Monroe Doctrine: the Bad Neighbor Returns
January 3, 2026
The man behind the curtain. Still from Wizard of Oz.
President Trump signaled the Monroe Doctrine’s return from the start of his second term. A volatile mix of geopolitical, hemispheric and local politics was in play. The world’s largest reserves of “Texas Tea” turned the wandering Eye of Sauron in Washington on the birthplace of the Bolivarian Revolution. The Trump Administration intends to juice US and global economic growth by reducing energy costs, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices dropped. Fossil fuels are the Trump Administration’s preferred choice of dirty energy to fuel the AI boom, which the US intends to lead. Oil-laden tankers departing from Venezuela en route to China are not part of the program.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration treats the American public like turnip truck rubes. While Trump, in Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs fashion, blows sulfurous clouds of smoke behind the curtain regarding drugs and DEA arrests, we are expected to ignore that Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia by several multiples, is the bigger exporter of illicit substances to the United States. Fortunately for Colombia, it has the 34th-largest oil reserves in the world, rather than first, and, unlike Venezuela, is not a supplicant to the United States; ergo, expect none of its leadership to be arrested and dragged off in handcuffs by Uncle Sam’s, ahem, DEA Agents.
Latin America had roughly two decades of reduced attention from its weakening, yet nonetheless still powerful, northern neighbor in the 21st century. The US partially disengaged from Latin America with Dick Cheney’s 2003 war on Iraq. After all, one can only do so many things. When Cheney wasn’t shooting hunting companions in the face with demands for apologies thereafter, his focus was limited chiefly to two places, Iraq and Russia. Iraq and Russia both became targets of a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between liberal interventionist Democrats and neocon Republicans (the dominant factions of both parties) to see US hegemony retained in what neocons called the “Project for a New American Century.” The Middle East sat on gobsmacking amounts of oil, for which Madame Secretary of State Madeline Albright infamously asserted that the loss of 500k children’s lives was “worth it” to depose Iraq’s leader. And Russia was a veritable piggy bank of natural resources for which Zbigniew Brzezinski’s musings published in 1997 on the possible busting up of Russia into three states would not be unwelcome, certainly were noted in the Kremlin.
“Mission Accomplished” and surrounding Russia with NATO (yes, those states bordering Russia, given their histories of being under Russia’s boot, wanted in) created two winners: US pensioners and Latin Americans. The former were about to see “W” Bush fully or partially privatize Social Security before the Iraq adventure required his administration’s attention. And the latter saw the wandering Eye of Sauron shift off its historical focus on Latin America. For the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, Latin America exercised some autonomy in the 21st century. Latin America’s renewed left turn began with Hugo Chavez’s 1998 election in Venezuela, and arguably only survived thereafter due to US distractions. The same goes for Lula da Silva in Brazil after winning office in 2002. Others were later elected, notably, such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and others. Even Cuba, the long-standing object of US-sponsored invasions such as the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and the CIA confirming several assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, saw the hemisphere’s largest island state get a brief respite as the US opened travel to it in 2016, even if the US’s economic war on the Pearl of the Antilles continued.
The Monroe Doctrine is a continuation of the twin movements of conquest and revolt against empire in play from the US’s birth. Americans grew weary of rule from abroad in 1776, which included their demands for ever more seizure of land from indigenous peoples. The Crown disapproved, for settler conquest created no shortage of “Indian Wars” for which they bore the cost. Readers are familiar with the rest, but summarizing quickly, John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State to President James Monroe in 1823, boldly declared the hemisphere belonged to the United States’ sphere of influence. The policy was clear, while the US continued its Manifest Destiny in conquering much of North America, other powers were to check their ambitions in the Western Hemisphere. Dozens of interventions, large and small, ensued in the next century. On the “larger” side of the ledger was President “Jimmy” Polk’s grab of 55% of Mexico in 1848.
Also of note on the bigger side of US Monroe Doctrine actions was the US occupation of Haiti in 1915, which lasted until 1934. Some 50,000 “natives” dying from the consequences of war in Haiti. The US did not so much covet Haiti’s resources as it wished to keep competitors, namely Germany, out of this country whose waters ships traveled through to access the Panama Canal. Still, money mattered. Much of the US occupation of Haiti was directed by the precursor to today’s Citibank’s Vice-President, Roger P. Farnham, whose personal investments and those of his bank were tied up in Haitian infrastructural loans.
FDR turned a page by ending the US occupation of Haiti and announcing a Good Neighbor policy. The title itself announced that the US heretofore was a bad neighbor. FDR’s death brought the return of the US as a bad neighbor until the aforementioned 21st-century reprieve anchored in other US interests. And now, here we are with Maduro hauled off by the United States on January 3, 2026.
What can we expect from the return of the Monroe Doctrine?
+ We can play Taps for International Law that previously was already ill.
+ Cuba’s government likely can’t survive. Mortally wounded and with social pathologies (e.g., street crime formally absent) laid over its poverty, its government likely falls. Marco Rubio and Trump are taking the victory lap with Florida’s substantial Cuban émigré community.
+ Latin American leaders are put on notice. Uncle Sam has returned to its historic norm of exercising dominance over the hemisphere. Latin American leaders will exercise caution in dealings with or joining the BRICS. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world outside the Americas and Europe will run toward inclusion in the BRICS.
+ China increasingly will see the US as aggressive, if not deranged. The Middle Kingdom will likely further develop its already substantial defensive capacities. If the US decides to force the issue of Taiwan’s future status, China may respond with a blockade of the island.
+ Russia will expect a quid pro quo from Washington on spheres of influence. Yet, Trump’s successful removal of Maduro will leave some in Russia asking if they needlessly endured a 4 year long war of aggression against Ukraine (yes, the Kremlin was endlessly provoked, but, nonetheless, the aggressor).
Published On 4 Jan 2026
AL JAZEERA
United States President Donald Trump has set out to justify the attack launched on Venezuela and Washington imposing its will in Latin America by citing a policy from a 19th century president.
Trump on Saturday called the raid that led to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro being abducted an update to the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 declaration by the fifth US president, James Monroe, adding that the US will “run the country” until “a safe, proper and judicious transition” could be carried out.
“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document,” Trump said, attaching the first letter of his name to the series of principles.
“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he added.
Here is what you need to know about the Monroe Doctrine:
What is this 19th century US policy?
The Monroe Doctrine essentially urged the division of the world into spheres of influence overseen by different powers.
Monroe first spoke of the doctrine on December 2, 1823, during his seventh annual State of the Union address to Congress although the doctrine was not named after him until decades later.
He warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Americas, stressing that any action of that sort would be viewed as an attack on the US.
The president stated that the affairs of the Western Hemisphere and Europe should remain separate and should not influence each other.
He promised in return that the US would recognise and not interfere with existing European colonies or the internal affairs of European countries.
However, North and South America would no longer be subject to future colonisation by any European power, Monroe said.
In many aspects, the Monroe Doctrine urged keeping the status quo in the Americas but also dictated a European disengagement from them.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting a US right to intervene in Latin American countries to prevent European interference, especially concerning debt or instability, to maintain stability and protect Washington’s interests in the Western Hemisphere.
That year, when European creditors threatened several Latin American countries, Roosevelt stated the right and responsibility of the US to get involved in line with the doctrine.
The Roosevelt Corollary was articulated in the aftermath of the Venezuelan crisis of 1902-1903 when the country rejected paying its foreign debts.
How has the US imposed this in recent decades?
Over the next decades, the evolved Monroe Doctrine served as justification for US intervention in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan pursued an aggressive approach to the region, branded “imperialist” by his detractors. In Nicaragua, he supported the right-wing Contras against the left-wing government of the Sandinistas and landed the US in the Iran-Contra arms-trafficking scandal. He also supported right-wing governments accused of atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Cuba has long been under intensive pressure from the US since Fidel Castro’s revolution, both militarily and economically under punishing sanctions that exist to this day.
There have also been reports of attempts to foment coups against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez before his death in 2013.
Instead of a values-based foreign policy, what has come out of the Trump White House this past year was a steady drumbeat of aggressive militaristic taunting.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they bombed another boat in the Caribbean on October 3, 2025.
(Photo: screenshot/Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Gregory Daddis
Jan 04, 2026
Americans long have wrestled with balancing power politics and moral concerns in their approach to foreign policy. An accounting of the second Trump administration’s first year in office, however, suggests that those leading in Washington today may not be all that concerned with such dynamics. This should cause concern. As US foreign policy became less guided by moral ambitions in 2025, it became, perhaps inevitably so, more militarized.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, laying out the new administration’s priorities in January 2025, mandated that US foreign policy should answer “three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” Nowhere in this guidance did Rubio speak of setting an example based on moral virtues, on values that might favor diplomacy over raw military power within the international arena. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the latest National Security Strategy, published in November, remained equally silent on morality’s role in defining American grand strategy.
Instead of a values-based foreign policy, what has come out of the Trump White House this past year was a steady drumbeat of aggressive militaristic taunting, much of it threatening military violence and economic sanctions while politicizing the nation’s armed forces, both at home and overseas. These actions, of course, sit at odds with the president’s 2025 inaugural address in which President Donald Trump, evoking Richard Nixon, argued that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”
A chaotic year in, one might question that historical inheritance. Conjuring a near existential threat at the nation’s southern border, for instance, the president began his term by ordering the Pentagon send some 1,500 active-duty troops to assist with border patrolling and “alien” deportation missions.
If the Trump administration spies a dangerous world beyond its shores, then a foreign policy lacking in any moral principles hardly will dispel those threats, as real as they may be.
Equally belligerent language targeted Denmark over the intent to take Greenland, with Trump declining to rule out the use of military force to achieve his aims. Nearly a full year later, the president is still arguing that the world’s largest island is “essential” to US national security, suggesting that forcible annexation of an ally’s territory is warranted as long as the commander-in-chief deems it so.
Closer to home, the administration also set its sights on the Western Hemisphere, claiming the United States’ command of the Panama Canal despite a 1977 treaty guaranteeing its neutrality. Then, with little restraint and less legal authority, the Department of Defense began attacking suspected drug-smuggling craft off the coast of Venezuela, escalating tensions throughout the second half of 2025 that led to a blockade of the South American country and the CIA carrying out drone strikes on its coastal port facilities.
The devaluation of diplomacy also marked Trump’s first year in office, as the State Department abruptly paused all foreign aid and assistance with little to no warning soon after inauguration, with critics lamenting the impact such suspensions have had on global health programs over the course of 2025.
Such breakneck, unprincipled flexing of American power abroad arguably was matched by a similar lack of moral concerns at home. The pardoning of domestic terrorists who attacked the US capitol on January 6, 2020—with far-right extremist groups like the “Proud Boys” vowing revenge for their jail time—and the unlawful militarized policing of American cities were but just two examples of an administration acting with few self-imposed ethical guardrails.
But morals matter, both at home and abroad. They always have, even if the United States historically has not always lived up to its idealistic founding principles. Morality is not irrelevant to a nation’s foreign policy, despite noted State Department diplomat George Kennan once arguing that the “interests of the national society” such as “military security” and “the integrity of its political life…have no moral quality” of their own.
Of course, power matters, too. But power unhinged from ethical reasoning (and restraint) leads to a dark world in which military power becomes the inevitable answer to nearly any foreign policy question. Even a realist like Hans Morgenthau, author of the 1948 Politics Among Nations, counseled that the “aspiration for power” should, in some sense, be “in harmony with the demands of reason, morality, and justice.” As the famed political scientist put it, morality, mores, and law reinforced each other and offered “protection to the life of society and to the lives of the individuals who compose it.”
More recently, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. argued that we should consider the potential benefits of “maintaining an institutional order that encourages moral interests.” In short, the tension between morality and power has been healthy in our past debates over foreign policy. (Even if Morgenthau himself warned against the “intoxication with moral abstractions.”) Historically speaking, moral aims have set examples abroad, highlighted the values of human rights across the globe, and informed critiques against those who support more imperialistic and militaristic policies.
But what happens when the president of the United States, in both rhetoric and deeds, flaunts power and interests above all else? When morals are deemed an inconvenience at best, a threat to rational decision-making at worst? The likely result is the militarization of the nation’s foreign policy.
True, Mr. Trump has boasted that his dealmaking has ended eight wars while complaining that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Yet motives matter when it comes to moral concerns. Was the president seeking peace or adulation? Moreover, Mr. Trump has seemed reluctant to wade into the details for achieving lasting peace in the Middle East or for holding Vladimir Putin to task for Russia’s unbridled aggression against Ukraine.
In a world deemed existentially dangerous, then only war and the threat of war, the flawed argument goes, will keep the nation safe when morals no longer matter. Seemingly, Mr. Trump sees the world this way. In his inaugural address, the president stressed his responsibility to “defend our country from threats and invasions… at a level that nobody has ever seen before.” Such martial rhetoric has been reinforced this past year by Secretary of Defense (“War”) Pete Hegseth who, in critics’ eyes, views military morality through the lens of “might makes right.”
In our heated, if not fractured, political moment, debating the value of morals guiding our nation’s foreign policy will be a difficult task. Indeed, even finding consensus today over what we mean by “moral behavior” seems a fraught enterprise. But the discussion is needed. Surely, President Barack Obama’s drone-based “targeted killing program” or Joseph Biden’s “unconditional” support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s exterminationist policies against the Palestinians warrant examination, if not condemnation. So too the militarized actions of the Trump administration this past year. In short, effective American leadership is moral leadership, both at home and abroad.
Moreover, a nation broken free of its ethical moorings will engender only resentment and retaliation on the world stage. In such a scenario, a reliance on military force likely will grow as fears of America losing its “greatness” feed into themselves. If the Trump administration spies a dangerous world beyond its shores, then a foreign policy lacking in any moral principles hardly will dispel those threats, as real as they may be. Indeed, those threats will likely only escalate.
If we can agree with the proposition that power and morals can—and should—reinforce each other, then the opening weeks of the second Trump administration serve as a warning sign for the coming implications of a nation’s foreign policy bereft of moral criteria. Militarization surely will follow immorality.
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Gregory Daddis
Gregory A. Daddis is a professor in the history department at West Point. His latest book is "Westmoreland's War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam."
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