How Trump’s Venezuela intervention revived the Monroe Doctrine

WASHINGTON - The administration of US President Donald Trump has taken inspiration from 19th century diplomacy in crafting its foreign policy.

More than two centuries after former president James Monroe declared that the Western Hemisphere is the US’ sphere of influence – an approach that came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine – the country is seeking to reassert itself in its backyard.

Mr Trump’s administration spelt out its intention to build on the Monroe Doctrine in a national security strategy published in December.

A month later, after

US forces captured Venezuela’s long-time leader

Nicolas Maduro, Mr Trump said: “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

Mr Trump says

the US will now run Venezuela

, although he has not explained how when American forces do not control the country.

He and other administration officials have hinted that the US could have designs beyond Venezuela, suggesting Colombia, Greenland and Mexico as potential next targets for intervention.

What is the Monroe Doctrine?

The roots of the Monroe Doctrine trace back to an 1823 State of the Union address to the US Congress.

During this speech, then President Monroe, seeking to increase American influence in the Western Hemisphere, warned European powers against further colonisation there.

He said that any attempts by the Europeans to take control of more nations in the hemisphere – where many states were newly independent from the likes of Spain and Portugal – would be viewed by the US as hostile acts against it.

What happened to the Monroe Doctrine over the years?

The original doctrine that Mr Monroe outlined evolved over the years.

Former president Theodore Roosevelt added the “Roosevelt Corollary” in 1904, when he asserted that the US would exercise “international police power” to intervene in unstable Latin American countries to protect American interests.

This came after Britain, Italy and Germany blockaded Venezuelan ports with gunboats to try to force the country to repay its debts.

According to the US Office of the Historian, over the long term, the Roosevelt Corollary became less about keeping European influence out of the Western Hemisphere and more about justifying American intervention in Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

In a major break from the Monroe Doctrine, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 announced the Good Neighbour Policy, emphasising cooperation rather than military force as a means of promoting stability in the hemisphere.

The start of the Cold War a decade later put an end to that approach, as the US and Soviet Union competed for influence in Latin America.

But that conflict ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the Monroe Doctrine lost its relevance.

In 2013, then Secretary of State John Kerry said: “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”

How has the Trump administration revived the Monroe Doctrine?

As part of the national security strategy unveiled towards the end of 2025, the US said it would “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” – something Mr Trump now calls the “Donroe Doctrine”.

The document laid out an ambition to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere”.

Within that region, the US wants governments to cooperate with it against “narco-terrorists, cartels and other transnational criminal organisations”, according to the strategy.

External powers are warned that the US is looking to ensure the hemisphere “remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets”.

The publication of the strategy cemented a policy shift that Mr Trump has been signalling for months.

Since taking office in January 2025, he has repeatedly

floated taking over Greenland

– the self-ruling territory of Denmark that is covered by NATO’s collective defence guarantee – seizing back control of the Panama Canal, and annexing Canada as the 51st US state. 

Mr Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio also made clear that the US was focused on the Western Hemisphere when he made his first foreign trip a tour of four Central American nations and the Dominican Republic, rather than visiting Europe or Asia. 

Why is the Trump administration focused on the Western Hemisphere?

US foreign policy has for decades revolved around the Middle East and Asia. The “Donroe Doctrine” brings the focus closer to home. 

While a more interventionist approach in the Western Hemisphere seems antithetical to Mr Trump’s election promise to scale back US military forays abroad, his administration has tied the strategy to some of the President’s key priorities.

These include curtailing immigration and the flow of illegal drugs from the south and securing access to natural resources, such as Venezuela’s abundant oil reserves. BLOOMBERG