America's Backyard
In a less geopolitical context, America's Backyard is also used on occasion to refer to national parks and public lands in the US, as well as the American heartland more generally.
[1] Conversely, "America's Backyard" is referred to the area within which actions by enemy or competing powers might be feared or seen as provocative.
"[6][7] Furthermore, "America's Backyard" has appeared interchangeably with "heartland" in the writings of a variety of journalists, authors, war veterans and bloggers.
With those colonies independent, they could trade in a mutually beneficial way with the United States and Great Britain and not be restricted by mercantilistic Spain which wanted to benefit its home economy at the expense of the South Americans.
The United States supported the Spanish colonies' independence because they wanted to keep Spain and other European countries out of the Western Hemisphere, out of "America's Backyard".
Since the establishment of the United States, international relations have been politically important in securing the nation’s developed democracy and influential power.
The declassification of official documents concerning Latin America by the Clinton administration allowed for more public information on the matter.
Recent popular publications offer a more detailed insight into the development of relations between the United States and Latin America.
Though Latin America is not the poorest area in the world, it is the most unequal; historically a small elite has controlled most of the wealth.
A number of European commentators have contended that US foreign policy in the Middle East has (intentionally or otherwise) had the effect of turning the Middle East into America's new "backyard": a new epicenter within which the US is trying to exhort influence on political developments through regime change and political pressure which resembles past US actions in Latin America.
