In the aftermath of the US military strike that seized Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on 3 January, 2026, the Trump administration has emphasised its desire for unfettered access to Venezuela\u2019s oil more than conventional foreign policy objectives, such as combating drug trafficking or bolstering democracy and regional stability.<\/p>\n
During his first news conference after the operation, President Donald Trump claimed oil companies would play an important role and that the oil revenue would help fund any further intervention in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
Soon after, \u201cFox & Friends\u201d hosts asked Trump about this prediction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the greatest oil companies in the world,\u201d Trump replied, \u201cthe biggest, the greatest, and we\u2019re gonna be very much involved in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a historian of US-Latin American relations, I\u2019m not surprised that oil or any other commodity is playing a role in US policy toward the region. What has taken me aback, though, is the Trump administration\u2019s openness about how much oil is driving its policies toward Venezuela.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve detailed in my 2026 book, \u201cCaribbean Blood Pacts: Guatemala and the Cold War Struggle for Freedom,\u201d US military intervention in Latin America has largely been covert. And when the US orchestrated the coup that ousted Guatemala\u2019s democratically elected president in 1954, the US covered up the role that economic considerations played in that operation.<\/p>\n
A powerful \u2018octopus\u2019<\/span><\/h2>\nBy the early 1950s, Guatemala had become a top source for the bananas Americans consumed, as it remains today.<\/p>\n
The United Fruit Company owned over 550 000 acres of Guatemalan land, largely thanks to its deals with previous dictatorships. These holdings required the intense labour of impoverished farmworkers who were often forced from their traditional lands. Their pay was rarely stable, and they faced periodic layoffs and wage cuts.<\/p>\n
Based in Boston, the international corporation networked with dictators and local officials in Central America, many Caribbean islands and parts of South America to acquire immense estates for railroads and banana plantations.<\/p>\n
The locals called it the \u201cpulpo\u201d \u2013 octopus in Spanish \u2013 because the company seemingly had a hand in shaping the region\u2019s politics, economies and everyday life. The Colombian government brutally crushed a 1928 strike by United Fruit workers, killing hundreds of people.<\/p>\n
That bloody chapter in Colombian history provided a factual basis for a subplot in \u201cOne Hundred Years of Solitude,\u201d an epic novel by Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982.<\/p>\n
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CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The company\u2019s seemingly unlimited clout in the countries where it operated gave rise to the stereotype of Central American nations as \u201cbanana republics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guatemala\u2019s democratic revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nIn Guatemala, a country historically marked by extreme inequality, a broad coalition formed in 1944 to overthrow its repressive dictatorship in a popular uprising. Inspired by the anti-fascist ideals of World War II, the coalition sought to make the nation more democratic and its economy more fair.<\/p>\n
After decades of repression, the nation\u2019s new leaders offered many Guatemalans their first taste of democracy. Under Juan Jos\u00e9 Ar\u00e9valo, who was democratically elected and held office from 1945-1951, the government established new government benefits and a labour code that made it legal to form and join unions and established eight-hour workdays.<\/p>\n
He was succeeded in 1951 by Jacobo \u00c1rbenz, another democratically elected president.<\/p>\n
Under \u00c1rbenz, Guatemala implemented a land reform program in 1952 that gave landless farmworkers their own undeveloped plots. Guatemala\u2019s government asserted that these policies would build a more equitable society for Guatemala\u2019s impoverished, Indigenous majority.<\/p>\n
United Fruit denounced Guatemala\u2019s reforms as the result of a global conspiracy. It alleged that most of Guatemala\u2019s unions were controlled by Mexican and Soviet communists and painted the land reform as a ploy to destroy capitalism.<\/p>\n
Lobbying Congress to intervene<\/span><\/h2>\nIn Guatemala, United Fruit sought to enlist the US government in its fight against the elected government\u2019s policies. While its executives did complain that Guatemala\u2019s reforms hurt its financial investments and labour costs, they also cast any interference in its operations as part of a broader communist plot.<\/p>\n
It did this through an advertising campaign in the US and by taking advantage of the anti-communist paranoia that prevailed at the time.<\/p>\n
United Fruit executives began to meet with officials in the Truman administration as early as 1945. Despite the support of sympathetic ambassadors, the US government apparently wouldn\u2019t intervene directly in Guatemala\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n
The company turned to Congress.<\/p>\n
It hired the lobbyists Thomas Corcoran and Robert La Follette Jr., a former senator, for their political connections.<\/p>\n
Right away, Corcoran and La Follette lobbied Republicans and Democrats in both chambers against Guatemala\u2019s policies \u2013 not as threats to United Fruit\u2019s business interests but as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and the United States.<\/p>\n
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CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The banana company\u2019s efforts bore fruit in February 1949, when multiple members of Congress denounced Guatemala\u2019s labor reforms as communist.<\/p>\n
Sen. Claude Pepper called the labour code \u201cobviously intentionally discriminatory against this American company\u201d and \u201ca machine gun aimed at the head of this American company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later, Rep. John McCormack echoed that statement, using the exact same words to denounce the reforms.<\/p>\n
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Sen. Lister Hill and Rep. Mike Mansfield also went on the record, reciting the talking points outlined in United Fruit memos.<\/p>\n
No lawmaker said a word about bananas.<\/p>\n
Lobbying and propaganda campaigns<\/span><\/h2>\nThis lobbying and communist talk culminated five years later, when the US government engineered a coup that ousted \u00c1rbenz in a covert operation.<\/p>\n
That operation began in 1953, when the Eisenhower administration authorised the Central Intelligence Agency to unleash a psychological warfare campaign that manipulated Guatemala\u2019s own military to overthrow its democratically elected government.<\/p>\n
CIA agents bribed members of Guatemala\u2019s military. Anti-communist radio broadcasts and religious pronouncements about communist designs to destroy the nation\u2019s Catholic church spread throughout the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US armed anti-government organisations inside Guatemala and in neighbouring countries to further undermine the \u00c1rbenz government\u2019s morale.<\/p>\n
And United Fruit enlisted public relations pioneer Edward Bernays to spread propaganda, not in Guatemala but in the United States. Bernays provided US journalists with reports and texts that portrayed the Central American nation as a Soviet puppet.<\/p>\n
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CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
These materials, including a film titled \u201cWhy the Kremlin Hates Bananas,\u201d circulated thanks to sympathetic media outlets and members of Congress.<\/p>\n
Destroying the revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nUltimately, the record shows, the CIA\u2019s efforts prompted military officers to depose their elected leaders and install a more pro-US regime led by Carlos Castillo Armas.<\/p>\n
Guatemalans who opposed the reforms slaughtered labour leaders, politicians and others who had supported \u00c1rbenz and Ar\u00e9valo. At least four dozen people died in the immediate aftermath, according to official reports. Local accounts recognised hundreds more deaths.<\/p>\n
Military regimes ruled Guatemala for decades after this coup.<\/p>\n
One dictator after another brutally repressed their opponents and fostered a climate of fear. Those conditions contributed to waves of emigration, including countless refugees, as well as some members of transnational gangs.<\/p>\n
Blowback for bananas<\/span><\/h2>\nTo shore up its claims that what happened in Guatemala had nothing to do with bananas, exactly as the company\u2019s propaganda insisted, the Eisenhower administration authorised an antitrust suit against United Fruit that had been temporarily halted during the operation so as not to cast further attention on the company.<\/p>\n
This would be the first in a series of setbacks that would break up United Fruit by the mid-1980s. After a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, the only constant would be the ubiquitous Miss Chiquita logo stuck to the bananas the company sells.<\/p>\n
And, according to many foreign policy experts, Guatemala has never recovered from the destruction of its democratic experiment due to corporate pressure.![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/272973\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\")
<\/p>\n
Aaron Coy Moulton, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Stephen F Austin State University<\/em><\/p>\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The company\u2019s seemingly unlimited clout in the countries where it operated gave rise to the stereotype of Central American nations as \u201cbanana republics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guatemala\u2019s democratic revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nIn Guatemala, a country historically marked by extreme inequality, a broad coalition formed in 1944 to overthrow its repressive dictatorship in a popular uprising. Inspired by the anti-fascist ideals of World War II, the coalition sought to make the nation more democratic and its economy more fair.<\/p>\n
After decades of repression, the nation\u2019s new leaders offered many Guatemalans their first taste of democracy. Under Juan Jos\u00e9 Ar\u00e9valo, who was democratically elected and held office from 1945-1951, the government established new government benefits and a labour code that made it legal to form and join unions and established eight-hour workdays.<\/p>\n
He was succeeded in 1951 by Jacobo \u00c1rbenz, another democratically elected president.<\/p>\n
Under \u00c1rbenz, Guatemala implemented a land reform program in 1952 that gave landless farmworkers their own undeveloped plots. Guatemala\u2019s government asserted that these policies would build a more equitable society for Guatemala\u2019s impoverished, Indigenous majority.<\/p>\n
United Fruit denounced Guatemala\u2019s reforms as the result of a global conspiracy. It alleged that most of Guatemala\u2019s unions were controlled by Mexican and Soviet communists and painted the land reform as a ploy to destroy capitalism.<\/p>\n
Lobbying Congress to intervene<\/span><\/h2>\nIn Guatemala, United Fruit sought to enlist the US government in its fight against the elected government\u2019s policies. While its executives did complain that Guatemala\u2019s reforms hurt its financial investments and labour costs, they also cast any interference in its operations as part of a broader communist plot.<\/p>\n
It did this through an advertising campaign in the US and by taking advantage of the anti-communist paranoia that prevailed at the time.<\/p>\n
United Fruit executives began to meet with officials in the Truman administration as early as 1945. Despite the support of sympathetic ambassadors, the US government apparently wouldn\u2019t intervene directly in Guatemala\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n
The company turned to Congress.<\/p>\n
It hired the lobbyists Thomas Corcoran and Robert La Follette Jr., a former senator, for their political connections.<\/p>\n
Right away, Corcoran and La Follette lobbied Republicans and Democrats in both chambers against Guatemala\u2019s policies \u2013 not as threats to United Fruit\u2019s business interests but as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and the United States.<\/p>\n
\n\nADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The banana company\u2019s efforts bore fruit in February 1949, when multiple members of Congress denounced Guatemala\u2019s labor reforms as communist.<\/p>\n
Sen. Claude Pepper called the labour code \u201cobviously intentionally discriminatory against this American company\u201d and \u201ca machine gun aimed at the head of this American company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later, Rep. John McCormack echoed that statement, using the exact same words to denounce the reforms.<\/p>\n
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Sen. Lister Hill and Rep. Mike Mansfield also went on the record, reciting the talking points outlined in United Fruit memos.<\/p>\n
No lawmaker said a word about bananas.<\/p>\n
Lobbying and propaganda campaigns<\/span><\/h2>\nThis lobbying and communist talk culminated five years later, when the US government engineered a coup that ousted \u00c1rbenz in a covert operation.<\/p>\n
That operation began in 1953, when the Eisenhower administration authorised the Central Intelligence Agency to unleash a psychological warfare campaign that manipulated Guatemala\u2019s own military to overthrow its democratically elected government.<\/p>\n
CIA agents bribed members of Guatemala\u2019s military. Anti-communist radio broadcasts and religious pronouncements about communist designs to destroy the nation\u2019s Catholic church spread throughout the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US armed anti-government organisations inside Guatemala and in neighbouring countries to further undermine the \u00c1rbenz government\u2019s morale.<\/p>\n
And United Fruit enlisted public relations pioneer Edward Bernays to spread propaganda, not in Guatemala but in the United States. Bernays provided US journalists with reports and texts that portrayed the Central American nation as a Soviet puppet.<\/p>\n
\n\nADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
These materials, including a film titled \u201cWhy the Kremlin Hates Bananas,\u201d circulated thanks to sympathetic media outlets and members of Congress.<\/p>\n
Destroying the revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nUltimately, the record shows, the CIA\u2019s efforts prompted military officers to depose their elected leaders and install a more pro-US regime led by Carlos Castillo Armas.<\/p>\n
Guatemalans who opposed the reforms slaughtered labour leaders, politicians and others who had supported \u00c1rbenz and Ar\u00e9valo. At least four dozen people died in the immediate aftermath, according to official reports. Local accounts recognised hundreds more deaths.<\/p>\n
Military regimes ruled Guatemala for decades after this coup.<\/p>\n
One dictator after another brutally repressed their opponents and fostered a climate of fear. Those conditions contributed to waves of emigration, including countless refugees, as well as some members of transnational gangs.<\/p>\n
Blowback for bananas<\/span><\/h2>\nTo shore up its claims that what happened in Guatemala had nothing to do with bananas, exactly as the company\u2019s propaganda insisted, the Eisenhower administration authorised an antitrust suit against United Fruit that had been temporarily halted during the operation so as not to cast further attention on the company.<\/p>\n
This would be the first in a series of setbacks that would break up United Fruit by the mid-1980s. After a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, the only constant would be the ubiquitous Miss Chiquita logo stuck to the bananas the company sells.<\/p>\n
And, according to many foreign policy experts, Guatemala has never recovered from the destruction of its democratic experiment due to corporate pressure.<\/p>\n
Aaron Coy Moulton, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Stephen F Austin State University<\/em><\/p>\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In Guatemala, United Fruit sought to enlist the US government in its fight against the elected government\u2019s policies. While its executives did complain that Guatemala\u2019s reforms hurt its financial investments and labour costs, they also cast any interference in its operations as part of a broader communist plot.<\/p>\n
It did this through an advertising campaign in the US and by taking advantage of the anti-communist paranoia that prevailed at the time.<\/p>\n
United Fruit executives began to meet with officials in the Truman administration as early as 1945. Despite the support of sympathetic ambassadors, the US government apparently wouldn\u2019t intervene directly in Guatemala\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n
The company turned to Congress.<\/p>\n
It hired the lobbyists Thomas Corcoran and Robert La Follette Jr., a former senator, for their political connections.<\/p>\n
Right away, Corcoran and La Follette lobbied Republicans and Democrats in both chambers against Guatemala\u2019s policies \u2013 not as threats to United Fruit\u2019s business interests but as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and the United States.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The banana company\u2019s efforts bore fruit in February 1949, when multiple members of Congress denounced Guatemala\u2019s labor reforms as communist.<\/p>\n
Sen. Claude Pepper called the labour code \u201cobviously intentionally discriminatory against this American company\u201d and \u201ca machine gun aimed at the head of this American company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later, Rep. John McCormack echoed that statement, using the exact same words to denounce the reforms.<\/p>\n
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Sen. Lister Hill and Rep. Mike Mansfield also went on the record, reciting the talking points outlined in United Fruit memos.<\/p>\n
No lawmaker said a word about bananas.<\/p>\n
Lobbying and propaganda campaigns<\/span><\/h2>\nThis lobbying and communist talk culminated five years later, when the US government engineered a coup that ousted \u00c1rbenz in a covert operation.<\/p>\n
That operation began in 1953, when the Eisenhower administration authorised the Central Intelligence Agency to unleash a psychological warfare campaign that manipulated Guatemala\u2019s own military to overthrow its democratically elected government.<\/p>\n
CIA agents bribed members of Guatemala\u2019s military. Anti-communist radio broadcasts and religious pronouncements about communist designs to destroy the nation\u2019s Catholic church spread throughout the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US armed anti-government organisations inside Guatemala and in neighbouring countries to further undermine the \u00c1rbenz government\u2019s morale.<\/p>\n
And United Fruit enlisted public relations pioneer Edward Bernays to spread propaganda, not in Guatemala but in the United States. Bernays provided US journalists with reports and texts that portrayed the Central American nation as a Soviet puppet.<\/p>\n
\n\nADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
These materials, including a film titled \u201cWhy the Kremlin Hates Bananas,\u201d circulated thanks to sympathetic media outlets and members of Congress.<\/p>\n
Destroying the revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nUltimately, the record shows, the CIA\u2019s efforts prompted military officers to depose their elected leaders and install a more pro-US regime led by Carlos Castillo Armas.<\/p>\n
Guatemalans who opposed the reforms slaughtered labour leaders, politicians and others who had supported \u00c1rbenz and Ar\u00e9valo. At least four dozen people died in the immediate aftermath, according to official reports. Local accounts recognised hundreds more deaths.<\/p>\n
Military regimes ruled Guatemala for decades after this coup.<\/p>\n
One dictator after another brutally repressed their opponents and fostered a climate of fear. Those conditions contributed to waves of emigration, including countless refugees, as well as some members of transnational gangs.<\/p>\n
Blowback for bananas<\/span><\/h2>\nTo shore up its claims that what happened in Guatemala had nothing to do with bananas, exactly as the company\u2019s propaganda insisted, the Eisenhower administration authorised an antitrust suit against United Fruit that had been temporarily halted during the operation so as not to cast further attention on the company.<\/p>\n
This would be the first in a series of setbacks that would break up United Fruit by the mid-1980s. After a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, the only constant would be the ubiquitous Miss Chiquita logo stuck to the bananas the company sells.<\/p>\n
And, according to many foreign policy experts, Guatemala has never recovered from the destruction of its democratic experiment due to corporate pressure.<\/p>\n
Aaron Coy Moulton, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Stephen F Austin State University<\/em><\/p>\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
These materials, including a film titled \u201cWhy the Kremlin Hates Bananas,\u201d circulated thanks to sympathetic media outlets and members of Congress.<\/p>\n
Destroying the revolution<\/span><\/h2>\nUltimately, the record shows, the CIA\u2019s efforts prompted military officers to depose their elected leaders and install a more pro-US regime led by Carlos Castillo Armas.<\/p>\n
Guatemalans who opposed the reforms slaughtered labour leaders, politicians and others who had supported \u00c1rbenz and Ar\u00e9valo. At least four dozen people died in the immediate aftermath, according to official reports. Local accounts recognised hundreds more deaths.<\/p>\n
Military regimes ruled Guatemala for decades after this coup.<\/p>\n
One dictator after another brutally repressed their opponents and fostered a climate of fear. Those conditions contributed to waves of emigration, including countless refugees, as well as some members of transnational gangs.<\/p>\n
Blowback for bananas<\/span><\/h2>\nTo shore up its claims that what happened in Guatemala had nothing to do with bananas, exactly as the company\u2019s propaganda insisted, the Eisenhower administration authorised an antitrust suit against United Fruit that had been temporarily halted during the operation so as not to cast further attention on the company.<\/p>\n
This would be the first in a series of setbacks that would break up United Fruit by the mid-1980s. After a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, the only constant would be the ubiquitous Miss Chiquita logo stuck to the bananas the company sells.<\/p>\n
And, according to many foreign policy experts, Guatemala has never recovered from the destruction of its democratic experiment due to corporate pressure.<\/p>\n
Aaron Coy Moulton, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Stephen F Austin State University<\/em><\/p>\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
To shore up its claims that what happened in Guatemala had nothing to do with bananas, exactly as the company\u2019s propaganda insisted, the Eisenhower administration authorised an antitrust suit against United Fruit that had been temporarily halted during the operation so as not to cast further attention on the company.<\/p>\n
This would be the first in a series of setbacks that would break up United Fruit by the mid-1980s. After a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, the only constant would be the ubiquitous Miss Chiquita logo stuck to the bananas the company sells.<\/p>\n
And, according to many foreign policy experts, Guatemala has never recovered from the destruction of its democratic experiment due to corporate pressure.<\/p>\n
Aaron Coy Moulton, Associate Professor of Latin American History, Stephen F Austin State University<\/em><\/p>\n This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n