ABSTRACT
Latin America has a complex relationship with the US. On its own, the region includes over half a billion people and a gross national income of US$2 trillion, making it the wealthiest region of the developing world. Historically and currently, Latin America as a region of the developing world is the one with which the US has the strongest relationship: the 33 million Latinos in the US are now that nation’s largest and fastest growing non-Anglo group, and US trade with Latin America represents 58 per cent of its trade with developing countries. This relationship is also far more intense when viewed from a different perspective; an absolute majority of all Latin American trade is with the US, and US military forces have intervened in Latin America on at least 50 separate occasions during the last hundred years. However, the hemisphere has usually been given short shrift by Washington.
