The Trump Doctrine

September 2025. People all over the world pull out their phones and see a familiar scene pop up: an infrared video from a US warplane destroying a small boat in the open ocean. Except this time, this isn’t off the coast of Yemen or Somalia, but right on America’s front door in the Caribbean Sea.

Seeing a publicized US military strike in the Caribbean was probably a shock for anyone who had gotten used to the idea that America’s military expeditions take place in far-off countries separated from the US by oceans, not seas. However, the second Trump administration is not looking to play by international norms, to say the least. This is being shown nowhere more than in the Western Hemisphere.

The strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug-running boats in early September may have been a shock to most of us, but they weren’t random events. Instead, they resulted from a Trumpian foreign policy revolution that has rejuvenated old ideas of US power in the Americas. In the view of the Trump administration, American dominance in North and South America is a key step in the MAGA project.

President Trump frequently cites US presidents of centuries past, often causing some controversy in the process. One such figure is James Monroe, the 5th president of the United States and the namesake of the “Monroe Doctrine”, a foreign policy initiative that aimed to keep European colonial powers out of the Western Hemisphere. The subtext was the US declaring itself the dominant power in the Americas, which ultimately led to direct and covert American military involvement in Latin America from the early 19th century all the way up through the 1990s, drastically changing the region's political history.

While some in the US establishment might see the policy as a fossil from the colonial age, Trump has repeatedly stated that the Monroe Doctrine remains the formal policy of the United States. American military and economic power already stretches far from the continental US across vast oceans and continents. So why revive a policy created to counter European powers that are now America’s allies?

As is often the case with Trump, there’s not likely a clear answer to this question. But some of the actions taken by his administration give us clues as to how he and his inner circle are thinking about this new Wild West era of geopolitics that they’ve ushered in.

The Trumpian Belief in a Hemispheric Foreign Policy

The Trump worldview is defined by a deep skepticism of globalism and international institutions, and it’s fueled by a belief that America has been ripped off by its friends and foes alike for decades. This mode of thinking naturally creates a fortress mentality, which is probably best understood through MAGA’s original catchphrase, “Build the wall!”. However, Donald Trump is not really an isolationist in the literal sense of the word.

Trump obviously believes in American power and is not afraid to wield it far beyond America’s borders (just ask the Iranians about that). His thinking is oriented towards American exceptionalism and away from international cooperation. To build their geopolitical fortress, his administration believes in developing hard power above all else. Solidifying America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere is a key part of that strategy, especially with great power competition once again rearing its head in the region.

While there are no signs of the Spanish monarchy attempting to make a resurgence in Latin America anytime soon, there are certainly other interested parties. The US’s chief rival in the 21st century has ultimately proven to be China, and this is also the case right in its own neighborhood.

In 2025, China is the top trading partner for South America as a whole, and has made Latin America and the Caribbean key targets for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).  Around two-thirds of Chinese investment in the region concentrates in energy, raw materials, and mining.

While most of the media chatter around critical minerals revolves around Africa, Latin America actually has over half of the world’s lithium reserves, and significant reserves of many other vital metals for the modern economy. Since China is by far the world’s top refiner of critical minerals, despite having very few sources of its own, Latin America is a gold mine (Pun intended) for Chinese industrial ambitions.

Venezuela is one of the most important pieces in China’s bid for regional power, being China’s only “all-weather” partner in Latin America. China is the chief supporter of the Venezuelan regime through the purchase of oil, providing massive loans, and building out telecommunications infrastructure with Chinese technology.

This is also not to mention the huge presence of American energy companies right across the Venezuelan border in Guyana, many of which operate in oil-rich Guyanese territory that the Maduro regime insists belongs to Venezuela through disputed historical claims (And backed up by countless totally legit referendums in Venezuela). From the perspective of the US government, Venezuelan aggression in the region would not only be a loss to American interests but also a benefit to China.

Trump’s rhetoric against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been primarily concentrated on the issues of migration and transnational crime, but a closer look at the pieces on the geopolitical chessboard widens the frame a little bit on those US airstrikes in the Caribbean.

Similar strategic thinking has played into Trump’s pressure campaign to reassert control over the Panama Canal and the attempted purchase of Greenland from Denmark. The Panama Canal represents a potential chink in the armor of the US trade network, and a damn important one too. Greenland, on the other hand, is not only viewed as a defensive position against Russian nukes in the Arctic, but also a potential source of critical minerals for the US supply chain.

North America isn’t isolated from Chinese influence, but US interests are much safer in that region. However, that hasn’t stopped President Trump from frequently antagonizing his two nearest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, over the issue.

The reasoning behind Trump’s campaign against Canada and Mexico is centered on his belief that the two countries have been lazy in policing the international drug trade, and that they’ve allowed Chinese interests to take advantage of the USMCA free trade agreement to flood the US market with cheap products through the northern and southern borders. Therefore, by Trump’s reasoning, they were the ones who first betrayed the spirit of the close ties between the three countries.

The line that runs through all of these issues, up from Greenland down to Venezuela, is the MAGA movement’s belief that America is under threat from foreign influence on all sides, particularly from China. In an increasingly multipolar world, where economic and military power is balancing out, the US will have less sway in international affairs. To preserve that power, America under Trump has increasingly turned its back on the diplomatic norms it built up in the second half of the 20th century.

The Trump Doctrine (Monroe Doctrine 2.0 is somewhat of a mouthful, let’s be honest) is ultimately the manifestation of “Build the Wall!” in US foreign policy. It’s hard to square his declaration of a new “golden age” with the fact that modern American power was built on globalized trade and international institutions. Trump seems to believe that abandoning these principles is just the price of doing business in a more crowded market. However, declaring America the protector of an entire hemisphere harkens back to the imperialist global economy of old, and pursuing this strategy is definitely not guaranteed to leave America in a better position than it started in.

The Price of Doing Business

Donald Trump likes to position himself as the great deal-maker. Whether or not that title fits in the world of real estate development, his hard-nosed methods of commercial negotiating often don’t translate well to international diplomacy. Diplomacy is not just a matter of money and power, even if they’re important factors to consider. It’s also a matter of respect for the other person across the table. This is especially the case when you’re dealing with your close neighbors.

What if close allies in Latin America are turned off by US ultimatums and decide they want to pursue a policy of non-alignment in great-power competition? Or even worse for the US, what if they choose the easy money China is more than willing to give them? Such a scenario is unlikely, but not impossible. It’s true that Marco Rubio is the first Spanish-fluent Secretary of State, but just because the message being sent from the administration is relayed in your native tongue, that doesn’t mean you’re going to like it.

In North America, the strategic risks of alienating close neighbors are even more severe. It’s true that Mexico and Canada rely on the US more than the US relies on them, but that doesn’t mean an economic disconnect between the three wouldn’t hurt the pocketbook of average Americans, especially in regions along their shared borders. The three countries are due to review their USMCA free trade agreement in 2026, and careful negotiation will be crucial in determining the continent’s economic future. Bullying tactics are not likely to boost a sense of regional cooperation and brotherhood.

The issue of Greenland even stretches beyond the scope of “continental defense”, and touches at the heart of crucial alliances. Unlike the case of the Panama Canal, which was operated by Chinese companies, Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a founding member of NATO. What does that signal to the alliance if the US doesn’t trust a strategic territory in the hands of a key partner?

All of these relationships are key links in the chain of US power around the world. If Trump were to break them, American power could break with them. After all, America’s global economic and military reach is the source of its current power. While it might have the resources and geographic isolation to be sustainable in a theoretical sense, shutting the systems down all at once could be devastating to a country so reliant on international finance and defense sales to keep its economy running.

Was the status quo in the Western Hemisphere serving the best interests of the United States? Probably not. China’s growing influence in Latin America and Russia’s nuclear threat in the Arctic are genuine national security concerns, but “building the wall” in diplomatic and economic relations is not likely to make America any more secure in the 21st century.

As the saying goes, modern problems require modern solutions. Reviving a 19th-century policy like the Monroe Doctrine might work well for MAGA branding, but it may prove too simplistic for the complex and interconnected world we live in today. No one can guess what direction this policy will ultimately take us, but one thing is for sure: the Trump Doctrine has arrived.

Sources

• The economics of the new Monroe Doctrine | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
• Trump has taken the Monroe Doctrine global
• Trump says US struck another alleged Venezuelan drug vessel, killing three | Reuters
• Donald Trump and the Return of the Monroe Doctrine
• Why Trump is right to revitalize the Monroe Doctrine - Texas Public Policy Foundation
• Trump’s Greenland and Panama Canal Threats Are a Throwback to an Old, Misguided Foreign Policy | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• What Marco Rubio Has Said About Latin America
• USMCA Review 2026
• U.S. Confrontation With Venezuela | Global Conflict Tracker
• Latin America between China and the U.S. – GIS Reports
• China’s Growing Influence in Latin America | Council on Foreign Relations
• Resource Nationalism in the Lithium Triangle: Analyzing the Investment Environment for China’s Projects in the Lithium Industry —...
• China and Latin America’s Joint Construction of the Belt and Road: Progress, Challenges, and Prospects - Interpret: China
• Expert on Arctic politics explains Greenland’s strategic appeal
• The crisis over Greenland: Denmark’s response to Trump | OSW Centre for Eastern Studies
• Back to the brink: North American trade in the 2nd Trump administration | Brookings