Editing Decree 900 (section)

===Expropriation of United Fruit===
In 1953 Árbenz announced that under the Agrarian Reform Law—specifically, because of an order made by the DAN—Guatemala was expropriating approximately<ref name=BowenUFCO/> {{cvt|234000|acres|-1|disp=flip}} of uncultivated land from the [[United Fruit Company]].<ref>Gleijeses, ''The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz'' (1989), p. 474.</ref> United Fruit owned {{convert|550000|acre|km2}} in Guatemala, 42% of the nation's (arable) land.<ref>LaFeber, ''Inevitable Revolutions'' (1993), p. 120; citing Graham H. Stuart, and James L. Tigner, ''Latin America and the United States'', 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975), pp. 519–520; Blanche Wiesen Cook, ''The Declassified Eisenhower'' (Garden City, N.Y., 1981), pp. 221–225.</ref> The company was compensated with $627,572 in bonds for the expropriation of their holdings, the amount United Fruit had claimed the land was worth for tax purposes. However, United Fruit proceeded to claim that its land was worth more. It had close ties to U.S. officials and lobbied the U.S. for intervention. The US State Department, on behalf of the United Fruit Company, claimed to Guatemala that the land was worth $15,854,849.<ref>LaFeber, ''Inevitable Revolutions'' (1993), p. 76.</ref>