President Trump moves swiftly to restore the integrity of the Wester Hemisphere.
The Monroe Doctrine was articulated in President James Monroe’s seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823. The European powers, according to Monroe, were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States’ sphere of interest.
At the time Monroe delivered his message to Congress, the United States was still a relatively minor player on the world stage. It clearly did not have the military or naval power to back up its assertion of unilateral control over the Western Hemisphere, and Monroe’s bold policy statement was largely ignored outside U.S. borders. In 1833, the United States did not invoke the Monroe Doctrine to oppose British occupation of the Falkland Islands; it also declined to act when Britain and France imposed a naval blockade against Argentina in 1845. But as the nation’s economic and military strength grew, it began backing up Monroe’s words with actions. When the Civil War drew to a close, the U.S. government supplied military and diplomatic support to Benito Juárez in Mexico, enabling his forces to overthrow the regime of Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government, in 1867.
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress contained the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Understandably, the United States has always taken a particular interest in its closest neighbors – the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Equally understandably, expressions of this concern have not always been favorably regarded by other American nations.
The Monroe Doctrine is the best-known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or the installation of puppet monarchs. The doctrine was conceived to meet major concerns of the moment, but it soon became a watchword of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was invoked in 1865 when the U.S. government exerted diplomatic and military pressure in support of the Mexican President Benito Juárez. This support enabled Juárez to lead a successful revolt against the Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government.
Almost 40 years later, in 1904, European creditors of a number of Latin American countries threatened armed intervention to collect debts. President Theodore Roosevelt promptly proclaimed the right of the United States to exercise an “international police power” to curb such “chronic wrongdoing,” in his so-called Roosevelt Corollary (or extension) to the Monroe Doctrine.
While the Monroe Doctrine’s message was designed to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt would strengthen its meaning to justify sending the United States into other countries of the Western Hemisphere. As a result, U.S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeans out. Other Latin American nations viewed these interventions with misgiving, and relations between the “great Colossus of the North” and its southern neighbors remained strained for many years.
In 1962, the Monroe Doctrine was invoked symbolically when the Soviet Union began to build missile-launching sites in Cuba. With the support of the Organization of American States, President John F. Kennedy threw a naval and air quarantine around the island. After several tense days, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and dismantle the sites. The new updated 21st Century Monroe Doctrine (Donroe Doctrine by President Donald J. Trump) may well look like the following global picture. The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ is Trump’s plan for the Western Hemisphere. The Donald Trump administration seeks to design the new hegemony and alignments from the Artic to the Antarctic. its obsolete air and missile bases in Turkey.[1]
The name America is derived from that of the Italian merchant and navigator Amerigo Vespucci, one of the earliest European explorers to visit the New World. Although at first the term America was applied only to the southern half of the continent, the designation soon came to encompass the entire landmass. Those portions that widened out north of the Isthmus of Panama became known as North America, and those that broadened to the south became known as South America. According to some authorities, North America begins not at the Isthmus of Panama but at the narrows of Tehuantepec, with the intervening region called Central America. Under such a definition, part of Mexico must be included in Central America, although that country lies mainly in North America proper. To overcome this anomaly, the whole of Mexico, together with Central and South American countries, may also be grouped under the name Latin America, with the United States and Canada being referred to as Anglo-America. This cultural division is very real, yet Mexico and Central America (including the Caribbean) are bound to the rest of North America by strong ties of physical geography. Greenland is also culturally divided from, but physically close to, North America. Some geographers characterize the area roughly from the southern border of the United States to the northern border of Columbia as Middle America, which differs from Central America because it includes Mexico. Some definitions of Middle America also include the West Indies.[2]
The Western Hemisphere must be aligned to protect the area and countries from the influence of China (CCP), its borders, essential and rare minerals, trade routes, mutual trade without tariffs, security arrangements and Democratic principles of governing. It is recommended that initiatives be pursued to engage Cuba to be a new territory of the United States as Puerto Rico is. The Panama Canal should be managed by the United States and Panama. Greenland as well to become a US territory. The treasures of materials in the Artic and Antarctica must be protected. Maybe Canada becomes a part of the United States. Many Canadians would support that especially the middle and Western provinces of Canada. There must be changes in Canada or they face a major evolution.
The Donroe Doctrine for a 21st Century Realignment of the Western Hemisphere
There will be changes in the Western Hemisphere in the years to come led by the United States. Changes are coming. What will they look like?
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[1] National Archives, Milestone Documents.
[2] Britannica , 2025
This column was published at Paul Vallely’s Substack
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