Canadian Imperialism In Latin America

Canada had very similar foreign policy to that of Woodrow Wilson’s missionary diplomacy because Canada also used the idea of promoting democracy to secure and further their economic expansion. Todd Gordon’s and Jefferey Webber’s book, Canadian Imperialism in Latin America, argues that the Canadian government justified intervention in the Latin America because they wanted to promote democracy, but really, the Canadian government was just interested in the expansion of its markets in the Andes. Gordon and Webber agree that democracy promotion was one of the United States’ key foreign policy strategies in the world and as Latin American countries started to nationalize their domestic industries and created policies to push Canadian corporations

In addition, the U.S. hoped to better relations with Mexico by using the Good Neighbour Policy, but the Mexicans found that the ties of the Good Neighbour Policy were making the Americans more dominant over some areas of the economy, like the oil industry, while millions of Mexican’s still lived in poverty. The Good Neighbour Policy is another method of neo-colonialism because the U.S. tried to use peaceful diplomacy to further their expansion and control over Latin America. The Good Neighbour Policy was not effective because it led to U.S. military intervention in Cuba and the U.S was dominating the Mexican industry, but was quite a different result when Canada used the Good Neighbour policy in Latin America. Canadian foreign policy was very similar to U.S. foreign policy because, in fact, Canada adopted the Good Neighbour Policy from the U.S. to promote better relations in Latin America. John M. Kirk and Peter McKenna argue that Canada actually kept true to its word with the Good Neighbour Policy because in Cuba they promoted a peaceful relationship, which has led to a bilateral trade of 500 million dollars. Canada has worked to develop freer and fairer trade while the Americans fought to tighten the immoral blockade of Cuba, which has benefited the Canadian government because they have been able to increase economic expansion through banking and the sugar

Lester B. Pearson said that the invasion of the Dominican Republic was vital for Canadian investments because Canada owned 70 percent of the Dominican assets. Canada saw they could not protect their interests through peaceful relations with the Dominican Republic so they had to intervene with military force just as the U.S did. The use of the Good Neighbour Policy shows how Canada and the U.S. both used neo-colonial foreign policies, which disproves Williams’ argument as to how American diplomacy is unique. Lastly, the containment policy during the Cold War was a neo-colonial foreign policy used by the U.S. to preserve the Open Door Policy. The American’s were worried that the Soviet communism would spread to Asian and Eastern European countries, which would cut off the Open Doors Policy in these countries. Williams argues that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 was to defeat the Japanese quickly so the Soviets would not enter the war and try to expand their sphere of influence in Asia, but also to scare the Soviets and check their expansion in Eastern Europe and Asia. The atomic bomb was used as a containment policy because the U.S. wanted to show the Soviets that they were ready to use nuclear weapons if the Soviets tried to expand their sphere of influence and bring communism to Asian and Eastern Europeans, which