Profit Over People: on Foreign Policy

Our Latin America policy benefits investors, not people

The “functions” of Latin America were clarified at a hemispheric conference in February 1945, where the State Department warned that Latin Americans prefer “policies designed to bring about the broader distribution of wealth and to raise the standard of living of the masses.” These ideas are unacceptable: the first beneficiaries of a country’s resources are IUS investors, while Latin America fulfills its service function without unreasonable concerns about general welfare that might infringe on US interests.

Countries develop by avoiding colonization & ignoring market

In the 18th century, the differences between the first and third worlds were far less sharp than they are today. Two obvious questions arise:
1. Which countries developed, and which not?
2. Can we identify some operative factors?

On the second question: How did Europe and those who escaped its control succeed in developing? By radically violating approved free market doctrine. That conclusion holds from England to the East Asian growth area today, surely including the US, the leader in protectionism from its origins.

Cuban embargo hides Castro’s social successes

While the Clinton administration promises to “liberate” the suffering Cuban people, a more plausible conclusion is more the reverse: the “American economic strangulation of Cuba” has been designed and maintained [to hide] the successes of Castro’s programs to improve health & living standards [which would] spread “the Castro idea of taking matters into one’s own hands.” To evaluate the claim that US policies flow from concern for human rights & democracy, the briefest look at the record is more than sufficient.

US fought Haitian democracy in favor of US investors

Haiti has been largely under US control and tutelage since the Marines first invaded 80 years ago. By now the country is such a catastrophe that it may be scarcely habitable in the not-too-distant future. In 1981, a USAID-World Bank development strategy was initiated, based on assembly plants and agroexport, shifting land from food for local consumption. The consequences were the usual ones: profits for US manufacturers and the Haitian super-rich, and a decline of 56% in Haitian wages through the 1980s. It was the efforts of Haiti’s first democratic government to alleviate the growing disaster that called forth Washington’s hostility and the military coup and terror that followed.