Japan and Latin America hold a long history of trade relations, investment and migration, although the Latin American
crisis of the 1980s and Japan’s crisis in the 1990s harmed these trade and investment relations (Yeo, 2005). As a result of these trends and China’s expansion, in the 1990s China replaced Japan as the leading Asian trade partner of Latin America and the Caribbean. Recent initiatives show that Latin America is becoming more of a priority to Japan, maybe to keep
up with China’s closer ties to the region. In September 2004, for instance, Japan’s Prime Minister Koizumi visited Brazil and Mexico and signed the Japan-Mexico free trade agreement.