[Big read] The world recarved under the Donroe Doctrine

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.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’… Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

In the early morning of 3 January, multiple explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and the city plunged into darkness after the electrical supply was cut. Waves of military planes then flew over the city to destroy air defence systems. At the same time, US Delta Force troops entered Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s residence under the cover of darkness and quickly captured him before reporting back to US President Donald Trump, who was thousands of kilometres away. 

In the temporary operations room at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump watched the entire operation through bodycams worn by American soldiers. At the press conference held the following morning, he made the bold declaration above. 

“Donroe Doctrine” first appeared in the headlines of New York Post, Trump’s favourite right-wing newspaper, on 8 January this year. 

It is derived from the Monroe Doctrine proposed by the fifth US president, James Monroe, in 1823. At that time, many Latin American countries had gained independence from the colonial rule of Spain and Portugal, but there was the likelihood that the European powers would return as colonisers.

During his State of the Union Address, Monroe declared that no European power should attempt to colonise the Americas henceforth and warned Europe against interfering in regional affairs. 

The anti-colonial, defensive and isolationist doctrine empowered the US to police the western hemisphere during the 20th century and prevent the USSR from extending its sphere of influence into the US’s backyard during the Cold War era. With the end of the Cold War, the doctrine faded into history and in 2013, then US Secretary of State John Kerry stated, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” 

However, the long-forgotten term made a surprising return in the latest US National Security Strategy document that was published in November 2025: “After years of neglect, the US will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the western hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.”

Two centuries from its advent, Trump has imbued the anti-colonial foreign policy with new meaning, naming it the Donroe Doctrine. During the 3 January press conference, he used this highly personalised term for the first time.  

While Donroe Doctrine is not backed by official documents or legislation, it is more confrontational and practical. Instead of diplomatic measures, Trump opted for an open, direct and military approach to declare “sovereign” control over Latin America through the use of force. 

Trump is certainly not one to shy away from this approach. In a New York Times interview published on 9 January, in response to questioning of whether there were any limits on his global powers, he stated “My own morality. My own mind. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.”

James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (NTU) S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), told Lianhe Zaobao that Trump is “more candid” than past US presidents.

He said, “When his predecessors intervened in the country, it was to promote democracy, human rights, those were the issues that were raised. Donald Trump is blunt about it. This is about dominance. ‘This is our hemisphere, and we are going to dominate it.’”

The capture of Maduro is very likely just the beginning. During a 4 January interview, Trump said a military operation targeting Venezuela’s neighbour, Colombia, “sounds good” and that its president, Gustavo Petro, is “not going to be doing it for very long”; he also assessed that Cuba “looks like it’s going down”, and that the US is “gonna have to do something” about Mexico. 

When interviewed, Elizabeth Dickinson, deputy director of Latin America and the Caribbean for International Crisis Group (ICG), an NGO headquartered in Brussels, said that this is the clearest example of the US reasserting its supremacy in the western hemisphere. 

She said, “This is a clear message to regional countries that the US believes it has a right to organise the region around its own interests and assert its military, both capability and willingness to do so.”

Even though the Trump administration has used tariffs, economic sanctions and other means to threaten politically divergent countries, the usage of military force is on an entirely different level and more oppressive. Trump hopes that the arrest of Maduro can have a domino effect and exert greater pressure on governments he deemed to be “disobedient”. 

Dickinson said, “That is somewhat a chilling message across the region that the leaders in Latin America must either get in line with Trump’s policy or face this type of repercussion.”

There are two totally different camps in Latin America in terms of response to the capture of Maduro.  

Left-leaning governments in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and other countries criticised it for being a “dangerous precedent” and warned the US against “controlling the Venezuelan government, seizing administrative control, or plundering the country’s natural and strategic resources.”

But the right-leaning Argentinian President Javier Milei has praised the move and posted on X, “There are no half measures or grey areas here. You are either on the side of GOOD, or you are on the side of EVIL”.

The majority of Latin American countries did not take further actions beyond condemning Trump’s move, probably because the US is the region’s most important trading partner or they could have been cowed by Trump’s shock tactics. In fact, most of them tried to defuse the tension.

When asked about Trump’s intentions to bomb Mexican cartels that traffic fentanyl into the US on 5 January, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum brushed aside concerns over a US invasion and said,  “I don’t even think it’s something they (the White House) are taking very seriously.”

Latin American giant, Brazil, also did not condemn Trump for his threats towards Colombia and Mexico.  

ICG’s Dickinson noted, “I am not sure we can expect a unified response in the short term because of that political polarisation and because the coercive power of the US is so strong. Everyone’s doing a little bit of balancing calculations and how they respond to this.”

Regardless of their political leanings, Trump’s actions have left Latin American countries feeling uneasy. Dickinson pointed out that Maduro refused to step down after losing the 2024 elections, so few countries recognised the legitimacy of his presidency. 

“Few have objected to the fact that he left office; however, the question is how that happened, and here I think we see a lot of alarm and concern from regional countries,” she said.

For Trump, implementing the Donroe Doctrine can also bring considerable economic benefits. With the largest oil reserves globally, Trump has often emphasised the importance of Venezuelan oil to the US. However, analysts feel that the economic upside of Trump’s actions is still unclear.  

When interviewed, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin said, “It will take several years to increase Venezuelan oil production to any great extent — and oil prices are now too low to induce most oil companies to invest billions of dollars in what may remain a violent, unstable nation.”

The Donroe Doctrine is also an attempt to forcefully reshape the global landscape.

When interviewed, Calvin Jillson, a political science professor at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) indicated that Trump seems to have a global vision in which regional hegemons hold sway, “the US in the Americas, Russia in Europe and China in Asia”.

If the US is clearly after hegemony in the western hemisphere, it will pay lesser attention to Asia, Europe and other regions. 

During a Lianhe Zaobao Global Heartbeat podcast, Wang Jiangyu, a professor at the School of Law and director of the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law at City University of Hong Kong, noted that Trump is a fan of power politics, so he is willing to share power with other regional hegemonies to implement the Donroe Doctrine.

“I will hold on to my region and you are free to dominate yours so long as you don’t hurt my interests.”

This kind of transaction-above-all, might-makes-right diplomacy undermines international law, leaves smaller nations perilously exposed, and risks feudalising and Balkanising international politics, making profoundly negative consequences a certainty.

In a world without a recognised champion of democracy, upholding democratic values will incur a far heavier cost. In a world where institutions and the rule of law are diminished, all nations will face greater risks and insecurity.

SMU’s Jillson said, “Trump loves to hear himself muse; he tends to forget that others with aggressive goals take confidence from his view that powerful nations have a right to their goals.”

“We will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.”

This is how the Donroe Doctrine is interpreted in the US’s latest national security strategy. Even though no countries were named, it is very easy to associate China and Russia as the perceived threats. 

Citing three unnamed people familiar with the matter, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) reported on 7 January that the Trump administration has notified the Venezuelan government that it must exclusively partner the US on oil production and is also demanding that Venezuela “kick out China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, and sever economic ties”.

RSIS’s Dorsey opines that the US’s intervention in Venezuela may seem like an attempt to reassert its dominance in Latin America but is actually a warning to China and Russia.

“Dominance entails multiple things, but one is that it doesn’t want to see countries in the region cozying up to the US’s adversaries, which include Russia and China,” he said.

However, Latin America is of significant interest to China. Over the past few decades, it has invested in infrastructure, trade, and multiple industries regionally. At the same time, China is also enhancing cooperation in policing and security with the region, expanding both its economic and political influence.

Dorsey added, “China has heavily invested in Latin America, and Venezuela was an important launching pad in the region for them. So obviously, a Venezuela that is controlled or under the tutelage of the US is going to be to China’s disadvantage.”

Trump’s move tells China that the US remains the only major power in the region despite the hard work China has put in. Following this, Latin American countries will also be more careful about cooperating with China.

Both China and Russia have strongly condemned the US’s military action. China calls it “unilateral, illegal and bullying acts” but stopped short of labelling it “an invasion”.

Russia’s response is even more nuanced. While the Russian foreign ministry condemned the “act of armed aggression”, Russia President Vladimir Putin did not comment on the matter. However,  during an interview with Russian news agency TASS, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, “Trump and his team have been rigidly defending US national interests, both political and economic.”

Analysts opined that Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has both upsides and downsides for China and Russia. Both major powers are seeking to establish their leadership in their respective regions and to expand their territories both on land and at sea; amid the uncertainty, they see an opportunity to achieve their aims.

The Chinese government has long accused the US of deploying military vessels in the South China Sea and interfering in Taiwan. If the US shifts its focus to the western hemisphere, China will face less security pressure locally and enjoy greater freedom to wield its power.

After nearly four years at war, both Russia and Ukraine have still been unable to make any progress in their ceasefire negotiations. Trump’s public invasion of another sovereign nation will weaken his country’s moral position in criticising Russia’s behaviour, right up Putin’s alley. 

To RSIS’s Dorsey, US intervention in Venezuela and its threats towards other Latin American countries provide a precedent for both China and Russia, bolstering their confidence in claiming regional dominance.

He added, “Putin may well be thinking: if the US can go into Venezuela and snatch Maduro, then what would stop Russia from apprehending Zelenskyy on charges of being a Nazi and taking him to Russia to stand trial?”

Other than Cuba and Colombia, Greenland is similarly in danger. Trump has always insisted that the US needs control over the Danish autonomous territory for its own safety. 

Greenland is of great strategic value: its mineral deposits can potentially reshape the global supply chain, especially in rare earths that are key to future technology and military capabilities; its location in the Arctic Circle means that it is well positioned to become an important channel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as Arctic shipping routes become viable as a result of global warming. 

As Russia returns to the Arctic Circle and undertakes military expansion, and with China declaring itself a “near-Arctic state”, Greenland is strategically important.

While Trump claims that buying Greenland is the White House’s top option, he refuses to rule out the possibility of taking it by force, and this terrifies the EU.

During his New York Times interview, Trump was asked whether obtaining Greenland or preserving the NATO alliance was more important. Trump declined to answer but acknowledged that it “may be a choice” between the two. If the US seizes Greenland, it may spell the end of NATO.

When interviewed, Michael Singh, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute think tank, said, “A US military move against Greenland would represent an attack by one member of that alliance against another, which is unprecedented. This is perhaps Russia’s greatest geopolitical wish.”

However, taking Greenland is no easy matter. Any purchase will require the consent of its inhabitants, and for now, they are turned off by the tough talk from the US; Europe will also definitely unite to fight the US over this. 

Singh believes that Europe may resort to providing the US with greater military privileges in Greenland, “which they likely would have been willing to do without US threats — but so far Trump has dismissed such concessions as inadequate”.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “国际特稿：活捉马杜罗开启唐罗时代 特朗普：西半球我说了算”.

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