From the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, nothing unites Latin America like the threat of U.S. military intervention.

Washington's past support for dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the 1960s and 1970s ushered in one of the darkest periods of the continent's recent history. Now President Donald Trump's talk of a "possible military option" for Venezuela has gifted President Nicolas Maduro the opportunity to pose as the continent's pre-eminent anti-imperialist.

"Trump out of Latin America," read the banner carried by Maduro during a recent appearance on state TV.

Even America's strongest ally in the region is unhappy. Standing alongside Mike Pence on Sunday at the start of his visit to the region, Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said the U.S. should never consider military action in Venezuela or anywhere else in Latin America.

It doesn't matter that Trump's threat baffled observers at home and abroad and was quietly walked back by the Pentagon. What matters for Venezuela and its suffering people is that Trump has now made it harder for America's allies to isolate Maduro.

And he has strengthened the position of a leader who looks more and more like a dictator.