Why do Cuba and Venezuela bother the US so much?

Less than 24 hours after the announcement of the election results in Venezuela, which re-elected Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump announced economic sanctions against the country. The practically immediate reaction came even before any investigation into allegations of irregularities in the electoral process. Cuba is in a similar situation. The Caribbean island, which shares a maritime border with the US, suffers a harsh economic embargo that has lasted for more than five decades. The American government, which has already financed several coups d'état in Latin America, ignoring democratic processes, has a special reason to feel threatened by these two nations: the socialist regime.

Beginning in the 1950s, the US, in response to the strengthening of the then Soviet Union, initiated a process (which apparently continues to this day) of combating socialist ideology. This process was most intense in the Americas, considered by the Americans as their "backyard." Documents have already proven American support for several coups d'état on the continent, always against leftist statesmen. As an example, we can cite the 1964 military coup in Brazil, which demonstrably had US financial and military support through Operation "Brother Sam." Internally, the American government persecuted, in an authoritarian manner, any citizen who might have any connection with socialism during the period known as McCarthyism.

With the end of the Cold War, the hunt for communism should have ended, but that didn't happen. Even as the only superpower in the world, the US continued its campaign of persecution against regimes that identified, to a greater or lesser degree, with socialism. The embargo on Cuba did not end, and other countries with leftist governments suffered retaliation. Documents leaked by WikiLeaks demonstrated interference in the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia starting in 2005 and espionage against the then-Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, in 2015 – a year before her impeachment. Venezuela, rich in oil and now the target of explicit sanctions, had already been suffering pressure since the government of Hugo Chavez. And these are just a few examples.

With this history, it becomes easier to understand the excessive American concern with two countries that do not have prominent relevance in military or financial terms. The socialist regime, as an alternative to financial capitalism, still threatens the superpower. Economic embargoes and boycotts further devastate the already fragile economies of these countries, dismissing any supposed humanitarian intentions. It would be a contradiction to imagine that a country that has deposed so many elected statesmen would act out of a desire for a democratic regime. For Washington, today and yesterday, the presence of socialists in its backyard is unacceptable.