Before Venezuela’s Oil, There Were Guatemala’s Bananas

Before Venezuela’s Oil, There Were Guatemala’s Bananas

U.S. military intervention in Latin America has largely been covert. And when the U.S. orchestrated the coup that ousted Guatemala’s democratically elected president in 1954, the U.S. covered up the role that economic considerations played in that operation. By the early 1950s, Guatemala had become a top source for the bananas Americans consumed, as it remains today. The United Fruit Company owned over 550,000 acres of Guatemalan land, largely t…

Did you know? Before Venezuelan oil, the US once went after Guatemalan ‘bananas’

Before Venezuelan oil, there were Guatemalan bananas. How US economic interests once drove a covert coup in Guatemala — and why Trump’s Venezuela strategy feels like history repeating itself.