The Strategic Dependency of the Centers and the Economic Importance of the Latin American Periphery

It has become rather common to say that the economic importance of Latin America for the United States has declined sharply, mainly owing to the fact that the region's relative position in the external trade of the United States has deteriorated progressively. While the figures do indeed reveal that the region now plays a lesser role in U.S. foreign commerce than it did some decades ago, it would be grossly misleading to assume that the overall economic importance of Latin America for the United States and other core powers also has declined. Economic relations between the Latin American periphery and the United States should not be analyzed merely in quantitative terms, on a bilateral basis, and only at certain points in time. It is necessary to shift attention to the structural level, to verify, for example, whether this decrease in the Latin American share of world trade necessarily implies a breakdown of the bonds that have existed historically between core and periphery economies.