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During the press conference in which he celebrated the attack in Venezuela, Donald Trump cited a nineteenth-century principle known as the “Monroe doctrine”, claiming that his administration has overcome and updated it. The Monroe Doctrine dates back to 1823, was named after President James Monroe and stated that the United States should have unchallenged supremacy over the Western Hemisphere, i.e. de facto over the Americas. Trump has argued that the United States is restoring this supremacy.
It is not the first time that Trump has brought up this doctrine, which is mostly known to historians. His administration is explicitly inspired by it and says it is applying an updated version, which on Saturday Trump called with the same name used by analysts and commentators: “Donroe”, a portmanteau between his name and Monroe. The term had been coined by the tabloid New York Post in a cover from a year ago, and has had some success in the media. Trump and his allies appear to have appreciated this.
A return to the “Monroe doctrine”, or “Donroe” in this renewed version, has been talked about for months, due to Trump’s expansionist aims and other operations of the US armed forces (we’ll return to it shortly).
Trump also remembered it on December 2, because it was 252 years since the original declaration. But the doctrine was also mentioned in the new National Security Strategy, the programmatic document that serves to communicate the foreign and security policy priorities of the United States, which had been discussed above all due to criticism of Europe.
A portrait of President James Monroe in the Oval Office of the White House, in an April photo (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The document theorises the addition of a “Trump corollary” to the doctrine, precisely saying that the United States intends to restore it. The Wall Street Journal he explained that Monroe’s doctrine looked outwards, because it addressed the European powers by rejecting their interference in the American continent, while Trump’s was internal, i.e. it considered the whole region as an extension of the United States, whose government considered itself authorized to strike its enemies.
US analysts considered Saturday’s attack in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, and the exceptional military deployment around the country before it, the most striking example of this new doctrine. In recent months, and in hindsight throughout the past year, however, there had been several other tests of this approach, which marks a return to the past after decades of progressive US disengagement in Latin America.
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As for the American continent, 2025 was the year of Trump’s expansionist aims on Greenland, which led to tensions with Denmark, of whose Kingdom the enormous island is part. Trump has not ruled out the use of force to occupy it, as well as the Panama Canal, which he would like to regain control of. Trump also spoke of the possibility of annexing Canada, belittling it as “the 51st US state”, and on a symbolic level he focused on changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America”.
The cover of New York Post who had coined the term “Donroe doctrine”
Furthermore, from a political point of view, Trump has meddled in several elections in Latin America, explicitly supporting right-wing candidates and threatening serious retaliation in the event of the victory of politicians he did not like.
The most recent case was the presidential elections in Honduras at the end of November, where in the end the conservative candidate Trump liked won. In the autumn, Trump intervened in the election campaign of the mid-term elections in Argentina, in favor of President Javier Milei, also with a 20 billion dollar plan to support the local currency. Trump had threatened to cut it off if Milei lost (he hadn’t).
Nayib Bukele, one of his allies in Latin America” width=”980″ height=”784″ srcset=”https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/04/1767527437-trump-bukele.jpg 980w, https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/04/400×320/1767527437-trump-bukele.jpg 400w, https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/04/680×544/1767527437-trump-bukele.jpg 680w, https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/04/768×614/1767527437-trump-bukele.jpg 768w, https://www.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/04/800×640/1767527437-trump-bukele.jpg 800w” sizes=”(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px”/>
Trump during a meeting with the authoritarian president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, one of his allies in Latin America (Daniel Torok/White House/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire)
Trump also used tariffs as a political tool against the Brazilian government, in an attempt to help former President Jair Bolsonaro during the trial that ended with his conviction. The United States even sanctioned one of the main judges of the trial, although in the end Brazil’s obstinacy in resisting Trump’s pressure worked.
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Outside the American continent, the United States has conducted a series of airstrikes and operations that contrast with the isolationist approach it has long advocated, especially during its first term, known as America First (“America First”). The most striking example was the bombing of Iran’s nuclear program last summer, with which the United States joined Israel’s 12-day war on Iran. Over the past year the United States has carried out airstrikes in Yemen, several times, and recently against the Islamic State in Syria and Nigeria.
During Saturday’s press conference, Trump also said “we are not afraid to have forces on the ground,” another contradiction to his promise to end U.S. military missions abroad. When reporters asked him how the bombings in Venezuela fit in with the approach America FirstTrump gave a rather evasive response, claiming that they served to surround the United States “with good neighbors.”
– Read also: Latin America is moving to the right