Abstract

Since 1945, the ruling classes of Western corporations and their bankers have set in motion five successive ideological blueprints or commissions to control and safeguard their interests and profits in worldwide trade: Bretton Woods (1944), the GATT (1948), the Trilateral Commission (1973), a major modification of the GATT known as the Uruguay Round (1983), and the NAFTA (1994). Each trade agreement and its modifications would tighten a stronghold on Latin American resources, sovereignty, and progressive movements well into the twenty-first century. What Senator Elizabeth Warren referred to as a “rigged game” for multinational corporations and the wealthy has long been perceived as such by Latin Americans. Latin America was one of the first experimental laboratories of corporate planning to control world trade. This investigation examines each trade agreement or commission in the context of its timing and its effect on Latin America. The Latin American experience of “free trade” capitalism explains Latin America’s 2005 rejection of the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), its abrupt retreat from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2007, and the withdrawal of various Latin American nations from the entangling web of “free trade” regulations with the North.