The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy says it will “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”
The document says the United States will keep the Western Hemisphere “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets.”
It also says Washington will “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to own, control, or otherwise obtain strategic influence over any strategically vital asset.”
The same strategy says the United States will “reward and encourage political forces broadly aligned with our principles and strategy.”
It adds that “the terms of our assistance” should be “contingent on regional states’ willingness” to “wind down adversarial outside influence,” including influence tied to “ports and other infrastructure.”
ABC News reported that Trump has pitched the approach as a modernised hemispheric dominance doctrine and said “they now call it the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’”
The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian describes the Monroe Doctrine as centred on “separate spheres of influence,” “non-colonization,” and “non-intervention.”
The same Office of the Historian says the Roosevelt Corollary became the doctrine’s “greatest extension,” and that it “inverted the original meaning” as U.S. policy evolved toward intervention.
“Historically, Venezuela has been the pretext or the trigger for a lot of corollaries to the Monroe Doctrine,” historian Jay Sexton told the Associated Press.
Gretchen Murphy, a professor at the University of Texas, told AP that Roosevelt “policed them to make sure their governments acted in U.S. commercial and strategic interests.”
Murphy also told AP: “I think Trump is jumping on this familiar pattern.”
Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay said in a 4 January joint statement that they “express our deep concern and rejection” of “military actions carried out unilaterally in Venezuelan territory,” calling them contrary to the UN Charter’s prohibition on the “use and threat of force” and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Chile’s El Mostrador said the joint communiqué warned the US action “constitutes ‘an extremely dangerous precedent’” and urged a peaceful path “without external interference.”
The strategy’s first acute stress test came in Venezuela after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro and moved him to the United States for prosecution, an operation that was widely reported and then debated at the United Nations.
At a UN Security Council briefing on 5 January, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz told members the United States carried out “a surgical law enforcement operation facilitated by the U.S. military.”
Waltz told the Council the U.S. action targeted “two indicted fugitives of American justice,” referring to Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
He told the Council: “We’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation’s adversaries.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Council he was “deeply concerned” about “the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted.”
The same joint statement said Latin America and the Caribbean is a “zone of peace” built on “non-intervention,” and urged UN good offices to help “de-escalate tensions” and preserve regional peace.
UN experts, in an OHCHR statement dated 7 January, described the U.S. action as “a grave, manifest and deliberate violation of the most fundamental principles of international law.”
Those experts also said the “forcible abduction” of Maduro and his wife and the “unprovoked use of armed force” constituted “a clear breach of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter”
The UN Charter text says members must refrain from the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
Reuters reported that the U.S. defended the operation at the Council by citing Article 51 of the UN Charter, which concerns self-defence.
Article 51 says nothing in the Charter “shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs,” and it requires that measures taken in self-defence be reported to the Security Council.
The European External Action Service called for “calm and restraint” and said “the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld.”
The EU statement also said that “these challenges must be addressed through sustained cooperation in full respect of international law and the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares told Cadena SER that the Venezuela episode “sets a very dangerous precedent,” adding: “We will not resign ourselves to the law of the strongest prevailing.”
Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said it “underlines the absolute necessity of full respect for international law and the principles of the UN Charter.”
The OAS Secretary General, Albert Ramdin, told a special meeting of the Permanent Council that states share “adherence to international law and the inter-American legal framework,” including sovereignty and non-intervention principles.
Venezuela’s displacement crisis remains a region-wide factor in how governments weigh stability and migration, with UNHCR reporting that more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled and that most have remained in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Beyond Venezuela, the Strategy’s hemispheric section links U.S. objectives to cartel disruption, transnational crime, and pressure against “adversarial outside influence,” including control of “ports and other infrastructure.”
In Mexico, Trump told Fox News, “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water,” and said the U.S. would “start now hitting land with regard to the cartels.”
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has framed sovereignty as a red line in public responses to U.S. strike talk, saying in a morning press conference that “sovereignty is non-negotiable”
In remarks reported by Mexico’s La Jornada, Sheinbaum said: “negotiate, but there is something that is not up for negotiation and that is the independence and sovereignty of the homeland.”
On enforcement cooperation, the U.S. Department of Justice said the United States “took into custody 37 fugitives from Mexico” facing federal charges, after a transfer carried out the previous evening.
Attorney General Pam Bondi described the handover as “another landmark achievement” in the administration’s mission “to destroy the cartels,” according to the DOJ statement.
The DOJ said it was only the third time Mexico used its National Security Law to expel fugitives to the United States, and said it was the largest such transfer to date.
In Panama, the “strategically vital assets” language has been tested through canal politics, after Trump publicly warned: “We will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question.”
Panama’s presidency issued a statement rejecting that claim and saying: “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue to do so.”
The same Panamanian statement added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”
U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the canal dispute as a China-competition issue in remarks published by the U.S. Department of Defense, saying: “Together, we will take back the Panama Canal from China’s influence.”
A major ports transaction then became part of the same strategic conversation after CK Hutchison announced it had reached “in principle” agreements for the sale of interests in Panama Ports Company as part of a wider deal covering “43 ports comprising 199 berths in 23 countries.”
In the Caribbean and Central America, U.S. pressure has also been expressed through sanctions and conditionality, with the White House strategy explicitly tying assistance terms to reducing “adversarial outside influence” linked to infrastructure and logistics.
In Cuba, U.S. officials announced a plan to send $3 million in humanitarian aid, following Hurricane Melissa, through churches across the island while bypassing the Cuban government, CBS Miami reported.
At the briefing, Under Secretary of State Jeremy Lewin warned authorities against diversion of supplies, saying: “We will be watching.”
Lewin also invoked Rubio’s warning after the Venezuela operation, quoting him as saying: “don’t play games with this president.”
In Nicaragua, the release of detainees has been reported by multiple outlets, with the Associated Press describing the freeing of “dozens” of prisoners in January 2026.
The U.S. Embassy in Managua, in a public post, said: “Peace is only possible with freedom!” while calling for further releases.
In Honduras, the region’s election legitimacy disputes have intersected with U.S. signalling, with Reuters reporting that the National Electoral Council declared Nasry Asfura the winner on 24 December with 40.3% to 39.5% for Salvador Nasralla.
Rachel A. Schwartz, an assistant professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Center for the Americas at the University of Oklahoma, told SIN that the United States “looms very large” in Honduras under the second Trump administration.
Schwartz is the author of Undermining the State from Within: The Institutional Legacies of Civil War in Central America (Cambridge University Press, 2023), a book that examines institutions and post-conflict political dynamics across the region.
On Honduras, she said the current crisis is “a bit of both,” reflecting broader regional polarisation trends while also being “a particularly acute case” shaped by divisions that deepened after the 2009 coup.
On external influence, she said Trump’s decision to “weigh in on the contest” was “different than 15–20 years ago,” while adding it was “not clear” how much his statements shifted voter behaviour at scale.
She said remittances from the United States have become “more central” to the Honduran economy, and cited “anecdotal evidence” that some voters feared the situation for family in the US could affect remittance flows.
Christine J. Wade, Chair of Political Science at Washington College and Louis L. Goldstein ’35 Chair of Public Affairs, told SIN Honduras has “serious issues with the quality of elections.”
The same profile says she has served as an accredited election observer for presidential, legislative and local elections in the region.
Wade linked Honduras’s legitimacy disputes to “faulty systems” and “politicization within the CNE,” and she said the politicisation becomes especially combustible in a “polarized political environment.”
She added that “past fraud without accountability undermines public confidence in elections,” while noting it remained unclear whether new transmission software was compromised.
On political bargaining, she told SIN: “There’s always tactical maneuvering in Honduras,” and she described coalition-building as a routine feature of governance in a legislature split across the major parties.
Salvador Leyva, a PhD researcher at University of Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights, told SIN the Inter-American Commission and Court can issue “precautionary and provisional measures” to protect rights including freedom of association and expression, “personal integrity,” and “life” in post-election or protest-related crises.
He said the Commission’s Honduras country report in May 2024 assessed “democratic governability” and made recommendations on judicial independence and the autonomy of the Attorney General and Ombudsperson, which he said supports longer-term follow-up through annual reporting.
Leyva told SIN the system’s main limitation is enforcement, saying it “cannot enforce” decisions on states, and that backlash can include denouncing the American Convention on Human Rights or leaving the OAS.
On accountability, he told SIN early documentation matters most, including prompt witness testimonies and retaining official records such as arrest warrants and judgments, and he said chronological medical evidence can be critical where torture or ill-treatment is alleged.
The OAS General Secretariat said it “stands ready to assist efforts toward de-escalation and a peaceful, democratic, and sustainable solution to the benefit of the Venezuelan people,” in a 3 January statement on the Venezuela crisis.
In a 7 January OHCHR release, UN-appointed experts said the U.S. action “must not be viewed as an isolated incident,” describing it instead as part of a “broader and deeply troubling pattern” affecting “peace, international law and multilateral institutions.”
At a federal court hearing in New York on 5 January, Maduro declared: “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country,” according to AP reporting from the courtroom.
The U.S. State Department, in a public fact sheet on Maduro, said he was charged in the Southern District of New York in March 2020, including counts it described as “narco-terrorism” and cocaine-importation conspiracy offences.
In a State Department readout dated 8 January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio “thanked” OAS Secretary General Ramdin for providing “a forum for open exchange and constructive dialogue,” while “underscor[ing] the importance” of the OAS role amid the Venezuela crisis.
Chatham House said in a 4 January analysis that, to prevent the episode “turning into a precedent,” other states and international bodies would need to “identify the action as an infraction of the law and condemn it.”
