MIAMI — On January 3, 2026, U.S. military and federal law enforcement forces entered Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro at a military compound in Caracas, and flew him to New York to face narco-terrorism charges. Three days later, standing before reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump reached for a historical comparison.
“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal,” Trump said. “But we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’”
The U.S. National Security Strategy, published in November 2025, had already asserted a “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” — declaring the U.S. will assert its political, economic, and military will across the Western Hemisphere. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that the doctrine “is in effect and is stronger than ever.”
In naming the doctrine, Trump did something that most presidents avoid: he made the policy framework explicit. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 — which warned European powers against intervention in the Western Hemisphere — had served for two centuries as an implicit organizing principle of U.S. Latin American policy. The Donroe Doctrine is its explicit 21st-century successor, updated for a world in which the foreign powers being excluded are not European colonizers but Chinese investors, Russian energy companies, and Iranian proxy networks — and in which the enforcement mechanism is not diplomatic warning but direct military action.
Four months after the Venezuela operation, the doctrine’s full architecture is visible across the hemisphere. Understanding it — what it is, what it has done, what it threatens to do — is the essential context for every story coming out of Latin America in 2026.
The Return of History
The original Monroe Doctrine was articulated by President James Monroe in his December 1823 address to Congress. Its core claim was simple: the Western Hemisphere was the United States’ sphere of influence, and European powers were not welcome to expand their presence within it. It was a declaration made by a rising power staking a territorial claim — and it was enforced, for the first century of its existence, more through diplomatic pressure than military action.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary — asserting a U.S. right to intervene in Latin American countries to prevent European interference, particularly concerning debt repayments and internal instability. The corollary reflected Roosevelt’s Big Stick philosophy: diplomacy first, military force as a last resort.
Michael Cullinane, chair of Theodore Roosevelt studies at Dickinson State University, notes that in the case of Venezuela, “the lead-up to what Trump did is very similar to what Roosevelt did, but the ‘speak softly’ bit was missing.” Trump, he says, “didn’t conduct diplomacy before using the big stick.”
That inversion — force first, diplomacy as a follow-on — is the defining structural difference between the Donroe Doctrine and its predecessors. The Monroe and Roosevelt versions used the threat of force to deter intervention. The Donroe version uses the demonstration of force to establish dominance — and then uses the resulting leverage to extract economic, security, and political concessions from governments that have watched what happened to Maduro and drawn their own conclusions.
The Playbook in Action
The Donroe Doctrine is not a single policy. It is a toolkit applied differently across different countries depending on their strategic value, their alignment with Washington, and their vulnerability to specific forms of pressure. Sociedad Media has covered each of its applications in depth over the past month. Assembled together, they constitute a coherent regional strategy.
Venezuela — The Demonstration Case
The capture of Maduro was the doctrine’s inaugural act in the second Trump administration — and its most unambiguous statement of intent. Following the operation, the official State Department X account wrote:
“This is OUR Hemisphere and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened.”
The message was not directed only at Venezuela. It was directed at every government in the hemisphere that had been watching.
The post-Maduro transition under Delcy Rodríguez has since produced a cascade of compliance: the opening of Venezuela’s oil sector to U.S. companies, the lifting of OFAC sanctions against Rodríguez personally, the reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, and — most recently — the purge of eight Maduro-era Supreme Court justices and the beginnings of a Central Bank audit by a U.S.-contracted firm.
Whether this constitutes a genuine democratic transition or managed compliance with Washington’s minimum requirements is a question Venezuela’s democratic opposition — particularly María Corina Machado — has been asking loudly. What is not in question is that the post-Maduro government is operating within a framework set in Washington.
Argentina — The Aligned Partner
Javier Milei is the doctrine’s most enthusiastic regional endorser. Trump has repeatedly praised Milei, who was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after the 2024 election and came out in open support of the Maduro capture. The Trump administration’s support for Argentina has included a $20 billion financial assistance package.
The operational expression of that alignment — beyond the ideological affinity — has been visible this week. Milei signed Decree 264/2026, bypassing the Argentine Congress to authorize U.S. Armed Forces personnel onto Argentine soil for Operation Daga Atlántica as part of a joint exercise in the region. The USS Nimitz also conducted a naval PASSEX exercise in Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
A recently released Pentagon memo floated a review of U.S. diplomatic support for British Falklands sovereignty — the most significant geopolitical reward Washington could offer Buenos Aires short of formal recognition of the Argentine claim.
Earlier this month, Peter Thiel — co-founder of Palantir, the CIA-backed AI infrastructure company powering the Pentagon’s targeting systems — arrived in Buenos Aires, purchased a $12 million mansion, spent a week meeting President Milei’s inner circle, and sat down at the Casa Rosada, after which Argentina’s Congress had formally asked what topics were on the agenda.
Mexico — Pressure and Coexistence
Mexico occupies the most complex position in the doctrine’s architecture — too economically integrated with the United States to be treated as an adversary, but too sovereign and too large to be managed the way Ecuador or Paraguay can be managed.
The USMCA review — which must produce a formal decision by July 1 — is the primary lever Washington is using to extract concessions from Mexico City on trade, supply chain, and security matters. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Congress he would not recommend renewal without additional concessions.
The CIA operation in Chihuahua — where two agency officers and two Mexican AEI officials died in a car crash returning from a meth lab raid — exposed the degree to which U.S. intelligence operations in Mexico have been operating at the state level, bypassing federal channels that Washington regards as compromised by cartel penetration.
Sheinbaum’s diplomatic protest, the National Security Law investigation she opened, and her demand for an explanation have not produced a withdrawal of U.S. operational presence. They have produced a negotiation, which is, from Washington’s perspective, the intended outcome.
Brazil — The FTO Weapon
Brazil is the hemisphere’s largest democracy, largest economy, and most strategically significant country — and the Donroe Doctrine’s relationship with it is the most consequential and most fraught. The Trump administration is moving toward designating the PCC and Comando Vermelho as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The issue hands the Brazilian right a potent domestic weapon. Lula faces a choice: embrace the designation and appear subservient to Washington, or resist it and be painted as soft on narcoterrorism. Either way, the terms of the race are being set partly outside Brazil.
Officials in Brasília are watching the American playbook in Venezuela with considerable alarm — seeing a familiar sequence: designate groups as narco-terrorists, impose financial sanctions, and then act.
The FTO designation is not only a security policy. It is a pressure tool aimed at shaping Brazil’s October 2026 election — and both governments know it.
Cuba — The Blockade and the Negotiation
The Cuba fuel blockade — the first effective blockade of the island since the Cuban Missile Crisis — has exacerbated internal upheaval on the island, more frequent national blackouts, paralyzed hospitals, fuel rationing, and suspended tourism flights. It has also produced the first U.S. government delegation to visit Cuba since 2016 — a State Department team that flew to Havana on April 10 and met with Raúl Castro’s grandson to lay out Washington’s conditions: economic liberalization, release of political prisoners, Starlink terminals, and compensation for confiscated U.S. assets.
Cuba confirmed the talks but has not accepted the terms. Trump has continued to threaten military action, calling Cuba “next” after Venezuela and Iran.
Colombia and Ecuador — Pressure from Multiple Directions
Colombia under Petro has been the Donroe Doctrine’s most explicit critic — Petro condemned the Venezuela operation, raised the FTO designation question, and has maintained the most independent foreign policy of any major South American leader.
In October 2025, Trump accused Petro of being “an illegal drug dealer” and cut off diplomatic aid to Colombia. Since then, Trump has directed the military to strike alleged drug trafficking vessels along Colombia’s coasts.
Ecuador, by contrast, has aligned — inviting U.S. joint operations, opening its territory to American forces, and positioning itself as the region’s most cooperative security partner after Argentina. The contrast between Quito and Bogotá defines the choice the doctrine is presenting to every government in the hemisphere: alignment and reward, or resistance and pressure.
What China Makes of it
The Donroe Doctrine is not primarily about Venezuela, Cuba, or any individual country. It is about China. The Trump administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy identifies “non-Hemispheric competitors” as a threat to the Americas — language Beijing recognizes as targeting Chinese influence in the region.
Official Chinese diplomatic analysis, on the other hand, warns that the Trump Corollary forces Latin American nations to choose between sovereignty and development.
Twenty-two Latin American countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Venezuela operation exposed this presence as vulnerable to U.S. military power: despite significant investment and the highest diplomatic designation, Venezuela lies over 8,000 miles from China, beyond Beijing’s force projection capabilities and current risk appetite. Only hours before the January 3 strike, Maduro met with China’s Special Envoy for Latin American Affairs. When the operation began, Beijing offered only diplomatic condemnation and advised its citizens to avoid traveling to Venezuela.
The strategic calculation the doctrine is forcing on Latin American governments is precisely this asymmetry: China can offer investment, infrastructure, and market access. The United States can offer both investment and security guarantees — or impose military and economic consequences. For governments that must manage both relationships simultaneously, the January 3 demonstration has clarified the cost of choosing the wrong side at the wrong moment.
The View From Miami
Miami is not a passive observer of the Donroe Doctrine. It is one of its primary instruments.
The city is the financial hub through which Venezuelan oil revenues now flow under the post-Maduro framework. It is the home of the Cuban exile community, whose political influence shaped decades of U.S. Cuba policy and whose support for a harder line on Havana is directly reflected in the blockade.
It is the city where Milei’s Argentine supporters celebrate Operation Daga Atlántica and the Falklands memo as the beginning of a new chapter. It is the base from which Peter Thiel’s associates are scouting additional Buenos Aires properties, and the headquarters of the Inter-American Press Association, which ranked the United States itself as a country with press freedom restrictions in 2025 — a reminder that the doctrine’s enforcement apparatus has domestic as well as regional dimensions.
The Miami Latino communities that Sociedad Media covers are not simply audiences for the Donroe Doctrine. They are constituencies that shape it, benefit from it, are complicated by it, and will live with its impacts long after the Trump administration that named it has ended.
What the Doctrine Cannot Do
The Donroe Doctrine has demonstrated a capacity to force compliance, install aligned governments, and restructure bilateral relationships in ways that would have seemed implausible two years ago. It has also demonstrated the limits of military and economic coercion as tools of lasting regional transformation.
Venezuela under Rodríguez is complying with Washington’s minimum requirements while preserving the essential architecture of the Chavista system — the PSUV, the military command structure, the institutional framework — under new management. Cuba is negotiating while the blockade continues, giving neither ground nor concession on the core political demands. Brazil is resisting FTO designation while offering bilateral security cooperation as a substitute. And Colombia is absorbing U.S. military pressure while pursuing an independent foreign policy.
Many of the governments that have aligned with Washington have done so because the cost of resistance is too high — not because they share the doctrine’s vision of hemispheric order.
When the enforcement pressure eases and when the Trump administration ends, when the next crisis demands attention elsewhere and when the cost of sustaining coercive pressure in Latin America becomes too much for future administrations in Washington, the question of what the Donroe Doctrine actually built in Latin America will become urgent. For now, the Trump administration will answer: security.
What is clear is that the hemisphere has been fundamentally reorganized by it, and that from Miami, where the Latino communities of Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, and a dozen other countries are watching their home countries navigate this moment, the stakes could not be higher.
Sociedad Media covers U.S.-Latin America relations, the Donroe Doctrine, and the political transformations reshaping the hemisphere from Miami. For tips and reporting, contact info@sociedadmedia.com
