Latin America Confronts the United States Asymmetry and Influence

Latin America Confronts the United States offers a new perspective on US-Latin America relations. Drawing on research in six countries, the book examines how Latin American leaders are able to overcome power asymmetries to influence US foreign policy. The book provides in-depth explorations of key moments in post-World War II inter-American relations - foreign economic policy before the Alliance for Progress, the negotiation of the Panama Canal Treaties, the expansion of trade through the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the growth of counternarcotics in Plan Colombia. The new evidence challenges earlier, US-centric explanations of these momentous events. Though differences in power were fundamental to each of these cases, relative weakness did not prevent Latin American leaders from aggressively pursuing their interests vis-à-vis the United States. Drawing on studies of foreign policy and international relations, the book examines how Latin American leaders achieved this influence - and why they sometimes failed.

1. Asymmetry, influence, and US-Latin American relations; 2. Operação Pan-Americana: fighting poverty and fighting Communism; 3. Completing the nation: Omar Torrijos and the long quest for the Panama Canal; 4. A recalculation of interests: NAFTA and Mexican foreign policy; 5. An urgent opportunity: the birth of Plan Colombia; 6. Conclusions; References.

Tom Long is a lecturer at the University of Reading. He has been a visiting professor in International Relations at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico City and previously taught at American University's School of International Service, where he completed his Ph.D. His research focuses on dynamics of asymmetry in international relations, particularly foreign policies of Latin American states vis-a-vis the United States. His work has been published in International Security, Diplomatic History, and Latin American Research Review, and has won prizes from the International Studies Association's Diplomatic Studies Section and the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies.