U.S. Relations with Developing Countries: Conflict and Opportunity

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 460, Issue 1, p. 118-126

Abstract

The United States has proposed a new approach to the problems of developing nations that reserves aid for the very poorest countries and stresses the role of free markets in stimulating Southern growth through expanded trade and private investment. Because the new policy rests upon opportunities for mutual gain, it may enjoy greater support in the North than past proposals to aid poor nations. However, expansion of North-South trade is central to the prospects for market-guided development. The new approach can succeed only if the United States and other Northern nations can adjust their own industrial structures to accommodate a new global division of labor.