On the other hand, the liberalization in Latin American countries was still relatively limited during the 1980s, which meant that most of the industries were either controlled by central authorities or private initiative was generally not encouraged that much. This translated to the commercial segment as well, with private initiatives for import and exports being still relatively rare.

At the same time, foreign companies were not encouraged to penetrate the Latin American market and this was still a trend at the beginning of the 1990s. Only during the 1990s the U.S. companies and some of the European ones (notably from Spain or Italy) began to invest in Latin American countries and to benefit from the large internal market that Latin America was offering.

The reasons that the trade between Latin American countries and the U.S. And the EU experiences such a boom during the 1990s can be found in the...
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