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- In reality, nevertheless, the multiplication of the attempts of regional integration since the 1990s, the American continent testifies the incapacity of the Americans to unite under the banner of a common continental project ?

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- the American continent is marked by contradictory dynamics
- conflicts and tensions between countries
- America : rival continent of Asia and Europe
- unit : globalization + exchanges

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- It refused ZELA
- 1991 : birth of Mercosur
-  5 member countries: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela
-  4 associated countries: Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador

- a way to free itself from the political supervision of the United States since the Cold War
-  economic and political pole to rebalance the continent
- Brazil : main leader of the Mercosur ?
- ALBA, CELAC
-  construction of a gas pipeline connecting Venezuela in the Argentina
- 2008 : UNASUR = CAN + MERCOSUR

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- There  are the fruit of  history, and in particular because of  colonization of the New World by the Old Continent.  After the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Europeans are divided the continent and impose their cultural fingerprint.

- Native Americans :   the colonization of their continent is a disaster. Between the XVIth and the XVIIth century, 90 % of them are decimated by the hard labor, the ill-treatment and the diseases.
-  Indians in insufficient number are then replaced by black slaves from Africa within the framework of the Triangular trade and slave trade : of the XVIth in the XIXth century, more than 9 million Africans are so deported towards the plantations in America.

-  USA reaches the independence in the turning point of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries.
-  Doctrine Monroe (1823) : USA intend to save themselves a "backyard" in Central America and in the island States of the Caribbean. During the Cold war in the name of the fight against the expansion of communism, USA supports anti-communist military dictatorships.

- Since 1991, the South American military dictatorships, become useless for the victorious United States of the USSR, collapse one after the other in a feeling of abandonment and then make way for democratic regimes

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- The American continent : heterogeneous and homogeneous
- Heterogeneous : demography, economy, geography, culture
- Homogeneous : ethnic reasons, history
- On the American continent, thus, between nearby or distant countries,
- Assets VS weakness
- Tensions VS integration
- Competition with Europe and China

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- position of crossroads/interface
-  American scale between North America and South America
- American scale beteween Europe and Asia
- Panama Canal
- Economic dynamism of the neighbors
- Tourism : tropical islands and cruises
- Guardianship of the USA and Europe (Antilles)
- public aid development and Foreign Direct Investment

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- Large socio-spatial disparities with various scales.
- Between North America and South America, at first, the opposition is strong, between the very developed North and the South; characterized by a massive poverty, although variable according to States and especially in the process of regression everywhere. These  profound distances  between the North and the South are at the origin of a massive migratory system.
- Migrations :  come mainly from the Caribbean Pond, from Mexico and, secondarily, from South America. These migrations intercontinentales, which are the strongest to the world, cause two consequences: on the economic plan, the enrichment of the countries of departure (remesas), on the political level, the persistence of tensions between the North and the South, because of the preservation of an important illegal immigration, at the origin of politics of closure.
- Two Latin America :
-  emergent America, which benefits from the growth and multiplies trade agreements with the EU and the Asian countries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina) .
-  '' the other America ", in development, which presents a big diversity of situations, since countries which have plentiful oil resources, such Venezuela, up to the most disadvantaged country

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- The American hegemony is the first source of tensions.
- The United States exercise a strong influence on their immediate neighbors (Canada, Mexico) as well as on the whole Caribbean Pond, while, in the South of the continent, Brazil and countries of the cone the South assert a bigger autonomy.
- The supervision of the United States did not completely disappear. It does not take anymore inevitably the form of a political alliance or an economic assistance; it takes the form of a logistic support,  aimed at the Andean countries committed in the fight against the drug trafficking, the United States are the favorite destination of the drug traffickers.

- The conflicts between Latin American country are a second source of tension.
- ideological reason: they bring into conflict countries of liberal tradition (Mexico, Colombia) in countries of socialist tradition (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia), which are so respectively allies and opponents of the United States.
-territorial reason: they bring into conflict nearby countries which quarrel the sovereignty of the borders (Peru and Chile), of the ZEE (Suriname and Guyana) or territorial waters (Colombia and Venezuela)
- FARC in Colombia = grey zone
- Brazil against Kayapos of Raoni chief tribe
- Favelas against condominios fechados

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- 1994 : birth to a vast economic free trade area, a NAFTA, which gathers the United States, Canada and Mexico
- based on the abolition of tariff barriers and free circulation of capital
- maquiladoras
- economic growth for all the countries especially for Mexico which is boosted by the USA
- loads of exchanges and immigration; the United States trie to control the Mexican immigration
- FDI
- 460 million inhabitants

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Such tensions, to be reduced, suppose a bigger cooperation between Latin American countries. In this perspective, implementation of regional integrations, intended to favor the political and economic agreement between country of the same continent

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THE AMERICAN CONTINENT BETWEEN TENSIONS AND INTEGRATION

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THE AMERICAN CONTINENT BETWEEN TENSIONS AND INTEGRATION