With British fears of the country's interests being excluded from South America firmly re-established by the spring of 1943, government departments in London embarked upon a lengthy reformulation of British policy towards Latin America in the broader context of Anglo-American relations. Eventually, the policy pursued by the Churchill government was to call upon the US to agree to what the Foreign Office termed a ‘self-denying ordinance’ in Latin America, which would ensure that neither country secured commercial advantage at the expense of the other while wartime conditions prevented free and fair competition.

Furthermore, in making its case to the Roosevelt administration, the British government framed its call for a self-denying ordinance in the context of the multilateral trade programme, which had been continually advocated by the Roosevelt administration as the basis for the post-war economic order. Specifically, the Foreign Office made the argument that continued British access to the markets of South America – which a self-denying ordinance would be essential in preserving – must be a constituent part of an economic world order based on equal access to markets and resources. Without access to such markets, Britain would lack the necessary balance of payments to be able to participate in a multilateral system. In this sense, the British call for a self-denying ordinance in Latin America demonstrates that in this region it was Britain that took the lead in promoting the establishment of a multilateral economic system for the post-war era.