The Expansion Of The American Multinationals In Latin America And The Evolution Of The Strategy During The Cold War

As an important engine for global economic growth and thrust for globalization, the growing influence of transnational corporations has been paid attention by people regardless of when globalization starts. Since world warâ…¡, the united states-led multinational companies around the world developed rapidly and became important actors in the world economy and politics. They not only expand in the world through trade and investment, but also influence political decision-making of their governments, host governments and international organizations directly or indirectly. As the important part of the third world, Latin America was the area plundered by colonial empires in history because of its abundant natural resources and vast market. After world warâ…¡, this region has become an important place where multinational corporations, the U.S. multinational in particular, expand. Especially in the Cold War period, the United States gave more support to multinational corporations, because the government saw the expansion of transnational corporations as one of the means to contain to Soviet Union in economic. Thus, as the third-largest superpower besides the United States and the Soviet Union, the U.S. multinational corporations expanded to the Latin America unscrupulously under the aegis of the United States government and became a tool for the United States to seek hegemony in the western hemisphere. This article attempts to do a systematic study of the expansion of the American multinationals in Latin America and the evolution of the strategy during the Cold War period with a view to help us to understand the U.S. multinational corporations'role in the U.S.- Latin America relations.This dissertation aims to seek breakthroughs in three aspects through an analysis and evaluation of the current research findings:First, this article attempts to conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of the expansion of the American multinationals in Latin America during the Cold War period with a view to grasp the context of the evolution of the strategy of the U.S. multinationals. Up to now, scholars at home and abroad have touched upon the topic of this dissertation when they study such issues as U.S. multinationals'global expansion and management, American hegemony, American interest group politics, US-Latin American relations, etc. thus there is a lack of special research on the study of the expansion of the American multinationals in Latin America and the evolution of the strategy during the Cold War period. This dissertation takes it as the research topic in order to fill the gap.Second, this article does a depth analysis about the relationships between the U.S. multinationals, the United States and the Latin American from the perspective of globalization, and discusses the evolution of the U.S. multinationals'expansion strategy not only from international political and economic environment, but also from the perspective of multinational corporations own.Third, this dissertation tries to seek breakthroughs in viewpoint. I have a more objective understanding of the role of the American multinationals in US-Latin American relations based on the previous research findings and the analysis of collected data in order to breakthrough traditional viewpoint that regards the American multinationals as a tool of imperialism or colonialism.This dissertation includes an introduction, the main body and a conclusion, whose content is as follows;The introduction part gives the reason why I choose this topic and gives a comprehensive review of current research findings.Chapter one introduces the importance of Latin America in the global strategy of the United States and the mode of the expansion of the American multinationals in Latin America before World Warâ…¡. Chapter two is the main body of this article. It describes the expansion of the American multinationals in Latin America and the evolution of the strategy during the Cold War period in detail in three sessions. From the end of world war to 60 years, U.S. multinationals still continue the expansion of the traditional way which exploit the Latin American countries nakedly through vertical international division of labor, and interfere the politics of Latin American countries brutally under the support of the government in the United States; the late 60s to mid 70s was the critical period in which the U.S. multinationals changed expansion strategy and the nationalization in Latin America was a key factor to promote this changes. Under the impact of the wave of the nationalization, the U.S. multinationals had to change the way that predatory business and turned to cooperation with the host countries. In addition, there were significant changes in the investment, holding mode, operation methods; into the 80's, there were some new changes in the manners of the U.S. multinationals with dramatically changed international political and economic situation and own development needs of American multinationals. Chapter three analyses the reasons of the evolution of the expansion strategy of the U.S.multinational corporations based on the changes of U.S. policy in Latin America, the development of multinational corporations and the changes of Latin America countries'policy of transnational corporations.Chapter four analyses the influence of the U.S. multinational corporations'expansion in Latin America.Chapter five is a concluding section, which makes a comprehensive reflect on the expansion of American multinationals in Latin America. It must be very useful for the developing countries to recognize the role of transnational corporations, especially the U.S. multinational corporations and adopt right policies in the times of globalization.