US Hegemony, Economic Statecraft, and the Political Economy of US Power

Abstract

Economic statecraft rested at the core of the Trump administration’s foreign relations; it weaponized it and securitized it¾a departure from longstanding US practice. This article looks at the ups and downs of US hegemony in the last five decades, focusing on the US use of economic statecraft as a political power resource, with special reference to the case of Latin America. It is divided into four sections: the first focuses on economic statecraft as an academic field, making the case for what I call “thick” economic statecraft; the second reviews the political and power dimensions of US economic statecraft, whereas the third deals with the evolution, since the 1970s, of the paradigmatic instance of US economic statecraft: trade policy (broadly defined) in three distinct phases 1971-1989, 1990-2000, and 2001-2016. Finally, I summarize the argument and make some considerations about the implications Trump’s presidency might have for the Biden administration’s attempts to reinvigorate US hegemony.