A History of U.S. Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean
When the United States intervened militarily in Venezuela in January 2026 to remove Pres. Nicolás Maduro from power, it did not mark a break from past practice but instead was the latest expression of a long-standing pattern. For more than two centuries, the United States has repeatedly involved itself in the internal affairs of the Latin American and Caribbean regions, using a variety of military, economic, political, and diplomatic tools. The consequences of these interventions have reshaped governments, institutions, and regional relations across the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. intervention has taken multiple forms. These have included the following:
- Economic sanctions, such as the trade embargo imposed on Cuba after the 1959 revolution
- Political and military support for preferred leaders and governments, including Augusto Pinochet’s regime following the 1973 coup in Chile and U.S.-backed governments in Central America during the Cold War
- Involvement in the removal of democratically elected presidents, most notably Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954 and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973
- Direct military intervention, including the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, as well as covert operations conducted by the CIA in countries such as Nicaragua and Cuba
These interventions did not follow a single pattern or produce uniform outcomes. Their scope, duration, and consequences varied widely according to local political conditions and historical context. The sections that follow examine selected countries that illustrate the extent of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean, outlining the circumstances leading up to U.S. involvement, the form the intervention took, and its political and social consequences.
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Cuba: From protectorate to adversary
Just 90 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida, lies Cuba, an island country whose relationship with the United States has been complicated to say the least. For many observers, U.S.-Cuban relations are most closely associated with the prolonged confrontation with Fidel Castro’s government following the 1959 revolution or with the heightened tensions of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when much of the world watched anxiously as the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear conflict. Yet U.S. involvement in Cuba long predates the revolutionary era and has taken shifting forms over more than a century.
Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States occupied Cuba and exerted significant influence over the island’s political and economic affairs. This was accomplished through mechanisms such as the Platt Amendment, which granted the U.S. the right to intervene in Cuban governance and later authorized the lease of Guantánamo Bay as a U.S. naval base, establishing a permanent American military presence on Cuban territory. Although formal U.S. occupation of the island ended in the early 20th century, U.S. influence remained substantial, particularly through economic dominance and support for Cuban governments aligned with U.S. interests, including the dictatorial regimes of Gerardo Machado y Morales and, later, that of Fulgencio Batista.
U.S. support for the Batista regime was especially consequential. Batista’s authoritarian rule, marked by intense political repression, corruption, and growing social inequality, contributed to widespread domestic opposition and ultimately to the success of the Cuban Revolution. When Fidel Castro and his revolutionary movement came to power in 1959, they dismantled the existing political and social order and moved quickly to nationalize industries and property, including assets owned by U.S. companies. These actions fundamentally altered U.S.-Cuban relations, transforming a long-standing relationship of influence and intervention into one of hostile confrontation.
Following the Cuban Revolution, U.S. intervention in Cuba intensified and assumed new forms aimed at isolating and destabilizing the revolutionary government. The United States severed diplomatic relations with Havana and imposed a comprehensive trade embargo in the early 1960s, a policy that would later become one of the longest-running sanction programs in modern history. At the same time, Washington also pursued covert and overt efforts to remove Fidel Castro from power, most notably in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The U.S. government sent a brigade of more than 1,500 Cuban exiles to try to overthrow the Castro regime, but the mission failed miserably and many of the exiles were captured and imprisoned. The CIA also conducted extensive clandestine operations against the Cuban leadership, including hundreds of assassination plots targeting Fidel Castro. Among the more striking examples were reported plans to poison or kill Castro using unconventional methods, including a fungus-contaminated diving suit and a booby-trapped cigar designed to explode when lit. These episodes illustrated both the intensity of U.S. efforts and the often improvised nature of covert operations undertaken by the U.S. government.
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Over time, U.S. intervention in Cuba came to be defined less by direct action and more by sustained economic and diplomatic pressure, most notably through the comprehensive trade embargo. The economic embargo, which remained largely in place for more than six decades, restricted Cuba’s access to international markets, financial institutions, and critical imports, shaping everyday life on the island and contributing to chronic shortages of food, medicine, and consumer goods. According to the United Nations, the economic embargo carried out against Cuba by the U.S. would eventually end up costing the island nation more than $130 billion over 60 years. Although U.S. officials have described the policy as a means of pressuring the Cuban government, it did not result in the collapse of the revolutionary leadership, which remained in power for decades. Instead, U.S. intervention evolved into a persistent structural constraint on Cuban society, one that outlasted individual administrations both in the United States and Cuba and most directly affected the daily lives of the Cuban population.
In a 1967 interview with a prominent media outlet, Castro was asked, “What have been the effects of the U.S. blockade on Cuban overseas trade?” He replied, “The effect of the American blockade has been to require us to work harder and better.” When pressed on whether the policy had been effective, Castro answered, “It has been effective in favor of the revolution.”
Guatemala: Overthrow by intervention
In the early 1900s Guatemala was marked by extreme social inequality, a weak democratic tradition, and an economy dominated by foreign-owned agricultural interests. By the 1940s, however, the Central American country experienced a brief period of political reform known as the “Ten Years of Spring,” in which democratically elected governments sought to expand labor rights, modernize the economy, and reduce the concentration of land ownership by foreign interests. This reformist period culminated in the presidency of Jacobo Árbenz, elected in 1950.
The Guatemalan government under Árbenz pursued an ambitious program of land redistribution, including the expropriation of unused land owned by large estates. Among the most affected was the United Fruit Company, a U.S.-based corporation that held more than 40 percent of arable land in Guatemala and exerted significant influence over the country’s economy. Although Árbenz was not a communist, U.S. officials increasingly viewed his reforms through the lens of Cold War anticommunism and came to see his government as a potential threat to U.S. interests in the region.
In 1954 the United States intervened directly in Guatemalan politics through covert action authorized by U.S. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower and organized by the CIA, known as Operation PBSUCCESS. It involved psychological warfare, economic pressure, and support for a small rebel force led by Carlos Castillo Armas. Although the military threat itself was limited, the campaign successfully destabilized the Árbenz government. Facing mounting pressure and lacking support from the armed forces, Árbenz resigned and went into exile, and the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power.
A military-led government under Castillo Armas reversed many of the social and economic reforms of the preceding decade. Land redistribution was halted, political opposition was suppressed, and power increasingly shifted back to traditional elites and the military. Over the long term the 1954 intervention had profound consequences for Guatemala. It undermined democratic institutions and contributed to decades of political instability, including a prolonged civil conflict that lasted from 1960 to 1996, in which an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were killed. During this period successive military governments carried out widespread human rights abuses, particularly against Indigenous communities. Although responsibility for these actions lay with Guatemalan authorities, the U.S. role in the overthrow of Árbenz has remained one of the most frequently cited examples of Cold War intervention in Latin America.
Chile: The making of a coup
In the decades before 1970, Chile was known as one of Latin America’s most stable constitutional democracies, with a long tradition of competitive democratic elections and civilian rule. This perception was challenged in 1970 by the electoral victory of Salvador Allende, whose open identification with Marxism and leadership within the Socialist Party marked a turning point in Chilean politics. Allende pursued a program of democratic socialism that included the nationalization of major industries, particularly the copper sector, which included significant U.S. corporate interests. He also expanded social welfare policies and instituted land reform.
Allende’s election raised significant concerns among U.S. policymakers during the Cold War, particularly in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution in Cuba, which had heightened fears in Washington about the spread of socialist governments in the Western Hemisphere. Although Allende came to power through constitutional and democratic means, U.S. officials worried that his presidency could set a precedent for democratic socialism elsewhere in the region and potentially expand Soviet influence. In response the United States began to undermine Allende’s ability to govern through a combination of diplomatic opposition, economic pressure, and covert actions.
Declassified U.S. records and subsequent congressional investigations later showed that the United States committed significant resources to weakening Allende’s government in the years leading up to the 1973 Chilean coup. A Senate report published in 1975 estimated that approximately $8 million was spent on covert activities in Chile between 1970 and 1973. During this period U.S. policy included efforts to restrict Chile’s access to international credit and to support opposition forces within the country, including financial backing for opposition media and political organizations. These actions unfolded amid deepening political polarization within Chile, as economic disruption, congressional deadlock, and social unrest intensified.
Internal conditions in Chile also played a critical role in the collapse of Allende’s government. Allende had taken office with a narrow plurality of the vote, and his presidency was marked by sharp divisions between left- and right-wing political forces. Inflation rose sharply, labor unrest spread, and strikes and supply disruptions became increasingly common. Political institutions struggled to manage the crisis, and segments of the military came to view intervention as a means of restoring order.
These bottled-up frustrations eventually culminated on September 11, 1973, when Chile’s armed forces launched a military coup that overthrew Allende’s government. Fighter jets bombed the presidential palace in Santiago, and Allende died by suicide during the assault. Gen. Augusto Pinochet, previously regarded as a defender of constitutional order, soon emerged as the leader of a military junta. The new regime suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, banned political parties, and imposed a state of siege. After consolidating power in 1974, Pinochet presided over a period of widespread state repression that lasted until 1990. Throughout that time, thousands of people were detained, tortured, killed, or forcibly disappeared, while tens of thousands more were imprisoned or driven into exile.
Responsibility for these abuses rested largely with Chilean authorities, but U.S. support for the military government in the years following the coup, including diplomatic recognition and the resumption of economic relations, has remained a central subject of historical and scholarly debate. While later investigations found no evidence that U.S. officials directly carried out the coup, they concluded that U.S. actions in the years preceding it may have signaled tolerance for military intervention and contributed to an environment in which a coup appeared increasingly likely. In fact, according to a transcript of a recorded conversation, Henry Kissinger told Pres. Richard Nixon five days after the coup: “We didn’t do it. I mean we helped them. [Word missing in transcript] created the conditions as great as possible.”
Nicaragua: The proxy war
U.S. involvement in Nicaragua long predated the Cold War and included repeated direct military interventions. For instance, between 1912 and 1933, U.S. Marines occupied the country to protect American strategic and economic interests. The U.S. shaped Nicaragua’s political institutions and helped lay the groundwork for the Somoza family dictatorship, which ruled with U.S. backing for decades. After the Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew the U.S.-supported Somoza regime in 1979, U.S. policy shifted once again toward active intervention, though this time without a formal military occupation.
Viewing the Sandinista government as a potential ally of the Soviet Union and Cuba, U.S. officials sought to undermine it through indirect means. Rather than deploying American troops on Nicaraguan soil, the United States organized, funded, trained, and armed counterrevolutionary forces known as the contras, relying on covert operations and proxy warfare to exert pressure on the new government while avoiding an overt military presence. The resulting conflict was prolonged and devastating. Throughout the 1980s fighting between contra forces and the Sandinista government displaced civilians, damaged much of the country’s infrastructure, and contributed to severe economic decline.
U.S. actions in Nicaragua drew international legal condemnation. In 1986 the International Court of Justice ruled that U.S. support for the contras and the laying of explosive naval mines in Nicaraguan harbors violated international law. The United States rejected the court’s jurisdiction and refused to comply with the ruling. U.S. involvement in Nicaragua also had significant domestic political consequences. Congressional investigations in the mid-1980s revealed that senior U.S. officials had secretly diverted proceeds from arms sales to Iran to fund the contras, circumventing legislative restrictions on aid. The resulting Iran-Contra Affair exposed the depth of covert intervention and sparked a major debate over executive power, congressional oversight, and the role of intelligence agencies in U.S. foreign policy.
Haiti: U.S. occupation, 1915–34
Since gaining its independence in the early 19th century, Haiti faced recurring political instability, weak state institutions, and persistent economic strain. These challenges intensified in the years leading up to the first U.S. occupation of the country. Power became increasingly fragmented among rival political factions, and the presidency changed hands repeatedly; between 1911 and 1915, Haiti had a succession of six presidents. The situation deteriorated further in 1915 following the violent lynching of Pres. Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, which left Haiti without clear leadership and deepened fears of prolonged disorder.
In this context the United States intervened militarily and took over the country. In July 1915 U.S. Marines entered the capital, Port-au-Prince, and asserted control, initiating a military occupation that would last until 1934. U.S. authorities imposed martial law that rid Haitians of their civil liberties, centralized power under military administration, and disarmed much of the population. Resistance movements did break out against the U.S. military, but thousands of Haitians involved in these movements were killed by U.S. forces. Over time U.S. control expanded beyond security operations to encompass Haiti’s political, financial, and administrative institutions.
During the occupation U.S. officials assumed control of customs revenue, reorganized Haiti’s financial system, and rewrote the country’s constitution to permit foreign ownership of land. The United States also disarmed the standing Haitian military and created a new security force, the Gendarmerie, which suppressed opposition and became a lasting instrument of state power. Although U.S. officials described these measures as necessary for stability and modernization, they were widely resisted within Haiti. Forced labor practices called corvée were imposed in which Haitians were made to build infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, and other public goods. Rural guerrilla groups, or cacos, were met with brutal military force by the United States.
The effects of the occupation persisted long after American troops withdrew in 1934. Institutions established during the occupation—including centralized security forces and externally oriented economic structures—continued to shape Haitian governance and contributed to later patterns of authoritarian rule and political instability. The occupation remains a defining episode in Haitian history and one of the clearest examples of early U.S. military intervention in the Caribbean.
Venezuela: From sanctions to the seizing of a president
U.S. engagement in Venezuelan affairs stretches back centuries and is rooted in broader strategic and economic interests in the region. One of the most defining factors in relations between the two countries has been oil. Following World War I, large petroleum reserves were discovered in Venezuela, transforming the country from a largely agrarian economy into a major global energy producer. By the 1930s Venezuela had become the world’s leading oil exporter. As Venezuela’s large petroleum reserves became central to U.S. energy security in the early 20th century, the United States cultivated close ties with authoritarian leaders who aligned with U.S. commercial interests in the oil sector, supporting the regimes of Juan Vicente Gómez and, later, that of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, in part because they provided stability and access for American oil companies.
The overthrow of Pérez Jiménez in 1958 marked a turning point. Venezuela entered an extended period of democratic civilian rule under a two-party system known as the Puntofijo Pact, which governed the country for the next four decades. During this period Venezuela was one of the region’s most stable democracies and a close U.S. partner, particularly during the Cold War era. Cooperation between the two countries deepened, and Venezuela was frequently cited by U.S. officials as a democratic counterweight to revolutionary movements happening elsewhere in the region. At the same time, domestic political power in Venezuela became concentrated among a narrow elite, corruption increased, and social inequality persisted despite the flow of oil.
By the late 1990s widespread public disillusionment with the political system paved the way for the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. Chávez campaigned on a promise to dismantle the existing political order, reclaim national control over oil resources, use oil revenue to fund social programs to reduce inequality, and curb U.S. influence in Venezuela. Once in office, he launched the Bolivarian Revolution, expanded state control over key industries, and adopted a confrontational foreign policy that openly challenged U.S. power in the region. Relations deteriorated further after the 2002 coup attempt, during which Chávez was briefly removed from office. Although the extent of U.S. involvement remains debated, the episode deepened Venezuelan mistrust and hardened Chávez’s anti-U.S. posture.
After Chávez’s death in 2013, Venezuela entered a more volatile phase under his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro inherited a political system already reshaped by Chávez’s consolidation of power and an economy heavily dependent on oil revenue. When global oil prices collapsed after 2014, Venezuela’s economic model unraveled. Inflation soared, shortages of basic goods became widespread, and millions of Venezuelans left the country, fueling a regional migration crisis. As unrest grew, Maduro’s government responded by tightening its grip on state institutions. After opposition parties won control of the National Assembly in 2015, the executive branch relied on the courts to block legislation and later convened a new constituent assembly that sidelined the opposition entirely. These moves deepened international isolation and contributed to a sharp deterioration in U.S.-Venezuelan relations.
The United States responded by escalating economic pressure. Beginning in the mid-2010s, Washington imposed targeted sanctions on Venezuelan officials, later expanding them to include financial restrictions and, in 2019, sanctions on the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), the backbone of Venezuela’s economy. U.S. officials framed these measures as a means of forcing political change, while Venezuelan authorities argued that the policies compounded the country’s economic collapse and humanitarian emergency.
Tensions peaked after the 2018 presidential election—Maduro once again assumed the presidency but many governments rejected the results as illegitimate. In January 2019 the United States recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president, a diplomatic step that sought to delegitimize Maduro’s rule. The strategy failed to remove Maduro from power, but it hardened the standoff and pushed U.S. policy beyond sanctions toward more direct forms of confrontation. By the mid-2020s, the conflict had entered a new phase. U.S. officials increasingly characterized Venezuela not only as an authoritarian state but also as a hub for transnational criminal activity, including drug trafficking. In late 2025 the United States carried out a series of maritime strikes along Venezuela’s coast, actions the U.S. government under the Trump presidency described as counter-narcotics operations.
In early January 2026 the United States escalated further, carrying out a direct operation that resulted in the seizure of Pres. Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were transported to the United States to face federal charges. U.S. officials described the action as a law-enforcement operation tied to narcotics indictments; Venezuelan authorities condemned it as an act of “kidnapping” their president and a violation of national sovereignty.