{"id":39751,"date":"2026-01-03T17:30:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=39751"},"modified":"2026-01-03T17:30:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:30:03","slug":"donald-trump-revives-gunboat-diplomacy-with-venezuela-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=39751","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump revives gunboat diplomacy with Venezuela attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From plotting to kill Cuba\u2019s communist leader Fidel Castro with a poisoned milkshake, to staging a CIA-backed coup against Guatemala\u2019s elected government, the US has made many attempts to reshape its \u201cback yard\u201d \u2014 often with unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s deployment of a large military force off Venezuela<\/a> to unseat revolutionary socialist leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro has reawakened memories of America\u2019s history of \u201cgunboat diplomacy\u201d in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Coatsworth, a historian at Columbia University, has counted at least 41 successful US interventions to change governments in Latin America between 1898 and 1994.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe option to depose a sitting government has appeared on the US president\u2019s desk with remarkable frequency over the past century,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The most consequential American military intervention was one of the first: the invasion and seizure in the 1840s of more than half of Mexico\u2019s territory, including the present-day states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nevada and Utah. That war has left a deep and lingering scar on the Mexican psyche.<\/p>\n

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General Zachary Taylor directs his troops at the Battle of Buena Vista in Northern Mexico <\/span> \u00a9 Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump said the attack on Venezuela was needed to combat drug trafficking<\/a> and narco-terrorism, which threaten US national security. He added that US companies would be able to do deals in oil-rich Venezuela. The move also sends a message to Maduro\u2019s Russian and Chinese allies that the US wants them out of its \u201cback yard\u201d.<\/p>\n

Victoria Murillo, director of the Latin American Studies institute at Columbia University, said Trump\u2019s move on Venezuela only made sense if viewed as \u201cabout opportunities for US companies\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009so that US companies get access to Venezuelan oil: old-fashioned imperialism in the economic sense\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

That would echo some past US military interventions. In the early 20th century, US troops occupied various Central American and Caribbean nations in what were known as the \u201cBanana Wars\u201d to further the interests of US companies such as United Fruit \u2014 today\u2019s Chiquita \u2014 and Standard Fruit, now Dole.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Alan McPherson, a history professor at Temple university in Philadelphia, said Trump\u2019s use of military force to blow up small speedboats in the Caribbean and Pacific said to be carrying drugs, killing the civilians inside, was without parallel. \u201cEven in the long and violent history of US military occupations, these are unprecedented moves.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ernesto \u2018Che\u2019 Guevara during the battle of Santa Clara<\/span> \u00a9 Keystone\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the most active American interventionists was William McKinley, a US president who Trump admires because he \u201cmade our country very rich through tariffs and through talent\u201d.<\/p>\n

McKinley annexed Hawaii, acquired Puerto Rico and the Philippines, pushed Spain out of Cuba and set the stage for the US to build the Panama Canal before he was assassinated in 1901.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This century, China has vastly expanded its trade and investment footprint in Latin America, and Trump has made no secret of his desire to push Beijing out of a region he sees as a sphere of US influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This mirrors Washington\u2019s obsession in the cold war with preventing the spread of Soviet and Cuban influence. That led to the US supporting military regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay that tortured and executed leftwing opponents. CIA information and training helped Bolivian troops locate and kill Argentina\u2019s Cuban-allied revolutionary Ernesto \u201cChe\u201d Guevara in 1967.<\/p>\n

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Cuban leader Fidel Castro pictured in 1959<\/span> \u00a9 Prensa Latina\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 1982 CIA report on Moscow\u2019s activity in Latin America, now mostly declassified, points to how \u201cthe Soviets have by and large successfully implemented a policy of encouraging unrest in various Central American states\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and improving their relations with the governments of the more important South American countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next few years, Soviet efforts to gain influence are likely to increase,\u201d it concluded.<\/p>\n

Washington eventually achieved its cold war objective of stopping Moscow, although it brought the world close to nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilitarily it\u2019s clear that the United States won the cold war,\u201d said McPherson. \u201cThey really only accepted that dictators leave power in places like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, once the opponents of the dictatorships could show that they were going to sideline the communist groups in their coalitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the price was an American reputation sullied by association with brutal dictatorships \u2014 a point not lost on today\u2019s adversary China. The US has held sway over Latin America by \u201cunscrupulously launching coups, invasions and sanctions wherever necessary\u201d, said state news service Xinhua in a recent commentary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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US Marines come ashore from a landing craft during training exercises in Arroyo, Puerto Rico<\/span> \u00a9 Ricardo Arduengo\/Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although Trump has backed his rightwing allies in El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, his aggressive use of military force and tariffs elsewhere has upset other Latin American nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are very tense,\u201d said a senior diplomat from the region based in Washington. \u201cThere\u2019s a feeling of abuse, that Latin America has no role to play, no government worth talking to. It\u2019s never felt more like the back yard. This will not end well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, US interventions have not been universally unpopular. Jorge Casta\u00f1eda, a Mexican historian and former foreign minister, noted Latin American business leaders and conservatives often backed America\u2019s moves because they shared Washington\u2019s dislike of socialism.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>I would always qualify the mantra about how Latin Americans hate US intervention, they\u2019re always opposed, and if the US were to do this, it would do terrible damage,\u201d he said. \u201cSome Latin Americans are always opposed and think it would do damage, but for others it wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

American attempts at overthrowing Latin American governments have a chequered history. Among the best-known is the disastrous Bay of Pigs episode in 1961, when a CIA-funded army of Cuban counter-revolutionaries came ashore to overthrow Fidel Castro and was defeated in two days. <\/p>\n