Over the past two centuries, the United States has repeatedly carried out military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Starting in the late 1800s, all the way into the early 20th century, the US conducted the Banana Wars, a series of military interventions in Central America, to protect the interests of US corporations in the region.

In 1934, under President Franklin D Roosevelt, the US introduced the “Good Neighbor Policy”, pledging not to invade or occupy Latin American countries or interfere in their internal affairs. However, during the Cold War, the US financed several operations aimed at overthrowing elected left-wing leaders in the region.

Many of these operations have been coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was founded in 1947.

As Washington builds a large-scale military presence close to the coast of Venezuela and continues air strikes on Venezuelan boats it claims are trafficking drugs in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, US President Donald Trump says he has not ruled out a land operation inside the country itself. Many observers believe that Trump’s allegations that Venezuela is responsible for drug trafficking are a cover for his real objective of regime change there.

We look at some of the US’s history of similar interventions.

1950s in Guatemala

In 1954, elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was toppled by local fighter groups backed by the CIA under US President Dwight Eisenhower.

Arbenz had sought to nationalise a company, stoking fears within the US of more socialist policies in Guatemala.

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Under the CIA’s Operation PBSuccess, the agency trained fighters led by military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who took power after the coup. A civil war raged in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996 between the Guatemalan government and military on one side, and leftist rebel groups on the other.

1960s in Cuba

In 1959, Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro came to power after overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Under Eisenhower, the CIA devised a plan to train Cuban exiles to invade the country and overthrow Castro. US President John F Kennedy, a Democrat who won the 1960 election, was briefed about the plan during his inauguration.

Castro found out about the training camps through Cuban intelligence. In 1961, Kennedy signed off on the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a plan for the Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. However, the invasion failed when the Cuban military overwhelmed them.

1960s in Brazil

In 1961, Joao Goulart came to office as president of Brazil, with a mandate to pursue social and economic reforms. He maintained good relations with socialist countries such as Cuba and nationalised a subsidiary of the US-owned International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT).

In response, the CIA funded pro-US politicians and supported anti-communist groups. This undermined Goulart’s leadership, culminating in a military coup in 1964, which established a US-friendly dictatorship that would last until 1985.

1960s in Ecuador

After going through 27 presidents between 1925 and 1947, Ecuador witnessed a rare period of stability in the 1950s.

It was not to last. By the early 1960s, the US was worried about the pro-Cuba policies of President Jose Velasco Ibarra and his Vice President Carlos Julio Arosemena, who advocated for closer relations with Soviet bloc nations.

The CIA, using US labour organisations as its conduits, financed the spread of anti-communist sentiment in the country.

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“In the end, they [the CIA] owned almost everybody who was anybody [in Ecuador],” a CIA agent told analyst Roger Morris later, in a 2004 CIA-approved appraisal of the agency’s activities in Latin America.

Arosemena first staged a coup against Ibarra, and initially turned further to the left, before trying to moderate his positions. Then, in 1963, the military staged a coup against him, banning the Communist Party and severing ties with Cuba, aligning with US interests.

1960s and 70s in Bolivia

Between 1963 and 1964, the US used covert funding, largely through the CIA, to influence Bolivia’s politics.

The funding backed leaders who were friendly to the US, and supported a military coup in November 1964 led by General Rene Barrientos Ortuno against elected President Victor Paz Estenssoro. The coup was successful and forced Paz Estenssoro into exile.

But the US was not done interfering in Bolivia.

By the early 1970s, Washington had its eye on another regime change. This time, the target was President Juan Jose Torres, who had come to power in 1970 and had nationalised multiple US companies in the country.

According to the US State Department’s official history, the US ambassador in La Paz, in June 1971, told Washington that it needed to support Torres’s opponents. The White House secretly sought, and received, $410,000 ($3.3m in today’s money) in what critics within the administration described as “coup money” to finance military leaders and political leaders opposed to Torres.

Two months later, senior military officer Hugo Banzer led a successful coup against Torres. The US continued to fund Banzer’s government, which ruled until 1978. Nearly two decades later, Banzer would return to power once again, after actually winning an election in 1997.

1970s in Chile

The CIA provided funding to help end the presidency of Salvador Allende, an elected leftist leader. Allende had planned to nationalise Chilean copper companies, many of which were owned by US interests.

The CIA funding was used to back Allende’s opponent and spread anti-communist sentiment. This spiralled into the 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Allende shot himself dead using an AK-47 rifle before he was captured: Doubts about the cause of his death lingered for decades before it was confirmed by an independent autopsy years later.

The brutal US-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet lasted 17 years.

1970s: Operation Condor in six countries

In 1975, the CIA supported right-wing military dictatorships in six Latin American countries by setting up a transnational network called Operation Condor. This began during the US presidency of Gerald Ford.

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Targeted countries included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. The operation was aimed at crushing political dissidents, leftists and communist sympathisers. The dictatorships used a shared database to monitor dissidents and their families across state borders.

They used tactics such as exchanging intelligence, information, prisoners and torture techniques. Under the operation, at least 97 people were killed, according to Plan Condor, a joint initiative by Latin American organisations and the University of Oxford.

1980s in El Salvador

In December 1981, the Salvadoran military’s elite Atlacatl Battalion conducted a deadly massacre in the village of El Mozote, killing about 1,000 civilians, including women and children. This was during El Salvador’s civil war of 1980-92.

The battalion was trained and equipped by the US under its larger Cold War policy of suppressing leftist rebellions in Latin America. The US government greatly increased military aid to El Salvador between 1980 and 1982.

1980s in Grenada

It was a familiar story by now. Maurice Bishop, the prime minister of the tiny Caribbean island, had adopted Marxist-Leninist policies after seizing power himself in 1979 when the previous premier, Eric Gairy, was out of the country.

By the early 1980s, the US was worried about Cuban influence in Grenada. As bloody infighting broke out within Bishop’s party over a leadership struggle in October 1983, the US swooped in an operation codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, invading the country, capturing Cubans in Grenada and ensuring that the country’s future was aligned with US priorities.

1980s in Panama

The US invaded Panama in 1989 during the US presidency of George HW Bush, a Republican. The invasion was called Operation Just Cause.

The US underplayed the death toll and justified the invasion, saying it was carried out to remove President Manuel Noriega for alleged drug trafficking.