Latin American is already a leading destination for American companies engaged in international trade. For these American companies, the region is a rich source of opportunities and challenges.

Latin America’s new political class has increasingly focused their efforts toward democratization, macro stability, and the region has obtained high rankings by agencies like Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s as a result.

With more than 640 million people the growing middle class in Latin America demands new consumer markets. Research is improving, and schools are achieving new successes with a young population that can be fluent in Spanish/Portuguese and English.

American companies have the opportunity to take advantage of the enhanced advantages of the US’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which applies to 60% of the twenty countries in the region. Some of the advantages of doing business in Latin America from the perspective of American companies include: geographic proximity (same day travel to and from any major city in the US), same (or similar) time zones, world class cities and infrastructure in hotels, IT, ports and airports, and rich and diverse natural resources.