Trump revives Monroe Doctrine after Obama administration declared it dead
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President Donald Trump and his administration are reviving the Monroe Doctrine — more than a decade after former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, declared the centuries-old policy dead.
The reinstatement of the Monroe Doctrine, which sought to limit European influence in Latin America and protect U.S. influence in the region, comes as the Trump administration this month released its national security strategy that redirects U.S. attention to the Western Hemisphere in an intentional effort to better protect the U.S. homeland as part of the Trump administration’s crusade against the flow of drugs into the United States from Latin America.
“President Trump has prioritized enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine unlike any other president in decades,” White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “He was elected on his promise to eliminate the scourge of drug deaths in our country, including his commitment to securing the southern border and fighting cartels. He delivered on both fronts by stopping the flow of drugs by land and sea.”
A Venezuelan ship was destroyed in a US military strike off the coast of Venezuela on September 2, 2025. (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)
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“The president will continue to put Americans first by securing our hemisphere, protecting our homeland, and striking down designated narcoterrorists who bring deadly poison to our shores, just as he was elected to do,” Kelly said.
The Monroe Doctrine, first introduced in 1823 by then-President James Monroe, specifically warned European nations against further colonization in Central and South America. It was later used to justify U.S. actions in the region as an “international police power” under former President Theodore Roosevelt, according to the National Archives.
The Trump administration’s approach is a stark departure from the precedent set during the Obama administration, where Kerry tore long-standing policy to shreds. Then, Kerry argued that the policy was unnecessary as the United States sought a more equal relationship with Latin American countries – rather than one that relied on interventionism.
“The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” Kerry told the Organization of American States in 2013.
“The relationship that we seek and have worked hard to foster is not a declaration by the United States about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states,” Kerry said. “It’s about all our countries seeing each other as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues and adhering not to a doctrine, but to the decisions we make as partners to advance the values and interests we share.”
The Trump administration’s national security strategy explicitly calls for reviving the Monroe Doctrine as a means of reasserting American influence in the Western Hemisphere. The document calls the effort the “Trump corollary,” a nod to Roosevelt’s expansion of the original doctrine.
President Donald Trump attends a meeting with the White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, November 17, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
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“After years of neglect, the United States will reaffirm and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographic areas in the region,” the national security strategy states.
“We will deny non-hemispheric competitors the opportunity to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to possess or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere,” the document states. “This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and powerful restoration of American power and priorities consistent with American security interests.”
The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to cracking down on the entry of drugs into the United States and has designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as foreign terrorist organizations.
Additionally, Trump announced that he had declared the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro a foreign terrorist organization, as the Trump administration carried out more than 20 strikes in Latin American waters since September, targeting suspected drug boats.
“The illegitimate Maduro regime is using the oil from these stolen oil fields to self-finance drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping,” Trump said in a Dec. 16 social media post.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro attends a meeting at the National Assembly in Caracas, August 22, 2025. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)
The strikes put even more pressure on Maduro to resign, and Trump said on December 22 that he thought it would be “smart” for Maduro to leave his post. The Trump administration has regularly said it does not consider Maduro a legitimate head of state and claims he is the leader of a drug cartel.
Additionally, the strikes have drawn increased attention from Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. While some lawmakers initially questioned the legality of the strikes, scrutiny has intensified in recent weeks after reports emerged that a second strike was carried out on a ship that initially left survivors in September.
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For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. ; Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, introduced a war powers resolution on Dec. 3 to prohibit Trump from using U.S. armed forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela.
The Trump administration has regularly stated that it has the authority to carry out these attacks.
