Latin America and the internationalization of the world economy

This article questions the generally accepted theory that the international economy is being polarized into three regional nuclei: the United States, the European Economic Community, and Japan. In the light of trade and financial trends In the 1980s, it is maintained that there is no evidence of the formation of three trade blocs. Economic Interdependence, as measured by the relation between Intra-regional trade and the gross domestic product, shows that the EEC is the only one of the three centres which could conceivably fulfil the conditions for assuming the creation of a bloc. In global terms, the growth in trade in goods in each one of these groups during the 1980s favoured trade with the rest of the world more than intra-regional trade.