In the gradual scaling down of Britain's global role since 1945, few reasons have been found in Whitehall to pay anything other than sporadic attention to Latin America. The generalised absence of pressing commercial, cultural, strategic and security considerations has fostered in turn both indifference and ignorance in official circles about the region. The record of successive governments, whether Conservative or Labour, has been consistent in the low priority accorded the region and in the low level of ignorance. Even such a seasoned British diplomat as Sir Michael Palliser, who visited the region on a three-week tour in 1976 after becoming Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, regaled his audience at the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council on his return with the discovery: ‘Each country in the area is different from its neighbours.’

Relatively free of superpower rivalry, Latin America has been viewed by Britain primarily in commercial terms; yet the region has absorbed a declining percentage of Britain's exports and this in turn has tended to reduce the profile of its importance. In 1986 only 2 per cent of British exports went to Latin America and the Caribbean – roughly the same value as annual sales to Denmark. Direct access by air from Britain extends to only four cities outside the Caribbean: Bogotá, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro and Sāo Paulo. The national carriers of France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and West Germany all possess more extensive direct links.

The low level of trade, however, is not the whole story, as Britain has other interests to defend.