Conventional wisdom holds that the United States has been ignoring Latin America, thus prompting governments there to seek new trading partners, different investors, and fresh commitments. The United States has been too focused on the Middle East and the “War on Terror,” the argument goes, which has served to diminish our own influence. This is repeated endlessly. Like so many commonly accepted arguments, there is a factual nugget there, but overall it is mistaken.

It is certainly the case that the United States pays relatively little attention to Latin America compared to the rest of the world. But that has been true for much of the past 200 years, and therefore does not adequately explain recent change. Instead, there are international economic forces at work that go far beyond U.S. policy. We cannot control them, and should not pretend that we can.

One of the main examples analysts and politicians alike use is China, which has pursued economic agreements across the region and is entering markets once dominated by the United States. China is hungry for raw materials such as soy, wood pulp, copper, iron and, of course, oil. It is willing to pay handsomely for the commodities it wants.

With its vast reserves, China is also eager to finance governments looking for loans, and there are always takers. These economic relationships have nothing to do with the United States, and would have moved forward no matter what the administrations of George W. Bush or Barack Obama did. The United States is not “losing” Latin America to China.

A second example is Colombia, which had to wait six years for a free-trade agreement to be ratified by the United States. Supposedly Colombia became tired of waiting and therefore established trade ties not only with China, but also with the European Union, Canada, and much of South America.

For this argument to hold, we would have to believe that Colombia would not bother looking to other parts of the world if only it had a free-trade agreement with the United States. That is hard to swallow. Just take a look at Chile and Mexico, both of which have those free-trade agreements yet simultaneously embrace economic globalization.

Granted, U.S. presidents have pressing interests elsewhere, and only a tiny fraction of Congress pays much attention to the region. That is not new. Meanwhile, Latin American governments are riding high on a commodity boom and are trying to get the best deals they can. They would not change that strategy based on anything the United States did.

There are more economic actors at the table in Latin America than ever before, and in that sense U.S. influence is not as high as it once was. There are many different reasons for this — China’s rise, liberalization of international trade, and the 2008 crash among them — but few relate directly to U.S. policy toward Latin America. In other words, changing the policy will not change basic economic realities.

Many scholars and media columnists believe that the U.S. government could somehow have prevented Latin America from looking elsewhere in the world. Just because many people believe something, however, does not make it true.

Gregory Weeks is associate professor of political science and director of Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.