51吃瓜

In recent months, the Trump administration has escalated a against the Venezuelan government and people. The renewed, intensifying threats of , justified through false or inflated that Nicol谩s Maduro, Venezuela鈥檚 president, is against the United States, serve as a convenient pretext for deeper and more direct intervention.

A recent wave of at sea, the directing of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to launch inside Venezuela, the surge of into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered in Puerto Rico and the deployment of the aircraft carrier in the region represent striking but not surprising developments. These are little more than the latest expression of an ideological project through which Washington has long sought to shape the hemisphere in ways that would entrench US power further and protect the profits of Western multinationals.

That formal project dates back to at least the 1823 , when the US unilaterally claimed Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence. Its revival today is unmistakable and . As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth , echoing the language of that two-century-old policy, 鈥淭he Western Hemisphere is America鈥檚 neighborhood, and we will protect it.鈥�

The results of that doctrine have long been : immense profits for the few and violence, political upheaval, social dislocation and economic devastation for the many. While Washington鈥檚 imperial desires in the hemisphere have long been met by movements challenging US dominance, these have repeatedly been forced back into the subordinate position assigned to them in a global capitalist order designed to benefit their not-so 鈥済ood neighbor.鈥�

It鈥檚 no accident that, by the mid-1970s, Latin America had been transformed into a hemisphere dominated by US-backed right-wing authoritarian regimes. Entire regions like the became laboratories for repression, as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay formed a coordinated bloc of military juntas. With direct support from Washington, those regimes oversaw what came to be known as , establishing a transnational network of state terror. Its consequences were catastrophic: 50,000 killed, tens of thousands 鈥渄isappeared鈥� and hundreds of thousands tortured and imprisoned for the so-called crime of harboring real or perceived leftist sympathies.

During that earlier period, Venezuela had been largely spared the brutal excesses of direct US interventionism in the region (due in part to the repressive rule of successive US-supported strongmen and ). That changed in 1998, when , far more popular predecessor, became president and pursued policies of and aimed at ensuring the nation鈥檚 vast oil reserves (the in the world) served Venezuelans rather than being siphoned off to enrich foreign corporations. From then on, Venezuela became the of Washington鈥檚 efforts to undermine, discipline and ultimately neutralize 鈥渢roublesome鈥� progressive governments across Latin America.

To fully understand Washington鈥檚 current warpath in the region, it鈥檚 necessary to revisit earlier episodes in which the US intervened, violently and antidemocratically, to shape the political destinies of countries in the hemisphere. Three cases are especially instructive: Cuba, Guatemala and Chile. Together, they illuminate the long arc of US imperialism in Latin America and clarify the dangers of the present confrontation.

The rise of Plattismo in Cuba

Cuba had long been a crown jewel in Washington鈥檚 imperial imagination. By 1823, American political elites were already casting the island as to the future of the United States. President John Quincy Adams, for instance, , then a Spanish colony, as 鈥渋ndispensable鈥� to the country鈥檚 鈥減olitical and commercial interests.鈥� He ominously that, should the island be 鈥渇orcibly disjointed from its own unnatural connection with Spain and incapable of self-support,鈥� it could 鈥済ravitate only towards the North American Union.鈥� Thomas Jefferson that the possession of Cuba was 鈥渆xactly what is wanting to round out our power as a nation.鈥� In that spirit, during the 1840s and 1850s, Presidents James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce sought to from Spain, overtures that were repeatedly rejected.

Those efforts unfolded during a period of rapid US territorial expansionism, marking a time when Washington regarded continental conquest as both a 鈥溾�� and a political and economic imperative. When ostensibly legal mechanisms like could be invoked, they were embraced. When military force offered a more expedient path to territorial acquisition, as with the that stripped Mexico of half its territory and delivered what became the American Southwest to US control in 1848, it was undertaken with little hesitation.

The opportunity to pursue longstanding ambitions in Cuba and inaugurate the US as an overseas empire arrived with the of 1898. In that conflict, Washington intervened in anticolonial uprisings from Puerto Rico to the Philippines, not to champion genuine liberation but to ensure that any subsequent 鈥渋ndependence鈥� would be to US strategic and economic interests. What emerged was a political order deliberately engineered to keep Cuba firmly tethered to the priorities and power of the United States.

That would be codified in the 1901 , which effectively nullified Washington鈥檚 earlier assurances of Cuban sovereignty and granted Washington the right to establish military bases (including ), substantial control over the Cuban treasury and the ability to intervene whenever the US deemed it to safeguard its arbitrarily defined notion of what constituted 鈥淐uban independence鈥� or to defend 鈥渓ife, property, and individual liberty.鈥�

In practice, Cuba emerged from the war as a dependent protectorate, not a sovereign nation. That model was soon codified for the entire hemisphere with the to the Monroe Doctrine issued in 1904, which granted the United States a self-appointed mandate to police the region to maintain 鈥渙rder.鈥�

In Cuba, that arrangement would serve Washington鈥檚 interests for decades. By 1959, on the eve of the Cuban Revolution, US 90% of the island鈥檚 trade, 90% of its public services, 75% of its arable land and 40% of its sugar industry. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Cubans remained landless, disenfranchised and mired in poverty.

By breeding staggering inequality, Washington鈥檚 imperialism rendered Cuba ripe for revolution. In 1959, following years in exile, Fidel Castro to the island to overwhelmingly popular support, having launched an armed struggle after attempting to run in the 1952 elections that the Washington-backed Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista . Rather than confront the policies that had produced the revolution, US officials moved to make an example of Castro, waging an to undermine his revolutionary government and punish the population whose support had made his ascent possible.

Washington pursued everything from ill-fated invasions to assassinations, plots that, in October 1962, brought the world to the brink of a . It also imposed a punishing designed to choke the island鈥檚 economy, render socialism a stillbirth and deter other nations from challenging US hegemony. Those efforts foreclosed the possibility of constructive engagement, which Castro had initially he was open to, pushing Cuba decisively into the Soviet orbit, and creating the very outcome Washington claimed it had sought to avoid.

The fall of Guatemala

did not return to Cuba alone. He arrived alongside the Argentinian Ernesto , who would become a key ideologue of the revolution, bringing with him a commitment to constructing a global, anti-imperialist movement. The two first met in in Mexico City, where Castro was organizing in exile, and Guevara had resettled after working as a doctor in Guatemala, a country he had entered to support the democratic spring of President .

The democratic experiment in Guatemala was abruptly and violently extinguished in 1954, when a toppled 脕rbenz. From that experience, Guevara carried with him an indelible lesson about the reach of US power and Washington鈥檚 willingness to deploy force in defense of corporate interests, along with the profoundly antidemocratic and destabilizing consequences of US intervention across the hemisphere.

That coup in Guatemala was carried out in service to that country鈥檚 real center of authority, the Boston-based . Founded in 1899, United Fruit consolidated its foothold there through a series of preferential corporate arrangements, as successive strongmen ceded vast tracts of land and critical infrastructure to the company in exchange for personal enrichment. In the process, Guatemala was transformed into the archetypal 鈥�.鈥�

United Fruit came to Guatemala鈥檚 agricultural and industrial sectors, transforming itself into one of the most profitable corporations in the world. It secured extraordinary returns through its monopoly power, wage suppression and the criminalization of labor organizing. Its influence extended into the of Washington. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had represented United Fruit as a senior partner at the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, and his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, had previously served on that company鈥檚 board.

脕rbenz regarded United Fruit not just as a threat to Guatemala鈥檚 sovereignty but also as an engine of injustice. In a country where 2% of the landholders controlled of all arable land (more than half controlled by United Fruit), much of it left deliberately fallow, he sought to challenge a system that denied millions of peasants access to the land on which their survival depended. His land reform applied only to uncultivated land. The government proposed purchasing idle tracts at their declared tax value (based on the company鈥檚 own assessments). Yet because United Fruit had its vast land holdings to evade taxes, the company refused.

脕rbenz鈥檚 policies, driven by the fact that he was a nationalist (not a communist), were committed to dismantling Guatemala鈥檚 imperial dependency. His objective was to , as he put it, 鈥淕uatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state, and to make this transformation in a way that will raise the standard of living of the great mass of our people to the highest level.鈥� Yet, in the ideologically charged climate of the early Cold War years, such New Deal-style reforms were recast by Washington as incontrovertible proof that a 鈥溾�� was taking root in Central America.

By 1954, US officials insisted that they had 鈥渘o choice鈥� but to intervene to prevent the country from 鈥渇alling鈥� to communism. The relied on an orchestrated propaganda campaign, the financing of a mercenary army and the aerial bombardment of Guatemala City. The combined pressure of all of that coerced 脕rbenz into resigning. In his , he condemned the attacks 鈥渁s an act of vengeance by the United Fruit Company鈥� and stepped down in the hope, quickly dashed, that his departure might preserve his reforms.

Power would soon be transferred to the military regime of , while US President Dwight D. Eisenhower that 鈥渢he people of Guatemala, in a magnificent effort, have liberated themselves from the shackles of international Communist direction.鈥� In reality, United Fruit had expanded its influence, while the country descended into decades of state terror. The that followed claimed more than 200,000 lives, including a against the indigenous Ixil Maya people, carried out with direct .

The crushing of Chilean socialism

If Guatemala exposed Washington鈥檚 readiness to destroy a modest social democracy in the name of communism and in defense of corporate power, Chile demonstrated the full, violent maturation of unrepentant Cold War interventionism. When the socialist physician won the presidency in 1970 in a democratic election, Washington immediately went on the , launching a covert, sustained campaign to strangle his government before it could succeed.

Allende sought to expand social welfare and the economy. His program called for the nationalization of strategic industries, the expansion of healthcare and education, the strengthening of organized labor and the dismantling of entrenched monopolistic landholdings. Those initiatives drew support from a broad, multiparty alliance rooted in Chile鈥檚 peasants as well as its working and middle classes. Above all, aimed to reclaim the nation鈥檚 mineral wealth from foreign capital, especially the US-based copper giant , whose staggering profits bore few meaningful returns for the Chilean population.

President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger found that intolerable and quickly came to regard Allende not just as a symbolic but a to US power in the region. After all, a successful socialist state achieved through the ballot box risked demonstrating that another political and economic path was indeed possible.

What followed was a coordinated campaign of economic, social and political destabilization. The CIA funneled millions to Chile鈥檚 opposition parties, business associations and media outlets. It financed strikes and disruptions designed to create and weaponize scarcity, to (in ) 鈥渕ake the economy scream鈥� and erode confidence in Allende鈥檚 Popular Unity government. US officials also cultivated ties with reactionary factions in the Chilean military, encouraging coup plots and ultimately directly supporting the of Allende on September 11, 1973.

What emerged was one of the bloodiest dictatorships in the hemisphere in the twentieth century. General regime would carry out widespread torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings, while US-trained economists radical neoliberal policies (similar to the now being implemented by Javier Milei in Argentina with the help of a US President Donald Trump ) that dismantled social protections and opened Chile鈥檚 economy to foreign capital.

Hands off Venezuela

In every instance where the United States intervened in Latin America, leaving tens of thousands dead and entire , it was never really communism that Washington feared. What alarmed policymakers and the corporate interests they served was the prospect that nations in the hemisphere might escape the economic architecture of US dominance.

When Hugo Ch谩vez completed the nationalization of Venezuela鈥檚 oil sector in , he followed a long and perilous trajectory established by regional leaders who dared to confront US power. In doing so, they committed what Washington considered the 鈥渃ardinal sin鈥� of asserting sovereign control over national resources within a hemisphere it had long treated as its strategic preserve. These leaders demonstrated, however briefly, that it was possible to stand up to the United States, but that such defiance would ultimately be met with overwhelming force.

Independent powers in this hemisphere going their own way were the threat that Washington and Wall Street could never tolerate. It鈥檚 the same reason the United States is once again maneuvering toward open conflict in Venezuela. To proceed down such a path will, of course, mean reenacting some of the most catastrophic chapters of US foreign policy. The lesson of such imperial adventurism in Latin America is unmistakable. When Washington interferes in other nations, the outcome is never stability or democracy but their absolute negation.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.