Jeter concentrates mostly on the relatively recent history of US interference in Honduras to illustrate how the US ruling class promotes and secures their investments throughout Central America, but at the same time such interference also brings misery and death for ordinary people. Hence, many of them flee north.
It’s important to contextualize the Americas historically as a battle between the mostly European settlers who own the New World and the mostly indigenous and black workers who built it. Destabilizing Central America allows multinationals to continue to exploit labor and resources, and dates back to the CIA’s 1954 plot to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala’s Socialist President Jacobo Arbenz, whose plan to redistribute land to the country’s landless peasant farmers threatened the massive holdings of the United Fruit Company, the predecessor of Chiquita Brands. The coup eventually triggered a civil war between leftist rebels and the U.S.-backed military, led by avid anti-Communist generals.But, to blame Trump for this, as implied by the title, is ridiculous.
