Latin America was almost always dependent ever since the conquistadors came and tried to take over. Ever since that, they have been dependent on other countries and nations economically and for certain resources that they could’ve grown on their own land. While Latin America was under colonial rule, mercantilist policies made them almost completely dependent on Spain and Portugal. Under this colonial rule, Latin America had strict rules put against them that said the colonist couldn’t trade with other countries or start any industries that could compete with the parent country. Even after Latin America gained its independence nothing really changed except for the fact that they adopted free trade where everyone was welcome to do trade with them. Besides free trade, nothing changed much in Latin America. It was still economically dependent just on different nations such as Britain and The U.S.
The main reason that Latin America is dependent is because they rely too much on exports to other countries. They relied almost completely on exports in the beginning of the 1800’s. But just because they were dependent on other exports didn’t mean they couldn’t do things for themselves. Some countries such as Chile, began mining. They exported a lot of copper and nitrate. Other countries such as Brazil grew and exported things like coffee and sugar and also rubber. More countries up north in Latin America like Mexico and Venezuela started manufacturing and oil industries. However, throughout Latin America foreigners (mainly the United States) started building railroad tracks. The reason for this was to export Latin America’s goods to the United States. The U.S originally told Latin America that the trains was suppose to be used to import goods from the U.S to Latin America. But the U.S lied and actually did the exact opposite and used the trains to take Latin America’s resources instead of giving them finished products. Although the U.S lied and started using Latin America for their resources, Latin America still traded with other countries. In fact, Latin America was a big part of one of the largest trade networks in the world called ‘“The Great Consolidation”. This trade lasted for almost 100 years. Because of this trade, Latin America got technology, investments and people began to migrate. Latin America also gained a little bit more money and had an economic upturn because of trade. But very little went to the people. The poor gained very little money and had almost no money to buy consumer goods. Without a strong demand from the people, many industries failed to develop.