Daniel Chavez Moran: Contemporary Inter-American Relations

Daniel Chavez Moran founded the non-profit organization Vidanta Foundation to promote economic and social development in Latin America. Among the Foundation’s many sponsored projects: an international seminar on “Contemporary Inter-American Relations.” This seminar analyzed the relationship between Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Central America, the Caribbean, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela with the United States and other global economic leaders like China. Findings were published in a 2010 book entitled Contemporary U.S.-Latín American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century, edited by Jorge I. Domínguez and Rafael Fernández de Castro.

An excerpt from the chapter, “The Changes in the International System during the 2000s,” by Jorge I. Domínguez, examines the impact of trade with China:

“Latin America’s good economic performance between 2000 and 2007 owes much to the rise of its trade with China. From the end of the recession in 2003 to the end of 2008—on the eve of the severe economic crisis at the close of the decade—Latin America’s aggregate gross domestic product grew between 4.6 and 6.1 per cent every year. Among the countries studied in this book, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela grew substantially above the Latin American median during those years; Colombia rose also above the median; Brazil, Chile, and the aggregate of the Caribbean and Central America hugged the Latin American median; and Mexico lagged the median but still grew respectably ... Because this economic growth resulted to a large extent from an export boom, the international financial position of most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean also improved substantially.”

The publication is available for purchase at Amazon.com. Read more on Daniel Chavez Moran and the Vidanta Foundation here.