Latin America – United States relations

Until the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had a special relationship primarily with nearby Mexico and Cuba. Otherwise, relationships with other Latin American countries were of minor importance to both sides, consisting mostly of a small amount of trade. Apart from Mexico, there was little migration to the United States, and little American financial investment. Politically and economically, Latin America (apart from Mexico and the Spanish colony of Cuba) was largely tied to Britain. The United States had no involvement in the process by which Spanish possessions broke away and became independent around 1820. In cooperation with and help from Britain, the United States issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning against the establishment of any additional European colonies in Latin America.

Texas, which had been settled by colonies of Americans, fought a successful war of independence against Mexico in 1836. Mexico refused to recognize the independence and warned that annexation to the United States meant war. Annexation came in 1845 and war in 1846. The American military was easily triumphant. The result was the Mexican Cession of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California. About 60,000 Mexicans remained in the territories and became US citizens. France took advantage of the American Civil War (1861–65), using its army to take over Mexico. Due to defeats in Europe, France pulled out troops, leaving the Imperialists and Maximilian I of Mexico to face defeat from the Benito Juarez-led Republicans (backed by the US).

The Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute of Guayana Esequiba in 1895 asserted for the first time a more outward-looking American foreign policy, particularly in the Americas, marking the United States as a world power. This was the earliest example of modern interventionism under the Monroe Doctrine in which the USA exercised its claimed prerogatives in the Americas. By the late nineteenth century the rapid economic growth of the United States increasingly troubled Latin America. A Pan-American Union was created under American aegis, but it had little impact as did its successor the Organization of American States.

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