When he was elected president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt faced significant challenges both at home and abroad. The United States was the midst of the Great Depression, with millions of Americans out of work and the economy stalled. Meanwhile, the United States was unpopular with many of its neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean because of U.S. military interventions. Between 1899 and 1932, the United Sates deployed troops or naval vessels to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama. On the eve of his inauguration, U.S. Army troops and Marines were deployed in Haiti (where they had been since 1914) and Nicaragua (since 1912). The military interventions were usually to support pro-American regimes or to protect U.S. economic interests. Often the U.S. military was used to maintain dictators who were friendly toward the United States.