Throughout the autumn of 1942 and into the spring of 1943 it became clear that, notwithstanding the efforts of the internationalists to promote multilateralism in Latin America, there remained powerful forces within the Roosevelt administration and the broader US establishment which posed a direct challenge to this goal. This challenge came from a wide variety of sources. Cumulatively, the influence of Latin Americanists within the State Department, temporary government agencies and US business interests in the region represented a parochial faction within the US, focused on Latin America and largely impervious to how this region related to broader global issues of post-war planning. While it may not have been their intention, the policies pursued by these groups did in fact threaten to exclude British interests from South America. As such, this chapter seeks to show that the promotion of multilateralism in Latin America that had been attempted by internationalists was continually undermined by the persistence of forces with different imperatives.

The most important of these were the Latin Americanists in the State Department. This group was led by Sumner Welles and also included Laurence Duggan, assistant secretary for political affairs, and members of the Division of American Republic Affairs. Imbued with an in-depth knowledge of Latin America and a sensitivity to the politics of the region, this group were at the forefront of guiding US Latin American policy during World War II. In claiming this region as their own exclusive policy domain, they tended to formulate policy towards the region without reference to broader geopolitical concerns.