United States policy toward expropriation of private property in Latin America 1937 to the present

Latin American has for many years been a favorite investment area for the American capitalists. This area has more American-owned private capital than any other in the world. In recent decades the masses of the people of this continent have grown dissatisfied with their semi feudal economic and political structures. The expropriation of foreign-owned enterprises by these increasingly nationalistic states has become an apparent function of the process of what is now called Social Revolution in Latin America. Since 1933 the United States has bee committed to a policy of non-intervention in the conduct of inter-American relations. This pledge necessitated the development of responses to problems which previously were handled by asserting the preponderant power of the United States in the hemisphere either through unilateral diplomacy or armed intervention. This paper will examine the response of the United States to the expropriation of American-owned property and the extent to which this response has accommodated itself to the non-intervention commitment and the new nationalism of Latin America.