Aid trendline
Here is a trend that's at least of modest interest. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
The X axis is U.S. military and police aid to all of Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the government figures in our database. The Y axis is economic, social and institutional aid to the hemisphere, after removing two big natural-disaster aid packages that make 1999 (Hurricane Mitch) and 2010 (Haiti) look like outliers.
Note that years in which a Democratic administration held office (the blue dots) tend to be north of the trendline — that is, slightly favoring economic aid over military aid. Republican years (the red dots) are below the trendline, favoring a more military aid-heavy approach.
The main exceptions to the trend are 2000 — the year that Bill Clinton worked with the Republican Congress to pass Plan Colombia — and 2008, the first year for which the Democratic-majority Congress, inaugurated in January 2007, could pass a budget.