The Relationship Between Chile and The United States

Political Environment

Political Freedom

For most of Chile’s life, it has practiced democracy and has adopted a constitutional government, with exception to the period of 1973-1990, in which Augusto Pinochet carried out a military coup and overthrew the government, exercising an authoritarian rule. However, since the end of his ruling, Chile has had a stable democratic government in which practices a rule by law. The president is elected for a four year term and 38 members constitute the senate that serve an 8 years term with half up for elections every 4 years (Freedomhouse). Free speech is granted in Chile and there is little censorship on the media and no government restrictions are placed on the internet. The people are allowed to freely practice religion, which is a huge step away from how the colonial rulers once had strict emigration policies in which only Roman Catholics were allowed. The government also rarely interferes with judicial rulings in the courts. All these policies and practices have positively contributed to the freedom index rating given by Freedom House. Freedom House is an organization that ranks and rates countries based on their levels of freedom and Chile has been given a rating of 1 out of 7 for both its civil liberties and political rights. This results in Chile attaining an overall freedom rating of 1, the best rating that can be given to a country, reflecting its sound political environment.

Corruption

Chile is one of the rare few countries in Latin America that is relatively free from corruption. The government has exercised several sound policies and established several methods to ensure that Chile is corruption free. In 2003, congress passed several transparency and campaign-finance laws that have...

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... of foreign direct investment and enjoyed a trade surplus of $6.2 billion (fas.org). It is projected to receive $102 billion in investments between 2013 and 2016. According to executive Vice President of the Committee of Foreign Investments in the Chilean Ministry of Economy, flows of FDI at a global level have decreased by 18% in the recent years, while Chile on the other had an increase in its capital investments of 32.2% (as-coa.org).

US and Chile Relations

Ever since Chile regained its democratic government in 1990, it has enjoyed good relations with the US. President Obama himself said that “the relationship between the United States and Chile is as strong as any of the relationships that we have” (fas.org). In June 2003, the US and Chile signed a trade agreement which eliminated tariffs on 87% of the bilateral trade between them. Consumer and industrial goods