The United States and Latin America: a turbulent history

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. The relationship between the United States and Latin America has been back in the headlines recently, following the US's military operation to capture Venezuela's president and President Trump's announcement that the US would run the nation until it deems that there can be what he termed a proper and judicious transition. But has the United States always had such a contentious relationship with the wider region? And when did influence start tipping into intervention? In this episode, Danny Bird speaks to Greg Grandin about the long turbulent history of US Latin American relations, from westward expansion to the Cold War.

I'd like to begin with the word backyard, which comes up a lot when talking about US-Latin American relations, but has the US always regarded Latin America in that way? As an historian, we don't like to use the word always because every historical phenomenon is historical. It has a particular beginning. When the United States came into being, what is Spanish America was part of the Spanish Empire, the Spanish colonial system. And at the time, the founders of the United States looked at the Spanish Empire more in terms of larger geopolitics.

like how it was going to negotiate with monarchies in Europe. There was a sense that Spain was somehow kind of like the way the Ottoman Empire would look later, about to come apart, but Thomas Jefferson thought that Spain was in a position to come apart very slowly, so that would benefit the United States, so it would be able to absorb different pieces of of what was the Spanish Empire. And in fact, that is what happened. So right at the beginning, it was less about Latin America as a continent of independent republics, and it was more with dealing with Spain as an empire.

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