Bad-neighbor policy

Is bad policy

For the first third of the 20th century, the United States threw its weight around Latin America. It exercised a protectorate over Cuba, an arrangement extorted out of the Cubans as a condition of recognizing Cuban independence after the Spanish-American war. Puerto Rico was an outright American colony. The American government strong-armed Latin American governments into converting debts owed to Europeans into debts owed to American banks, giving rise to the label “dollar diplomacy.” Theodore Roosevelt unilaterally proclaimed a U.S. right to exercise “police power” in the Americas against misbehavers, which was to say against governments unwilling to toe Washington's line.

This ham-fisted policy created no end of problems for American presidents. Nationalists in one country after another resisted American dominance, often by means of armed rebellion against the governments that did Washington's bidding. In dozens of such instances, the American government dispatched marines to suppress the rebellions and restore order. Often the interventions made matters worse.

Finally in 1933 Franklin Roosevelt called a halt. In his inaugural address that year, he said he would devote his administration to a “policy of the good neighbor" toward Latin America. Roosevelt forswore the interventionist approach of his predecessors. The United States would honor the sovereign inviolability of its fellow American republics. Roosevelt instructed his secretary of state, Cordell Hull, to negotiate bilateral reductions in tariffs and thereby undo damage from the onerous Smoot-Hawley tariff of the previous administration.

Roosevelt’s good-neighbor policy paid off in a crucial way. In contrast to World War I, when American meddling in Mexico's revolution provoked such anti-American feeling in Mexico that Germany plausibly sought an alliance with Mexico against the United States, World War II witnessed a swift rallying of Latin American nations to the side of the United States after Pearl Harbor. This hemispheric solidarity was embodied in the Organization of American States, which remains the principal framework for diplomacy in the Americas.

The Cold War brought moments of backsliding in American policy. Dwight Eisenhower approved a covert campaign against a left-leaning government in Guatemala. John Kennedy okayed the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Lyndon Johnson sent marines to the Dominican Republic to preempt a leftist revolt. Ronald Reagan illegally channeled funds to rightwing contras in Nicaragua.

But compared with the bad old days of the century’s first decades, these interventions were few and sporadic. On the whole, the good-neighbor policy made for good relations in the neighborhood.

Which is why the return of a bad-neighbor policy under Donald Trump appears so distressingly counterproductive. Trump's bully-boy approach toward Mexico, Panama and even Canada alienates not only those countries but other countries that fear they might come in for similar treatment. Among great powers, the United States has had the luxury of having no considerable enemies nearby. For all the recent talk of an invasion of immigrants, not for two centuries has America had to worry about an actual invasion by armies.

The principal reason for this is that America's neighbors have not felt sufficiently threatened by the United States to seek support from other great powers. The conspicuous exception was Cuba after the Castro revolution, to which the Eisenhower administration overreacted and made Soviet aid irresistible to the new Cuban government.

Trump's bad-neighbor policy might produce new Cubas. Continued pressure on Mexico and Panama could cause those countries to conclude that distant China is less a threat than nearby America, and to act accordingly.

This possibility should serve as a reminder that, despite talk of neighborliness either good or bad, interest is what matters in international relations. It is in America's interest not to make enemies of its neighbors. The most expeditious means is to treat the neighbors with respect. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't balance the books each night.

Nor is this a bad policy toward other countries in general. The bad-neighbor policy of the Trump administration has included mockery of longtime allies in NATO, insults against much of Africa, and diatribes and military attacks against various countries of the Middle East. The tariffs Trump has decreed against most of the world entail average rates higher than any since the notorious Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. The capricious manner in which they have been determined has shaken faith in America’s trustworthiness.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” says the neighbor in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.”

Respect and predictability make good neighbors, too.