Issues in International Political Economy: Energy Cooperation and Confrontation in the Western Hemisphere

August 15, 2006

The countries of the Western Hemisphere do not have an auspicious record of cooperation on significant economic issues. Many examples can be cited to support this statement: the Latin American Free Trade Area (LAFTA) that was in place from 1960 to 1980 and promised economic integration but instead delivered high tariffs that benefited only a few hemispheric countries at a high cost to the rest; nonadherence among the Mercosur countries in South America to trade commitments of their integration agreement; and the disagreements among Latin American and Caribbean countries that have prevented negotiation of a free trade area of the Americas and instead spawned the spaghetti that we now have. On energy, one of the most important