What Role Did United Fruit Play In America

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Conclusion So what role did multinational companies such as United Fruit and ITT have on the foreign affairs of nation states in countries within Central and South America? These two multinational companies played a fundamental role in the governments of Central America during the 1900s. United Fruit destroyed the democratic system of Guatemala and threw them into civic unrest for thirty years. United Fruit’s effect is more abstract for Cuba as United Fruit raised Castro and sparked some of Che Guevara's hatred towards big companies. United Fruit tried and failed to support a coup in Cuba to save some of their land. Chile was moving towards throwing off the chains of multinational companies when ITT and the CIA decided to intervene. CIA and ITT put Chile into dictatorship that led to many corrupt leaders and a weak economic structure. Both Guatemala and Chile were pushed back from their development as self sufficient because of these companies. United Fruit and ITT knew they benefitted from autocratic styles of government and used coups to try to reach their most productive existence in their respective countries. As long as the multinational companies’ operations were bringing in a constant flow of money, the governments would cooperate in any way possible. This excerpt from a poem …show more content…

Guatemalan President Arbenz believed in direct competition with foreign companies in their services planning to build new plants and ports. If Guatemala had the ability to enact these plans using governmental money, they did not actually need United Fruit like many of their people believed. United Fruit had gobbled up much of the land and jobs, but Guatemala could have functioned side by side with United Fruit. United Fruit realized this and then drove Guatemala into chaos forcing them rely on the company for

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