The "penetration" of South America and the drive to "unity" the western hemisphere under American leadership will henceforth be continued with increased. vigour: it is quite possible that they will become the main objects of American foreign and trade policy in the next months. For the penetration of Latin America by the German trade and propaganda drive, which the new U.S, policy is intended to counteract, has become the major obsession of Government and Opposition alike. It is quite possible—and, in fact, probable—that the dangers are exaggerated, if not largely imaginary. But to the American who has never yet had to face: the danger of attack from the outside, the emergence of a form of foreign intervention in Latin America against which no Monroe Doctrine proves effective, must necessarily appear as a threat to his very security. Even those people who ridicule the talk of German air bases in Mexico or Colombia, and who emphasize that Germany has barely regained her pre-war share of the South American trade, find themselves in agreement with a policy which proposes to fight the ¢ctalitarian trade attack with its own_weapons.
But while there is general agreement that the United States must pursue an active and aggressive policy in Latin America, there is utter confusiorf as to the means and the ends which such a policy should adopt. One school of thought—represented mainly by the State Department and its head, Secretary Hull—speaks in terms of ah American "League of Nations" and of American "Collective Security." This concept was unanimously rejected by the Latin-American countries at the Lima conference last Christmas; but it is still the official policy of that very substantial part of the New Deal which grew out of the Wilson tradition. Another faction believes in "economic penetration" through subsidized exports of American goods; but the proponents of this policy tend to forget that the South American countries can only buy from countries to which they can sell their raw materials. Any United States export drive is bound to come to grief ag"long as America takes neither Chile's copper nor her: nitrate, neither Peru's oil nor her cotton, neither Argentina' wheat nor her meat. As-long as the dictatorship countries are better customers than Uncle Sam they will remain as suppliers regardless of the subsidy granted to United States exporters, - Finally, there is one school of thought which considers Latin America merely in terms of military expediency. This school, which is steadily gaining in strength as the other two demonstrate their inherent lack of realism, wants to unite North and South America in an iron-clad military alliance, the financial burden of which would be borne by the United States. In addition they want to make the western hemisphere self-sufficient by financing the production of rubber in Brazil and that of tin in Bolivia, But the South American countries seem to be much more afraid of North American military hegemony than even of fascist aggression; and the American proposals at a military alliance have, therefore, created some suspicion in Argentina, Chile and Peru. markets which they enjoy at present in the dictatorship countries.
If the United States forces or persuades South America to buy more from her, without, at the same time, increasing her own purchases of South Amerigan goods sufficiently, the victim will not be Germany or italy, purchases from which countries Latin America cannot reduce without risking an irreplaceable market, but those other countries which still adhere to orthodox trade principles. In other words the real sufferer from a concentrated U.S. trade drive in Latin America is bound to be Great Britain, although nothing could be further from the intentions of the Roosevelt Administration.
It is British trade which seems to be threatened in the first place if the United States should resort to "totalitarian trade methods" in South America, But the threat to trade is only the most obvious, not the most serious one, especially as Britain could always use her heavy purchases of all South American commodities to preserve her market. A far greater danger to British interests—and far more difficult to combat— is the direct threat to British investments,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.