With the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898, control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines fell to the United States (surrendered from Spain).

His work regarding the Banana Wars encompasses the entire United States tropical empire, which overtook the Western Hemisphere, spanning both Roosevelt presidencies.

Most prominently, the US was advancing economic, political, and military interests in order to maintain its sphere of influence and to secure the Panama Canal (which opened in 1914).

With the 1901 Hay -Pauncefote Treaty granting the US control to build the Panama Canal, the US felt the need to protect its economic goals and strategic objectives in the region which would later set the stage for the Banana Wars.

[2] Nicaragua was the main center of unrest against US companies' interest and the two main figures involved were Guatemala’s ruler Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1900), who ruthlessly modernized the economy with Indian slave labor, and Nicaragua’s Liberal ruler, Jose Santos Zelaya, both were forceful autocratic leaders, and most importantly mortal enemies.

From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox asserted a more "peaceful and economic" Dollar Diplomacy foreign policy, although that too was backed by force, as in Nicaragua.

[15] Contracts between the Honduran government and the American companies most often involved exclusive rights to a piece of land in exchange for building railroads in Honduras.

[15] However, banana producers in Central America (including Honduras) "were scourged by Panama disease, a soil-borne fungus (...) that decimated production over large regions".

Led by CEO Samuel Zemurray who was known as the Banana Man used the United States Military to exercise his influence over Latin America for his own economic gain.

[4] The United Fruit Company held large amounts of land, railroads, and ports across Latin America which allowed them to essentially rule over these nations.

[4] Perhaps the single most active military officer in the Banana Wars was US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, nicknamed "Maverick Marine", who saw action in Honduras in 1903, served in Nicaragua enforcing American policy from 1909 to 1912, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in Veracruz in 1914, and received a second Medal of Honor for bravery in Haiti in 1915.