Donald Trump is not generally noted as a student of history. Yet over the past year, his decisive reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Americas has revived a playbook dating back two centuries, to the fifth president, James Monroe. Now the 47th is doubling down. An anti-interventionist is having second thoughts. Remarks that sounded at first like bad jokes or random outbursts from the presidential id have become more sinister through repetition or accompanying actions. Only a fool would take all of Mr Trump’s comments literally – but they should certainly be taken seriously.
He has refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state. He threatened to seize the Panama canal. He has imposed swingeing tariffs on key partners, and says he might abandon the Canada-Mexico trade pact signed in his first term. He has meddled outrageously in elections in Honduras and Argentina, and sought to interfere with Brazilian justice. He imposed sanctions on Colombia’s president in October. He has launched deadly attacks on alleged drug boats in international waters – extrajudicial killings that the administration has sought to legitimise by arbitrarily designating traffickers as terrorists – and threatened military strikes on Mexico, Venezuela and any other country he blames for drugs consumed in the US.
Gunboat diplomacy is back. The US has positioned an extraordinary display of military might off the coast of Venezuela – its largest presence in the Caribbean for decades – and is seizing oil tankers. Mr Trump reportedly gave Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, an ultimatum to quit when they spoke recently, and has put a $50m bounty on his head. Mr Trump is unconcerned by the regime’s repression. Purportedly this is about tackling drugs – but Venezuela is not a producer or major conduit for narcotics, and Mr Trump has just pardoned the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández for major drug-related offences.
History repeating
The US seems convinced that it can strongarm the leftist Mr Maduro into fleeing, or persuade other members of his regime to oust him. The question is what happens if its confidence is misplaced – as it was in Mr Trump’s first term, when recognising the then opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president failed to dislodge Mr Maduro. The CIA has reportedly used drones to strike a Venezuelan port facility. How much further will the US go?
In 1823, President Monroe warned European powers not to interfere in the western hemisphere. In 2025, Mr Trump’s actions reflect concern about China’s growing role. “The United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe doctrine to restore American preeminence,” states the new national security strategy.
What it calls the “Trump Corollary” is a nod to the “Roosevelt Corollary”. The 26th US president turned Monroe’s defensive, exclusionary stance into “big stick” hegemony. The pledge of a “potent restoration of American power and priorities” will depend on “enlisting” allies and pressuring others, and on an “adjusted” military presence. The “Donroe doctrine” is also spurred by promises to prevent mass migration, a fixation on drug trafficking, hopes of trade advantage and a hunger for minerals, plus a craving for headline-grabbing, ego-bolstering symbols of domination.
Mr Trump appears unperturbed by stronger Chinese and Russian spheres of influence – as long as he has a domain to match Xi Jinping’s and Vladimir Putin’s. The new US “doctrine” is in reality subject to his whims, grudges and personal relations with leaders, and inconsistencies within his court. There are clear divisions in his foreign policy team, notably on Venezuela. Richard Grenell, the mercantilist presidential envoy for special missions, has promoted talks with Mr Maduro. Marco Rubio, secretary of state, remains unabashedly hawkish – and, with the Middle East and Ukraine largely out of his hands, has plenty of time to devote to Latin America.
Pushing back Beijing
The speed with which China was able to build ties with Latin America and the Caribbean partly reflected a relative lack of US interest in the region. China is now the largest trading partner, but the US is the largest foreign investor. The White House may well believe that it can easily regain ground – and that it is already notching up successes. Javier Milei’s far-right party won midterm elections in Argentina, to widespread surprise, after Mr Trump proffered the country a $40bn bailout – as long as his man won. The president’s disdain for human rights makes El Salvador’s self-styled “coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele not a concern but an asset, taking Venezuelan deportees from the US.
It’s not only about ideological bedfellows: Mexico seems to be shifting towards the US under pressure, and a series of new security deals will see American troops deployed across the region. Yet elsewhere, fear of an unpredictable, bullying administration may warm relations with Beijing. Mr Trump’s tactics often backfire. Sanctions and tariffs were meant to kill Brazil’s case against Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election – but the former president got a 27-year sentence. The popularity of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose. The US has since eliminated key food tariffs too.
An attack on Venezuela would fuel a backlash in the region – and, experts predict, a refugee surge to the US. Mr Trump’s vociferous complaints about China “controlling” the Panama canal spurred the private Hong Kong-based company CK Hutchison, which owned two ports in Panama, to announce that it would sell all its port holdings to a grouping led by the US investment firm BlackRock. But Beijing blocked the deal – then said the price for approval would be adding the Chinese state-owned shipping company Cosco to the consortium. Cosco would be excluded from Panamanian locations, but could reportedly gain a stake in dozens of ports worldwide.
Few in the region would choose to rely on either hegemon, and anxiety in Latin America at increased US forcefulness is matched by concern from allies in Asia and Europe at both US bullying and US withdrawal. Canada is interested in bolstering transatlantic relations. The European Union and Latin America would benefit from better ties too, but the long-awaited trade deal between Brussels and the Mercosur bloc, due to be signed this month, has stalled again. Europe should make it a priority.
Sharp political divides within Latin America, as well as diverging interests between continents, will place limits on cooperation. But Mr Trump’s reckless and regressive behaviour is spurring changes that the US too may live to regret.
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