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Alliance for Progress

The Alliance for Progress (Spanish: Alianza para el Progreso), initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on March 13, 1961, aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America. Governor Luis Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico was a close advisor on Latin American affairs to Kennedy, and one of his top administrators, Teodoro Moscoso, the architect of "Operation Bootstrap", was named the coordinator of the program by President Kennedy.

For a Peruvian political party, see Alliance for Progress (Peru).

The Alliance for Progress was a 10-year plan proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to foster economic cooperation between North and South America, particularly aimed at countering the perceived communist threat from Cuba. The program was signed at an inter-American conference in Uruguay in August 1961. The main objectives of the Alliance for Progress included:[2]


The Alliance for Progress aimed to strengthen ties between the United States and Latin America, promoting economic growth, political stability, and social progress. However, the success of the program was limited due to various challenges, including political instability, corruption, and insufficient implementation of the proposed reforms.

an annual increase of 2.5% in per capita income,

the establishment of democratic governments,

the elimination of adult illiteracy by 1970

price stability, to avoid inflation or deflation

more equitable , land reform, and

income distribution

economic and social planning.[5]

[4]

The United States government began to strengthen diplomatic relations with Latin America in the late 1950s during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.


In March 1961, the newly inaugurated President Kennedy proposed a ten-year plan for Latin America:


The program was signed at an inter-American conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961. The charter called for reaching these targets:


First, the plan called for Latin American countries to pledge a capital investment of $80 billion over 10 years. The United States agreed to supply or guarantee $20 billion within one decade.[5]


Second, Latin American delegates required the participating countries to draw up comprehensive plans for national development. These plans were then to be submitted for approval by an inter-American board of experts.


Third, tax codes had to be changed to demand "more from those who have most" and land reform was to be implemented.[4]

Business lobbying[edit]

The alliance charter included a clause encouraged by US policy makers that committed the Latin American governments to the promotion "of conditions that will encourage the flow of foreign investments" to the region.


U.S. industries lobbied Congress to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to ensure that US aid would not be furnished to any foreign business that could compete with US business "unless the country concerned agrees to limit the export of the product to the US to 20 percent of output". In addition, the industries lobbied Congress to limit all purchases of AID machinery and vehicles in the US. A 1967 study of AID showed that 90 percent of all AID commodity expenditures went to US corporations.[7]

Reception[edit]

Ivan Illich advanced a "potent and highly influential critique" of the Alliance, seeing it as "bankrolled and organized by wealthy nations, foundations, and religious groups."[8]


The journalist AJ Langguth noted that many Brazilian nationalists scorned the Alliance as Brazilian foreign aid to America due to the belief that American corporations were withdrawing more money from the country than they were investing.[9] Though Brazil did indeed run balance of payments deficits with the United States during the years of the Alliance, the size of these deficits was well exceeded by the grants and credits provided by the US to Brazil, even before factoring development loans and military aid.[10] Brazil also enjoyed large overall balance of payments surpluses during the Alliance years.[11]

Military version[edit]

During the Kennedy administration, between 1961 and 1963, the U.S. suspended economic and/or broke off diplomatic relations with several governments that it did not favor, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru. The suspensions lasted for periods of three weeks to six months.[12]

Latin American nations were unwilling to implement needed reforms, particularly in land reform.

Kennedy's presidential successors, and Richard Nixon, were less supportive of the program.

Lyndon B. Johnson

The amount of money was not enough for the entire region: $20 billion averaged out to only $10 per Latin American.

[4]

The Alliance for Progress achieved a short-lived public relations success. It also had real but limited economic advances.[12] But by the early 1970s the program was widely viewed as a failure.[19]


The program failed for three reasons:


The Organization of American States disbanded the permanent committee created to implement the alliance in 1973.[5]

Foreign Assistance Act

Marshall Plan

Lincoln Gordon

Hidden Terrors

A. J. Langguth

online

Edwards, Sebastian. "Forty years of Latin America's economic development: From the Alliance for Progress to the Washington Consensus" (No. w15190. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009) .

online

Field, Thomas C. From development to dictatorship: Bolivia and the alliance for progress in the Kennedy era (Cornell University Press, 2014) .

online

Furlong, William L. "Democratic political development and the Alliance for Progress." in The Continuing Struggle for Democracy in Latin America (Routledge, 2019) pp. 167–184.

. crisis states research centre. Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 27 February 2006.

"From the Alliance for Progress to the Plan Colombia A retrospective look at USAID and the Colombian conflict"

"The Alliance for Progress" (PDF). socialistregister.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2007. Retrieved 21 July 2006. [PDF]

Horowitz, David

. Paul Wolf. Archived from the original on 26 January 2006. Retrieved 27 February 2006.

"Plan Lazo and the Alliance for Progress"

. www.fordham.edu. Retrieved 27 February 2006.

"President John F. Kennedy on the Alliance for Progress"

. www.yale.edu. Archived from the original on 6 March 2007. Retrieved 26 March 2007.

"The Avalon Project"