Trump’s coercive tactics in Latin America evoke era of gunboat diplomacy – and the rise of anti-imperialism it helped spur

The second Trump administration has adopted an increasingly aggressive policy in Latin America, marked by drone strikes on purported drug traffickers and a Jan. 3 military incursion into Venezuela. This approach, including threats of invasion in Cuba, evokes an earlier period of U.S. foreign policy, specifically the "gunboat diplomacy" era between 1900 and the mid-1930s. During that time, U.S. forces occupied Cuba three times and Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Historically, this type of U.S. dominance spurred a significant upsurge of resistance and anti-imperialist movements across the region. These movements, often originating from student organizations and labor unions, formed groups like the Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas in Mexico City in 1925.