Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick—Trump’s Approach to the Americas

The U.S. May feature decided it no thirster wants to be the domain’s police officer, but the military operation that captured Venezuela’s autocratic president shows it is far more willing now to be the enforcer in its own hemisphere.

President Trump’s audacious decision to seize Nicolás Maduro from his Caracas compound and whisk him off to a New York court to on drugs and weapons charges"> stand trial on drugs and weapons charges heralds a new geopolitical strategy: The U.S. And the U.S. Only will dominate the Western Hemisphere.

For the Trump administration, that is Washington’s core interest, a vision laid out recently in its national-security strategy. In the wake of Maduro’s arrest, Trump has warned Colombia’s leftist president that he could be next, said Cuba’s regime was likely to fall soon of its own accord, and again raised the idea that the U.S. should control Greenland.

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump told reporters Monday. Hours later, the State Department used its X account to put out a picture of Trump emblazoned with the headline: “This is OUR hemisphere,” echoing Trump’s hard-edged rhetoric in an unusually blunt tone for the country’s diplomatic agency.

Call it the return of the “Big Stick” school of hemispheric relations, a throwback to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

The policy is pushing some Latin American governments to toe the U.S. Line. But it could result in pushback from Latin Americans who don’t want to see a return of U.S. Interventions in the region. It could also anger longtime U.S. Allies. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said any move by the U.S. On Greenland would mark the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization security alliance, a comment quickly backed up by the U.K. Government.

In 1904, frustrated with growing instability in Latin America, Roosevelt said he would modify the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that set out to claim American pre-eminence over the hemisphere and protect it from European meddling. Roosevelt went a step further: The U.S. Also reserved the right to intervene in the region’s internal affairs to make sure countries behaved responsibly and aligned with U.S. Interests—“an international police power.”

The policy led to yearslong occupations in Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, bringing American customs like baseball but sparking a wave of anti-American feeling in many Latin American countries that resented the interference. It was replaced in the early 1930s by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy, but its influence lingered.

Trump’s policy has since been dubbed by his allies as the “Donroe Doctrine.” The aim isn’t the Europeans, but any non-hemispheric actor, especially China and Russia. It also adopts Roosevelt’s arguments about the U.S.’s right to defend its interests.

As if to underscore the point, the military operation against Maduro happened only hours after a Chinese delegation led by Qiu Xiaoqi, the country’s special representative on Latin American affairs, met with him at the Miraflores presidential palace.

“China is deeply shocked and strongly condemns the U.S.’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said in an unusually strong tone.

The new U.S. Policy marks a dramatic shift after decades of largely benign neglect of its own hemisphere—the main focus was the drug war and economic cooperation—while Washington’s diplomatic and military might focused on far-off places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. During that time, China built up a huge presence in the region, becoming the top trading partner for countries like Brazil and a strategic ally for Venezuela—it helped bankroll the regime by buying its oil as Russia sold Caracas weaponry.

Under Trump’s second term, Latin America has suddenly shifted from strategic backwater to center stage.

The pivot to the Western Hemisphere has led to a surge in demand in Washington for Latin America expertise, from lobbying firms to intelligence agencies that had spent the past two decades focused on the Middle East. U.S. Southern Command, long an overlooked division of the U.S. Armed forces based in Miami, has suddenly found itself on the front lines with more resources and an expanded mission.

“If you’re going to have hemispheric defense, you’ve got to secure Latin America,” said Steve Bannon, an influential Trump ally and former White House adviser.

Trump has also filled the top ranks of his administration with Latin America expertise, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who has been the main architect of his approach to the region.

In some cases, Trump has directly interfered in elections in the region in an effort to cultivate politicians he sees as ideological allies. He pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to boost his conservative party ahead of last year’s presidential election and undercut the country’s leftist president, according to people involved in the effort. In Argentina, Trump explicitly tied a mass bailout to Argentine President Javier Milei’s victory in midterm elections: “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”

He also began his second term by repeatedly suggesting that he wanted to annex Canada as America’s 51st state.

An “Americas First” strategy makes strategic sense for Washington given the U.S. And China are girding for long-term confrontation, said Ryan Berg, Americas director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“Both countries are looking at more immediate neighborhoods, demanding more of their alliances, and becoming a lot more aggressive than we are accustomed to,” he said.

In recasting U.S. Dominance in Latin America as the country’s top national security concern, Trump officials have invoked the post-9/11 playbook. They have designated almost a dozen Latin American drug cartels and criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations, unlocking new counterterrorism authorities. By branding Latin American drug smugglers as the “al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” U.S. Officials have rallied domestic support for this more muscular foreign policy.

For countries in the region, the new policy will set off a scramble to adjust. Pro-U.S., and pro-Trump, leaders like Argentina’s Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele have fared well. The region’s two dictators—Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega—will face growing pressure, along with Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

A few months into his second term, Trump increasingly fixated on Venezuela and Colombia, which he saw as origins of immigrants and drugs to the U.S.

After the move against Maduro, Trump has said the Petro government could be next because Colombia is “producing a lot of drugs.” The country is the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Trump has told reporters a move against Colombia “sounds good to me.”

Petro, a 65-year-old former leftist guerrilla who has spoken of American designs on the region his entire adult life, has warned the U.S. Against any move on Colombia and, in a rambling missive on X, cast the U.S. Operation against Maduro as having “bloodily urinated on the sacred sovereignty of all of Latin America.”

Mexico has also come under growing pressure to curb its powerful drug cartels, while the Trump administration has pushed Panama to curb expanding Chinese influence and hasn’t ruled out using military force to reclaim the Panama Canal. Panama and the U.S. Have agreed to strengthen bilateral security cooperation.

For now, though, the focus remains on Venezuela. The Trump administration has said it would “run” Venezuela until there is a democratic transition, recover property and interests that Venezuela seized from U.S. Companies, and rebuild the oil industry there.

For the U.S., the potential upside is clear: increased oil supplies, fewer drugs and migrants heading north, and dislodging China, Russia and Iran from their beachhead in the region. Cuba, Venezuela’s biggest ally, also emerges weakened.

But there are big risks, too. A more assertive U.S. Will likely cause pushback across the region, because local people don’t want a return to unfettered U.S. Imperialism.

“It puts the region on edge,” said Michael Shifter, a scholar at Washington policy group the Inter-American Dialogue. “It hits a nerve in a region that has seen more than its share of military interventions. It’s a throwback to an era many thought had passed.”

Most countries and people across the region oppose Maduro; but they won’t want an unchecked U.S. Hegemon driven by its own interests and with no broader agenda, like democracy.

A critical variable is whether this leads to democracy. If it ends with Venezuela’s transition to democratic governance, that could provide moral cover for what might otherwise look like a grab of Venezuela’s oil resources. If it doesn’t, then other countries will be increasingly wary of the U.S.

There are also limits to U.S. Power in a changing world.

Last year Trump took a swing at Latin America’s giant, Brazil, announcing 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports and sanctioning judicial authorities after prosecutors charged Trump’s right-wing ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. The U.S. Wanted to keep Bolsonaro out of jail.

It didn’t work.

“Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions, and it will not take orders from anyone,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. The Supreme Court sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.

Trump quickly accepted defeat, dropping Bolsonaro almost as fast as he had embraced him.

“I told President Trump: ‘The power of words is more valuable than the power of weapons. They also cost less,’” da Silva said in December.

Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com, Juan Forero at juan.forero@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com

Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines
to 100 year archives.

---

---