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

In recent years it has become rather common to assert that the economic importance of Latin America to the United States has declined sharply, mainly because the region's relative position in the external trade of the United States has progressively deteriorated. ¹ Although specific figures do indeed reveal that nowadays the region 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 to the United States and other core powers has also declined.