Members of the US 82nd Airborne Division prepare to go out on patrol during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada, 1982. Two soldiers have M203 40 mm grenade launchers mounted on M16A1 rifles. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
By Pablo Meriguet – Nov 14, 2025
Amid US threats of an attack on Venezuela, we look back at some of the most infamous chapters in the history of US military invasions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The administration of US President Donald Trump began carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea under the auspices of waging a war on drug trafficking over two months ago. Over 70 people from Venezuela, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago, have been killed in these strikes, which have taken place amid an unprecedented military build up in the Caribbean of war ships, fighter jets, and thousands of US troops.
On November 11, the US government announced that the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, led by USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered Latin America, US SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility. The deployment of the aircraft carrier to the region had been announced last month by the Trump administration. With it, the USS Gerald R. Ford brings more than 4,000 soldiers and “dozens of tactical aircraft”, allowing the carrier to “simultaneously catapult launch and recover fixed-wing aircraft on its flight deck, day or night, in support of tasked operations”.
War hawks in Washington celebrated the arrival of the aircraft carrier. US Senator Lindsay Graham commented on the arrival writing on X, “To those who wonder about what’s going on in Venezuela, you should understand President Trump is deadly serious about stopping the narcoterrorist state of Venezuela from continuing to poison Americans with illegal drugs. President Trump also believes Maduro is an illegitimate leader whose days are numbered.”
Graham suggests that the militarization is more than a threat but that the US seeks to carry out concrete military action. He compared Trump’s moves against Venezuela to the infamous 1989 US invasion of Panama to kidnap formerly US-backed president Manuel Noriega. The US Senator recalls fondly, “Bush 41 took Panamanian leader Noriega down under similar circumstances. There is a drug caliphate in our backyard that includes Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba. I am very glad President Trump is dedicated to ending this reign of terror. The sooner Maduro leaves, the better for the people of Venezuela and the United States.”
For their part, the Venezuelan people and officials, including Maduro himself, insist that accusations that his government belongs to an alleged drug cartel are yet another excuse to justify the overthrow of his administration and replace him with a leader aligned with Washington’s interests.
A dark legacy of military interventions
The truth is that the Venezuelan leader’s claims are backed up by historical evidence. Since the mid-19th century, the United States has had a traditional foreign policy of intervening directly or indirectly in Latin American and Caribbean countries to secure its economic and geopolitical interests, even at the cost of thousands of Latin American deaths at the hands of the US military.
Mexico
Mexico is one of the countries that has suffered the most in this regard. Thanks to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Mexico lost 55% of its territory and Washington managed to consolidate a strategically rich territory to project itself as a global economic power, with access to two oceans, and to embark on a conquest of the West, much of which had been Mexican. Nearly 25,000 Mexicans died during the war of expansion. Then, decades later, Mexico also had to endure the occupation of Veracruz in 1914, when 300 Mexican soldiers, cadets, and civilians lost their lives due to the actions of the US Army.
Nicaragua and Honduras
Without a doubt, the territory most attacked by the United States in America has been that of the countries of the Gulf of Mexico. It is not surprising that there were continuous invasions of Nicaragua (1853, 1854, 1909, 1912-1933), where thousands of civilians died and where Washington imposed the dictatorship of the Somoza family, one of the most disastrous and brutal in the history of the continent. Honduras has also repeatedly experienced what a US invasion entails: 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, and 1924 are part of a dark legacy that sought to establish and defend the interests of banana companies over the civilian population.
Panama
Panama is another country that has seen US soldiers march on its soil several times. Between 1903 and 1914, the US military intervened repeatedly to secure control and construct the Panama Canal, which has regained importance for the Trump administration. In addition, as previously mentioned, in 1989, US soldiers carried out operations to overthrow Noriega, a brutal dictator and CIA asset whose relationship with the US soured over time. The US invasion resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 Panamanians.
Cuba
Caribbean countries have also been of particular interest to the United States. Between 1898 and 1902, Cuba (and also Puerto Rico) was occupied by the United States as part of its war against Spain. It then intervened on the island for eight years during two periods (1906-1909 and 1917-1922), before directly sponsoring the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s newly established revolutionary government. Even today, Washington continues to apply punitive measures against Havana, such as the economic and commercial blockade that was once again condemned by the international community just a few days ago.
Haiti
Similarly, Haiti, the nation of formerly enslaved peoples who achieved their absolute freedom, has been invaded on several occasions by the United States: 1915-1934, 1994-1995, and 2004. Currently, the United States is financing an international police force that is carrying out actions in Haiti to control, so far unsuccessfully, the growing violence between gangs.
The Dominican Republic
US ships also arrived at Haiti’s borders: the Dominican Republic was occupied twice. Between 1916 and 1924 and in 1965, around 4,000 Dominicans died as a result of US actions, and many more perished during the Washington-backed dictatorship of Trujillo. Grenada is another country that had to endure the invasion of the “Northern Army” in 1983, where nearly 100 Grenadians and Cubans were killed.
South America
In the case of South America, the US strategy was different. During the 19th century, the United States participated in specific actions to demonstrate its growing military power. In 1831 in Argentina, in 1859 in Paraguay, and on three occasions in Uruguay (1855, 1858, and 1868), US ships participated in military actions that left an unknown number of casualties.
But the truth is that, in the 20th century, Washington opted for direct support for various dictatorships in South America and assistance in conspiring against certain governments that were inconvenient to its interests. Thus, it backed dictatorial processes in almost all countries in the region, such as Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia (as well as several in Central America); it also backed anti-communist governments that committed human rights violations in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, where thousands of people died during these administrations.
A historical trend of aggression
According to some historians, US invasions in Latin America and the Caribbean have directly killed more than 65,000 people, including Latin American military personnel and civilians. However, this estimate does not include the deaths and disappearances caused by the military dictatorships of the 20th century, in which tens of thousands of people were tortured and murdered.
If the US military were to attack Venezuela, it would not be unusual in the history of the American continent. Since the beginning of its imperial project, Washington has established its global geopolitical power on the basis of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a region that, according to US President James Monroe, is of vital importance to its status as a geo-economic and military power.
Thus, a potential attack on Venezuela would be part of a list of interventions that, due to its large scale, seems to be expected and accepted, but which leaves behind a trail of blood in the fertile lands of Latin America, along with enormous pain and irreplaceable human losses.
All these interventions were, of course, justified in the most noble and bizarre ways, accusing those who supposedly had to be overthrown of countless epithets to ensure the happiness of Latin Americans and Caribbean people, and thus bring peace to the region, although in the eyes of history, the result of such military ventures is the economic and geopolitical reassurance of the United States as the only country that emerges victorious after the departure of its soldiers to the north.
The truth is that, historically, the United States is the country that has brought the most military instability to the region, continually ensuring, by whatever means necessary, that its interests prevail over any supposedly altruistic pretensions.
