US investment is the single greatest causal factor for prosperity in Latin America. Look at Panama and Chile, for example. In fact, the midas touch of American investment is visible in several other places outside of the Americas, including Taiwan and South Korea.
In my view, it is hard to label the immense prosperity-inducing capacity of United States foreign investment as bad-faith or unfair dealing. Cuba's government has spent years working on projects to attract spend-happy American tourists. Elsewhere in the region, entire countries base their economies around remittances from the USA. The US government could crack down on remittances and illegal immigration far more than already happens, but it does not, and millions of people in the region benefit as a result.
Respectfully, it takes a great deal of time, study, and travel to learn the dynamics involved in a region before you can say with confidence that Influence A is good and Influence B is bad. People who lean left in the US should understand that 'socialist' isn't a catch-all phrase; it means something different when you're voting for Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Caucuses than it does when you're bartering with your uncle for soap in Camaguey. I have been all over Latin America and I personally still don't consider myself to know all there is to know about the region. What I do know is that the "USA bad" narrative tends rarely to be accompanied with a discussion of the counterfactual universe where American influence is hypothetically absent from the region.
In my view, it is hard to label the immense prosperity-inducing capacity of United States foreign investment as bad-faith or unfair dealing. Cuba's government has spent years working on projects to attract spend-happy American tourists. Elsewhere in the region, entire countries base their economies around remittances from the USA. The US government could crack down on remittances and illegal immigration far more than already happens, but it does not, and millions of people in the region benefit as a result.
Respectfully, it takes a great deal of time, study, and travel to learn the dynamics involved in a region before you can say with confidence that Influence A is good and Influence B is bad. People who lean left in the US should understand that 'socialist' isn't a catch-all phrase; it means something different when you're voting for Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Caucuses than it does when you're bartering with your uncle for soap in Camaguey. I have been all over Latin America and I personally still don't consider myself to know all there is to know about the region. What I do know is that the "USA bad" narrative tends rarely to be accompanied with a discussion of the counterfactual universe where American influence is hypothetically absent from the region.