The United States And Latin America Essay

February 2, 2012

The United States and Latin America
American influenced in Latin American, and brought obvious benefits to the United States, but also brought anti-American hostility to the region. For instance Roosevelt promoted a new kind of diplomacy called “the big stick”. This new policy was based on the success in the Spanish American war. Which lead to Latin American’s thinking that the United States was trying to control their countries.
“Roosevelt’s view that American needed to carry a big stick during the age of imperialism flowed from his adherence to balance of power principles and form his view of the united states as a special nation with moral responsibility to “civilize” or uplift, weaker nations (Prentice Hall pg.157). With this view in 1903, the government of the U.S bought the Panama route, to build what is known as the Panama Canal. Before they could build the canal through Panama, the United States needed permission from the Columbian government. The U.S tried to negotiate with Colombia to purchasing Panama, but Columbia wanted more than what the U.S was willing to pay. This lead to war, the United States supported Panama with their rebellion against Columbia. After this rebellion Panama declared its independence and allowed America to build the Panama Canal.
Afterwards president Roosevelt announced a new Latin policy, which was called “Roosevelt Corolly”. This updated the Monroe Doctrine for the time of economic imperialism. This also allowed the United States to take role and intervene in case of a chronic wrongdoing to any Latin American nation. For instance “Europeans might use to justify military intervention” (Prentice Hall pg.159). This change only reasserted Americans policy of keeping the western Hemisphere free from European intervention. Many Latin Americans disliked the policy. “They disagreed with Roosevelt’s belief that Latin Americans could not police themselves”(Prentice Hall pg.161). A Peruvian diplomat, Francisco...