugees and displaced persons. The Pacification of Central America is a valuable tool of reference for anyone with an interest in the complicated and often confusing politics of the region.
"The Breve Historia offers a Latin American point of view . . . and a more explicitly political focus on the twentieth century. . . . It is stimulating reading and usefully controversial in some places. For now, it is probably the best single short history available."—Brian Loveman, San Diego State University "He demonstrates a fine talent for isolating and depicting major themes in the history of an area otherwise portrayed with great confusion. . . . I think he offers a masterful synthesis."—E. Bradford Burns, University of California, Los Angeles
