Emily Tamkin’s column on the US’s weak moral authority in international affairs (World View, 19 February) coincided with the death of Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who was tortured in Guatemala in 1989 by security forces trained and equipped by the US. Once recovered, she revealed evidence of decades-long US complicity in human rights abuses in a war that cost more than 200,000 lives. The US’s methods in Latin America have changed since then but its agenda remains the same: protect regimes favourable to US policy even when they perpetrate gross abuses (Honduras, Haiti); undermine or overthrow elected leaders whose policies are viewed unfavourably (Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia); or impose illegal economic sanctions (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua) that affect the poorest people. Were Joe Biden to “begin to repair America’s moral standing in the world”, in Latin America it would require a reversal of more than a century of US policy.