In 1823, US President James Monroe introduced his namesake doctrine, establishing that European powers should not interfere in or establish new colonies in the Americas, while the United States would refrain from intervening in European affairs.
More than two centuries later, the principle has taken on a very different meaning. Over time, Washington's interpretation evolved from a warning against European interference into a broader justification for US neo-imperialism across the Western Hemisphere, treating the Americas as its own playground, rather than a collective of sovereign countries.
This transformation took a significant step in 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the doctrine through the Roosevelt Corollary, asserting a US "right" to intervene in Latin American countries when Washington deemed it necessary, infringing on their independence, sovereignty, and decision-making.
Now, President Donald Trump has revived the Monroe Doctrine in full force as a guiding principle of US policy toward the Western Hemisphere, raising a question that has shaped Washington's relationship with Latin America for generations: Who gets to decide the future of the Americas?
Trump did not keep his revival of the Monroe Doctrine subtle. In his administration's National Security Strategy published in November of 2025, the document calls for a "Trump Corollary" to this principle, with page 16 stating, "After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”
Trump announced this Corollary in a December 2, 2025 message marking the Monroe Doctrine anniversary, declaring it “alive and well” and linking its revival to his administration's efforts to expand US influence across the hemisphere. He cited efforts to secure US access through the Panama Canal, reestablish American maritime dominance, combat drug trafficking networks, and curb migration.
The National Security Strategy goes further, pledging to prevent outside powers from influencing strategically important countries in the region. In practice, this approach could constrain Latin American countries' freedom to choose foreign investors and partners when those relationships conflict with Washington's strategic priorities.
The document states that Washington "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," which, in other words, means the US would affect Latin American countries' decisions about foreign investment, ownership, and security partnerships.
This crystallized in the Panama case. After Trump threatened to take back the Panama Canal and refused to rule out military force, his administration demanded that Panama reduce Chinese influence around the waterway.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rejected the demand, insisting that the canal belonged to Panama and that its sovereignty was not negotiable. The canal had come under full Panamanian control in 1999 under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
During a February 2025 visit, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Washington would take “measures necessary” if Panama failed to make immediate changes.
Those concerns included the operations of two ports by Hong Kong-based company CK Hutchison, although the canal itself remained under Panamanian administration. Following the meeting, Mulino announced that Panama would not renew its agreement with China's Belt and Road Initiative and would review arrangements involving Chinese businesses.
Cuba offers another example of Washington using its economic power to influence the decisions of other sovereign countries. On January 29, 2026, Trump signed an executive order authorizing additional tariffs on goods from countries that supply oil to Cuba, extending the economic pressure beyond Havana to governments that maintain energy tieswith the island. The order also allows the measures to be modified if Cuba or the affected countries take steps to align with US national-security and foreign-policy objectives.
Mexico, one of Cuba's major oil suppliers, was among the countries facing this dilemma. Following Trump's announcement, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government would seek a diplomatic solution while avoiding tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States.
With this, the US hits two birds with one stone: it exerts more pressure on Cuba's energy sector, which is struggling due to decades of sanctions, while affecting decision-making in Mexico, which has to choose between additional tariffs or maintaining a partnership with Havana.
In another passage, the NSS declares that Washington would use “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.”
The most dramatic example came in the January 3, 2026 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump alleges is leading the Cartel de los Soles and is involved in drug trafficking, with no evidence yet presented for these claims, which remain unproven in court.
This illustrates how the US would justify the use of force to impose political changes in a country through an action as extreme as abducting a President of said country.
The aggression also raises a separate question about Washington's willingness to use military force against a sitting Latin American president in pursuit of its political and security objectives, and how it can do this.
The use of force extended beyond Venezuela's leadership. Beginning in September 2025, US forces also carried out repeated strikes against boats they claimed were transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. By August 2026, the strikes had reportedly killed 223 people across 67 attacks, according to Associated Press reporting, all without any evidence presented.
The administration defended the strikes as part of its fight against drug-trafficking groups, but questions persisted over the evidence supporting individual targeting decisions and the legality of using lethal force against suspected traffickers without due process.
If Washington can classify alleged traffickers as targets in an armed conflict and carry out lethal strikes without bringing them before a court, how much room remains for conventional law enforcement and due process? Can the US classify anyone it wants as a narco-terrorist and carry out extrajudicial killings under the pretext?
The concerns became particularly concrete in Ecuador. In October 2026, Human Rights Watch reported that US forces had intercepted and destroyed eight Ecuadorian fishing vessels in August and September, alleging that they served as refuelling stations for drug-trafficking operations. Neither government had publicly disclosed compelling evidence linking individual crew members to criminal activity.
The legal questions extend beyond the evidence against individual crews. In November 2025, UN human rights experts warned that the repeated strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels appeared to lack a valid basis in self-defense or an armed conflict, and raised concerns over the absence of efforts to apprehend those targeted. The Trump administration's designation of its targets as “narco-terrorists” does not, by itself, resolve whether the use of lethal force against them is lawful.
The broader question, then, is who gets to decide when a Latin American country poses a threat to US security, and what Washington is entitled to do in response. If the United States can unilaterally determine who constitutes a threat and use military force to pursue its own assessment, the sovereignty of countries across the region risks becoming conditional on Washington's security priorities.
Even the seemingly friendly parts of this strategy have a darker underbelly to them, specifically where it says Washington will “reward and encourage the region’s governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy.” On the surface, this measure looks innocent, as alliances and partnerships are a natural part of politics. The issue rises when these incentives become a means of influencing political outcomes in a country.
Argentina may be the prime example of this measure. In October 2025, the Trump administration announced a $20 billion currency-swap arrangement to support Argentina's economy ahead of legislative elections. Trump subsequently tied continued US backing to the electoral performance of President Javier Milei's party, stating, “If he wins, we’re staying with him. And if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”
The episode illustrated how financial assistance can become entangled with a country's domestic political process when Washington links continued support to the electoral success of a government aligned with its interests. For a country facing economic instability like Argentina, the prospect of losing such support raises questions about how independently its political leadership can make decisions without considering the preferences of its most powerful partners.
While such a scenario may be unlikely given the close relationship between Trump and Milei, the arrangement raises questions about Argentina's room for independent decision-making. If Milei were to pursue domestic policies that conflicted with Washington's priorities, would his government risk losing US support? The possibility of such a consequence illustrates how tying financial assistance to political alignment can influence a country's domestic policy choices, even without direct intervention in its decision-making.
Brazil offers another example of Washington using its economic power to influence a sovereign country's domestic affairs. During Bolsonaro's presidency from 2019 to 2022, he cultivated a close relationship with Trump, aligning Brazil more closely with Washington's foreign policy. In 2019, Trump designated Brazil a major non-NATO ally, while the two leaders pledged to deepen cooperation on security, trade and regional affairs.
That political alignment resurfaced after Bolsonaro was convicted by Brazil's Supreme Court in September 2025 for plotting to overturn the results of the country's 2022 presidential election. Trump publicly defended his ally, denouncing the proceedings as a “witch hunt” and announcing tariffs that would raise duties on many Brazilian imports to 50%. His executive order explicitly cited Bolsonaro's prosecution and Brazil's judicial policies among the grounds for the measures.
The move went beyond expressing support for a political ally: Trump linked trade penalties against Brazil to a domestic judicial proceeding. Leveraging access to the US market over a case handled by Brazil's own institutions, Washington raised questions about the extent to which it was prepared to use its economic power to influence another country's internal affairs.
Trump's assertion of US dominance over the Western Hemisphere has not translated into broad support among Americans. Across several of the administration's actions in Latin America, public opposition has outpaced support.
In a January 2026 AP-NORC poll, 57% of Americans disapproved of Trump's handling of Venezuela, while 56% said he had gone too far in using the US military to intervene abroad. A separate Pew Research Center survey later that month found Americans divided over the initial military action against Nicolás Maduro, but 64% opposed sending US ground troops to Venezuela.
The objections were not limited to military intervention. A September 2025 AtlasIntel poll found that 56.6% of Americans opposed Trump's 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods when presented as a means of pressuring Brazil's judiciary over its investigation of former President Jair Bolsonaro, compared with 28.4% who supported them.
In February 2026, a YouGov poll found that 46% disapproved of the US blocking oil shipments to Cuba, while 28% approved. Earlier, a December 2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 48% opposed strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats without prior judicial authorization, compared with 34% who supported them.
The same pattern appeared when Washington's ambitions turned toward the Panama Canal. An August 2026 Economist/YouGov poll found that 58% opposed using force to take control of the canal. Meanwhile, an October 2025 Economist/YouGov poll found that a majority disapproved of providing financial assistance to stabilize Argentina's currency.
These polls measure different policies and cannot be treated as a single verdict on Trump's Latin America agenda. Taken together, however, they reveal a recurring gap between the administration's willingness to assert US power in the region and public support for some of the means it has chosen to do so.
But here lies the real problem for Trump's vision of American dominance: how much of this interventionist agenda do Americans themselves actually support? Is the public ready for a return to a more interventionist US role in Latin America, or does it still believe that the region's countries should determine their own political futures?
A January 2026 YouGov survey offers an important answer. 46% of Americans favoured a US policy of acting as a good neighbour and avoiding interference in Latin American countries' domestic affairs, compared with 27% who favoured military intervention to address serious wrongdoing.
And the unease was not confined to Latin America. An AP-NORC poll that month found that 61% disapproved of Trump's handling of foreign affairs. By October 2026, only 35% of Americans told Pew Research Center that they were confident in Trump's ability to make good foreign-policy decisions, down from 53% in November 2024.
There is a contradiction at the heart of Trump's vision of American dominance: as he seeks to expand Washington's reach across Latin America, his standing at home continues to weaken. With approval ratings falling and the 2026 midterms approaching, growing discontent with his presidency could threaten Republican control of Congress and complicate his ambitions across the hemisphere, and his foreign policy is playing a role in this decline.
Trump's declining approval ratings are increasingly putting Republicans under pressure ahead of the November midterm elections, and this decline is particularly striking when compared with the beginning of Trump's second term.
In February 2025, Pew Research Center found that 47% of Americans approved of his performance, while 51% disapproved. By October 2026, approval had fallen to 30%, with disapproval rising to 68%, bringing his rating close to the lowest point of his first presidency.
The dissatisfaction is translating into the congressional race: 44% of registered voters said they viewed their vote as a way to oppose Trump, compared with 19% who saw it as a vote of support for the president. The same survey put Democratic candidates ahead of Republicans by 44% to 36% in the general congressional vote.
The latest polling points to growing Democratic strength in the House race, while control of the Senate remains more uncertain. RealClearPolitics' polling average for September 28 to October 19 put Democrats ahead by 8.3 percentage points in the national congressional ballot, with 50.4% support compared with 42.1% for Republicans.
The Senate presents a tighter contest: a Pew Research Center survey found that 46% of Americans expected Democrats to take control, while 48% believed Republicans would retain their majority. Republicans currently hold 53 of the Senate's 100 seats.
The prospect of Democrats reclaiming the Senate has grown more credible as the electoral climate has shifted against Republicans, and the numbers behind that shift deserve real attention.
In the 2024 elections, Republican candidates led the aggregate House vote by nearly three percentage points. By September 2026, Democrats had opened an eight-point lead in the national congressional ballot, a swing of roughly 11 points toward the party.
That movement has reached the key Senate contests as well: October polling shows Democratic candidates leading in Republican-held states including Ohio and North Carolina, while the race in Texas remained closely contested.
RealClearPolling's averages showed Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown leading Republican Jon Husted in Ohio by 47.7% to 44.8%, based on polls through October 19. In North Carolina, Democrat Roy Cooper led Republican Michael Whatley by 50.6% to 40.7% in the average through October 20. Texas presented a tighter contest, with Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton by 48.3% to 46.8% in the average covering October 6 to 19.
These figures do not guarantee a Democratic victory in any of the races, but they show the party competing strongly in states that could prove important in determining control of the Senate. This is not a marginal drift but a genuine realignment of the electoral landscape, and it is unfolding in the very states that will decide control of the Senate.
A Democratic-controlled House would not automatically reverse Trump's policies, but it could force his administration to justify its use of military force, economic pressure, and political leverage across Latin America. They could also expose the legal and political assumptions behind decisions that affect countries whose sovereignty Washington is supposed to respect.
Ultimately, the question remains whether Washington has the right to shape the region's future or whether Latin American countries should determine their own political and economic paths without US interference.
The administration's military actions against Venezuela and suspected drug-smuggling boats, its pressure on Panama over Chinese influence, its tariffs against Brazil over the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, and its economic pressure on Cuba and its oil suppliers could all face greater congressional scrutiny.
Democrats could investigate the legal grounds for military action, question the use of economic coercion against sovereign governments, and demand explanations for decisions that affect the region's political and economic future. Immigration policy, too, could become a battleground, particularly where US enforcement measures involve Latin American governments.
Trump's revival of the Monroe Doctrine has brought the consequences of his interventionist foreign policy into sharper focus at home.
Opposition to his actions across Latin America forms part of a broader pattern of public discontent, reflected in falling approval ratings and growing electoral pressure on Republicans ahead of the November 2026 midterms. The same presidency seeking to expand Washington's influence abroad now faces mounting questions at home over the direction of its foreign policy and the costs of asserting American power.
The midterms could turn that discontent into a direct political constraint on Trump's regional ambitions. A Democratic-controlled Congress could subject military interventions, economic pressure, and financial leverage over Latin American countries to greater scrutiny. The election will not determine Latin America's future, but it could shape how freely Washington can attempt to influence it.
Ultimately, the Monroe Doctrine's revival has exposed the limits of treating US dominance as a "right" rather than a contested political ambition. Trump's approach has not only raised questions about the sovereignty of Latin American countries, but has also become part of a wider domestic debate over how American power should be exercised.
The fundamental issue is not simply whether Trump is reviving the Monroe Doctrine, but whether its claim to US primacy can be reconciled with Latin America's sovereignty. A region cannot determine its own future if its governments must continually account for the threat of American economic or military pressure.
The doctrine's future therefore rests on whether Washington continues to claim the authority to shape the hemisphere or accepts that Latin American countries have the right to decide their own political and economic paths.