A Brief History of US Interventionism in Latin America
- Francis Buchanan
- Feb 10, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 15, 2019
The eyes of the international community are currently trained upon the political stalemate in Venezuela. With the Trump administration and members of Latin America’s LIMA Group recognising acting President Juan Guaido, Venezuela’s incumbent President Nicolas Maduro has received the backing of Russia, Turkey and, to some degree, China.
However, these are no chance alliances. They are multi-layered bonds that have been made on age-old political grounds as much as they have been made on economic grounds.
Protests continue across Caracas and other areas of Venezuela
However, it is the US and the Trump administration who have come under fire for their involvement in Guaido’s surge to the forefront of Venezuelan politics. With some going as far as calling America’s backing a coup, it certainly is the latest development in a long trend of US interventionism in Latin America.
In late January 2019, National Security Advisor, John Bolton, held a press briefing about the growing political turmoil in Venezuela. He strode in with a yellow legal pad that said: “5,000 troops to Colombia.”
National Security Advisor, John Bolton
While those around the world are divided about the support of opposition leader Juan Guaido, I wouldn’t expect many to be in support of seeing US troops in Venezuela. However, it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if that did occur, throughout history the US has meddled in the affairs of almost all Latin American countries.
To put this into perspective, in Revista: The Harvard Review of Latin America, John H. Coatsworth wrote, “In the slightly less than a hundred years from 1898 to 1994, the U.S. government has intervened successfully to change governments in Latin America a total of at least 41 times. That amounts to once every 28 months for an entire century.”
Back in 1904, Theodore Roosevelt declared that the U.S. had the right to exercise an “international police power” across Latin America. At a time when the country was a burgeoning global superpower, this declaration essentially set the tone for the entire century. 115 years later, the U.S. is still maintaining this “right” in a region often referred to as the country’s “backyard”.
Economic interests are often identified as the standout reason for US interventions throughout the course of history, and many would contend that the country’s stake in the Venezuela crisis is no different.
However, following a number of condemned interventions in Latin America and other areas of the world, President Trump should be particularly wary about continuing this trend.
A Century of Culpability
In El Salvador, for example, the US has had a direct influence in domestic politics ever since the early 1930s. President Herbet Hoover sought to avoid a left-wing revolution in the Central American state by sending warships to the aid of the ruling military regime.
Soldiers in the Salvadoran Civil War
Directly involved again in 1944 and 1960, it was in the Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992) that the US once again decide to wade in. During the height of the Cold War, the Reagan administration sought to restrict the rise of communism and so threw their military assistance behind the ruling authoritarian government.
It is understood that around 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran Civil War and Salvadoran military death squads are known to have carried out around 85% of the atrocities. Many of these death squads were trained by the US military. Despite its hand in this conflict, only 3% of all Salvadoran asylum cases to the US were approved in the 80s.
In 1990, the US Congress passed a legislation designating Salvadorans for Temporary Protected Status. However, in 2018, President Trump ended TPS status for the 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States. This decision has been met with anger by many in across US.
Curbing Communism
Regarding US interventionism in the 1980s, El Salvador wasn’t the only country in central America to fall under the influence of the US. This trend was largely associated with the Cold War and the rise of communism all across the globe.
The US were essentially terrified of communism spreading across Latin America and this fear led to a chain of interventions all across the region. Ronald Reagan once said, “Central America’s problems do directly affect the security and wellbeing of our own people, and Central America is much closer to the United States than many of the world trouble spots that concern us.”
In another speech he questioned: “Will we permit the Soviet Union to put a second Cuba, or a second Libya, right on the doorstep of the United States?” Clearly, Reagan was hugely concerned with the threat of communism in Central America and his administration sought to curb that threat on more than one occasion.
One of the only examples of communism in action across the Americas, Cuba has been a communist state ever since the early 1960s.
During the latter years of the 20th century, the US armed, trained and supported government forces in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. This firm support, which aided in stamping out communism across the region, also led to socio/economic destabilisation, mass bloodshed and huge levels of displacement. Many now look at that era of US interventionism as one of the key reasons for the current border crisis.
The Cost of Intervening
As President Trump continues to try and finance the construction of his promised Border Wall, “caravans” of migrants are being met with violence at the US border and it has been discovered that “thousands” of children have been separated from their parents during crossing attempts.
A “caravan” of migrants from Honduras
Some present-day commentators suggest all of this chaos and moral disorder has been directly triggered by the economic & political upheaval sustained across Central America in the 1980s.
In light of this, the Trump administration actually slashed foreign aid in 2018 by up to 98% in some areas of Central America, only adding to a climate of uncertainty and poverty for a growing number of people in the region.
While Venezuela presents a different crisis in many ways, a US military invasion is certain not to improve foreign relations.
It’s evident that this history of intervention is inextricable from the contemporary Central American crisis of displacement and migration.
The Trump administration should look to the past and the moral responsibilities that are inseparably bound to it.
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