during WWII dissipated and the idea of defensive cooperation became strained. According to Slater, many Latin American governments participating in the Treaty sought "to insulate the hemisphere from rather than involve it in world conflict", though the United States pushed the smaller countries towards confrontation with its ideological adversaries. Latin American governments then began to view inter-American collaboration as bending to the will of the United States, forfeiting their sovereignty. Though the action of the United States during the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion raised questions among Latin American governments, the unilateral approach of the United States invading the Dominican Republic in 1965 during the Dominican Civil War before the OAS's Inter-American Peace Force was organized, proved to members that the United States did not respect the ideals of multilateralism. Conversely during the Falklands War in 1982, the United States favored the United Kingdom arguing that Argentina had been the aggressor and because Argentina had not been attacked, as did Chile and Colombia. This was seen by most Latin American countries as the final failure of the treaty. In September 2002, citing the Falklands example and anticipating the invasion of Iraq, Mexico formally withdrew from the treaty; after the requisite two years, Mexico ceased to be a signatory in September 2004. In 2008, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) created a new regional security council manage their own defensive objectives. On 5 June 2012, Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) countries Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, under the leadership of leftist governments, initiated the retirement from the TIAR, a decision which the Obama administration described as "unfortunate" but respected. The treaty was officially denounced by Nicaragua on 20 September 2012, Bolivia on 17 October 2012, Venezuela on 14 May 2013, and Ecuador on 19 February 2014. Invocations and considerations The treaty was invoked numerous times during the 1950s and 1960s, in particular the unanimous support of the United States' naval blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 2001, the United States invoked the Rio Treaty after the September 11 attacks. In 2019 during a presidential crisis in Venezuela between incumbent President Nicolás Maduro and president of the opposition-led National Assembly of Venezuela Juan Guaidó, the latter opened talks on rejoining TIAR. On 11 May, Guaidó sent a letter to Organization of American States (OAS) secretary Luis Almagro requesting that Venezuela be reinstated. On