Economic Exchange, Foreign Policy Legacies, and Mass Attitudes toward the Colossus of the North

Abstract: Do Latin American citizens admire the United States for its material wealth and the opportunities this creates for them, or do they revile the United States because of the military and economic threat it has historically posed? Both narratives have a strong presence in Latin American societies, and much scholarship on mass anti-Americanism in the region portrays the dominant narrative as one of the United States as threat. In this article, we consult surveys from contemporary Latin America and fi nd that various forms of ongoing economic exchange with the United States—trade, aid, migration, and remittances—are the primary infl uence on mass perception of the northern hegemon and actually promote goodwill, rather than bitterness, toward the United States. More-over, we demonstrate that the most powerful channel through which economic exchange does so is consumption: infl ows of US imports boost pro-American sentiment more than do other forms of exchange. In contrast, the legacy of US imperialism has little resonance in mass beliefs about the colossus of the north. Do Latin American citizens admire the United States for its material wealth and the opportunities this creates for them, or do they revile the United State