Resistance and Alternatives to Washington's Agenda for the Americas The Prospects for Regional versus Hemispheric Integration

There is growing opposition among many Latin American and Caribbean governments, and from a broad spectrum of civil society organizations, to the hemispheric free trade regime that the United States government and the international financial institutions and US transnational corporations have been trying to impose on the region. This opposition represents a serious challenge to US hegemony and growing conflict over the nature and direction of capitalist development in the region. It seems increasingly possible that these forces and conditions will transform the nature of inter-American relations and bring about the regional integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. Further, it may do so in accordance with a progressive regional agenda rather than Washington's neoliberal agenda for integrating the western hemisphere under US hegemony.