On 27 June 1990, President Bush launched the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative as a part of his longstanding interest in encouraging democracy and economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. Impressed by political and economic events in Latin America, he felt a new approach was needed to help advance prosperity throughout the region.

Recent events in the Western Hemisphere are part of a worldwide phenomenon. The past 18 months have witnessed enormous economic and political change.

These changes are almost universally positive and, not least, are being achieved peacefully. Indicative of these changes is the assertion by Charles William Maynes that in the future “economists will be more important than geopoliticians [and] diplomats more critical than warriors” (Maynes, 1990). There is a fresh, dynamic attitude around the world that views change optimistically, not fearfully.

The February 1990 elections in Nicaragua were hailed by the popular media and the US administration as signaling the country's rejection of authoritarian rule in favor of Western-style democracy. Most commentators interpreted the results in Nicaragua as part of a worldwide trend triggered by events in Eastern Europe. According to the conventional wisdom, as long as the Sandinistas handed over power, including control of the military and security forces, democracy would flourish in Nicaragua.

While competitive elections may be a necessary condition for democracy, they certainly are not a sufficient one. Throughout history, countless elections have been held, yet relatively few have contributed much of anything to the consolidation of democratic rule. Elections can serve a number of functions other than the public contestation of power. For example, they can be used to legitimize an incumbent regime, diffuse political opposition, or respond to foreign pressure.

Among the Many Changes initiated in the Soviet Union, President Gorbachev has not left untouched its policy towards the Third World. By the end of 1986, he had outlined a position radically different from that of his predecessors.

What characteristics distinguish this new face which Moscow intends to turn to the less developed countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America?

In the first place, the Soviet Union places strong emphasis on avoiding any more direct military obligations, such as those assumed in Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and others in the past. The Soviet leadership has concluded that those obligations of “international solidarity,” far from representing gains and successes for the Kremlin, have represented a double loss.

The Coup d'Etat that overthrew General Alfredo Stroessner on the second night of February 1989 signaled the beginning of a new era for Paraguayan politics and the close of another chapter of Latin American caudillismo. He was replaced by General Andrés Rodríguez, Paraguay's second most powerful figure, in what was, in effect, a “palace coup.” General Rodríguez startled the nation by issuing a proclamation that called for (a) democratization of Paraguay, (b) full respect for human rights, and (c) restoration of the badly damaged relations with the Catholic Church. The proclamation ushered in a series of events which amazed the populace even more: opposition leaders — once banned and exiled by the Stroessner regime — were embraced and greeted by longtime adversaries; dozens of prominent exiled figures returned to find an enthusiastic atmosphere; political prisoners were freed; while corruption and torture became the subject of national debate as people sought both to uncover, and to bury, the legacy of the Stroessner years.

In a Nationally televised speech on 5 September 1989, President Bush outlined a comprehensive anti-drug program with both domestic and international dimensions. The objectives of this strategy, which was refined and submitted to the Congress on 25 January 1990, are to reduce the amount of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and other dangerous drugs estimated to be entering the United States (a) by 15% within 2 years and (b) by 60% within 10 years.

The strategy includes a number of international components which differ greatly from policies of previous years. New to the strategy are provisions which: (1) provide — for the first time — support for limited economic assistance to major cocaineproducing countries; (2) concentrate more on disrupting the activities of the trafficking organizations [i.e. on seizing processing labs, chemicals and assets] and less on disrupting the activities of farmers [i.e., crop eradication]; (3) encourage increased levels of Andean nation military involvement in counter-narcotics operations; and (4) provide for enhanced US military support to host nation counter-narcotics forces.

This study is intended to establish a framework for analyzing the economic impact of narcotraffic between Colombia, where most of the world's cocaine is refined, and the State of Florida, which is the primary area of entry for Andean cocaine into the United States. The purpose of the study is to analyze the economic costs and benefits of this activity to Florida, as an example that could be extended in both directions — to Colombia and to the entire United States—if additional data were to become available. Only the trade in cocaine is examined, though additional traffic in marijuana does take place and, in some cases, the data are not disaggregated for each drug. Only the economic impact is studied, though the trade obviously impacts the social and political realms as well. Because the tools of analysis are quite different among the disciplines, and because the economic issues need to be sorted out in any discussion of the overall impact of the cocaine trade, only economic issues are treated here.