\u201cIf any South American state misbehaves toward any European country,\u201d Roosevelt declared, \u201clet the European country spank it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spank it they did. Germany, acting with support from Great Britain and Italy, declared a blockade of Venezuela\u2019s ports, seized or disabled most of its small navy and shelled targets on the coast. Roosevelt quickly came to regret his acquiescence: The episode bolstered Germany\u2019s reputation as a rising global power, European creditors began receiving preferential treatment over their U.S. counterparts, and a defiant President Cipriano Castro remained in power.<\/p>\n
And so, thanks largely to Venezuela, America\u2019s famous \u201cbig stick<\/a>\u201d was born.<\/p>\n \u201cThe attitude of men like myself toward the weak and chaotic governments and people south of us is conditioned \u2026 on the theory that it is our duty, when it becomes absolutely inevitable, to police these countries in the interest of order and civilization,\u201d wrote the president in what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary<\/a>, the basis for countless U.S. invasions and other interventions in Latin America in the 20th century. In 1908, Roosevelt\u2019s last full year in office, Castro finally departed in a bloodless coup with Washington\u2019s backing, giving rise to a new and more authoritarian leader who was friendlier to U.S. interests.<\/p>\n As the old adage goes: History doesn\u2019t always repeat itself, but it does sometimes rhyme. Today, President Donald Trump\u2019s actions<\/a> in Venezuela, Mexico and elsewhere have prompted comparisons<\/a> to the more interventionist era of the 19th and 20th centuries, raising questions about what\u2014if anything\u2014history can teach us about what might happen next.<\/p>\n In recent months, as Trump built up his own flotilla off Venezuela\u2019s coast and then ordered the capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, I read or re-read classic works about the U.S.\u2019s long history in Latin America such as Beneath the United States<\/a> (1998, by Lars Schoultz) and Inevitable Revolutions<\/a> (1983, by Walter LaFeber), plus more modern entries including \u201cOur Hemisphere\u201d?<\/a> (2021, by Britta Crandall and Russell Crandall) and America, Am\u00e9rica<\/a> (2025, by Greg Grandin).<\/p>\n The purpose is not to try to dazzle the reader with a long litany of clever parallels, but to better understand why the U.S. has so often plunged headfirst into Latin American affairs; how such interventions often end; and how Trump\u2019s motivations and tactics may differ from those of his predecessors, either because times have changed or he is truly sui generis.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here then are four lessons that history might be able to teach us about the Trump Doctrine<\/a>:<\/p>\n Listening to Trump speak while reading all this history often felt like watching a split screen. The president\u2019s <\/p>\n declaration<\/a> in the hours after Maduro\u2019s capture that \u201cAmerican dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again\u201d recalls not only Roosevelt but James Polk, who in the 1840s led the Mexican-American War<\/a> and the incorporation of Texas, adding over 1 million square miles to U.S. territory; or William McKinley, who wrested control of Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spain (and raised tariffs) at the turn of the 20th century, and received a prominent mention from Trump in his second inaugural address.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the president\u2019s emphasis on the interests and grievances of U.S. energy companies in Venezuela echoes the so-called \u201cDollar Diplomacy<\/a>\u201d of William Taft. Trump\u2019s ultimately successful attempts to help his allies in 2025 elections in Honduras and Argentina were reminiscent of Woodrow Wilson\u2019s stated desire in the 1910s to \u201cteach the South American republics to elect good men.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n If the rhetoric is familiar, it\u2019s because many of the underlying ideas are older than the republic itself. As Grandin reminds us in America, Am\u00e9rica, U.S. merchants of the 18th century were able to sail down the Mississippi, across the Caribbean and up the Magdalena River into Colombia to sell their wares with almost total ease\u2014a small example of how Americans came to think of the Caribbean basin in particular as part of their \u201cnear abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s talk of renewed expansionism, expressed in his stated desire to \u201ctake back<\/a>\u201d the Panama Canal, and also acquire<\/a> Greenland, is also unmistakably American\u2014a trait that Alexis de Tocqueville saw as inseparable from the national character, as much about profit as \u201cthe love of the constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n For much of U.S. history, \u201cmanifest destiny\u201d seemed set to lead the country\u2019s borders not just west but south, an idea that inspired figures like William Walker, an American lawyer who in the 1850s declared himself president of Nicaragua<\/a>, briefly winning recognition from Washington. Francis P. Loomis, number two at the State Department under Theodore Roosevelt, reflected the thinking of his era when he said, \u201cI think it is our destiny to control more or less directly most all of the Latin American countries\u201d\u2014not just through annexation but by \u201cadministering their revenues,\u201d a concept Trump has embraced for post-Maduro Venezuela.\u00a0<\/p>\n A few U.S. presidents, such as John Quincy Adams in the 19th century or Warren Harding and Jimmy Carter in the 20th, showed little interest in exercising such power. But most did\u2014until relatively recently. Lyndon Johnson deployed more than 20,000 troops<\/a> to the Dominican Republic in 1965. As Joan Didion reminds us in her 1987 memoir Miami, Ronald Reagan was widely ridiculed by Cuban exiles for his inability to topple Fidel Castro, reflecting an enduring, much broader belief that Washington could accomplish anything in Latin America if it just tried hard enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n In retrospect, the exceptional period may prove to be the 30 years or so that followed the end of the Cold War<\/a>. Those years saw a relative emphasis on sovereignty and trade \u2013 and a drift of U.S. focus toward other regions like the Middle East, especially after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that many in Latin America saw as \u201cbenign neglect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Those days seem over, at least for now.<\/p>\n The high water mark of Washington\u2019s interventionism in the Americas came during the 1900s and 1910s, an era that saw the U.S occupy the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti (the latter two countries for more than 20 years), as well as support the creation of Panama (and its canal) and invade Mexico.<\/p>\n But all that was during a time when the nation was emboldened by its overwhelming victory in the Spanish-American War<\/a> of 1898 and the final conquest of the American West. Similarly, the renewed interventions of the 1950s and 60s in places like Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, as well as ambitious nation-building projects like John F. Kennedy\u2019s Alliance for Progress<\/a>, were overseen by the generation that emerged victorious from World War II<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Trump\u2019s era, the opposite seems to be true, with a nation still deeply averse to anything resembling the failed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to the operation that removed Maduro, some 70% of Americans said they were opposed<\/a> to the idea of military intervention in Venezuela. While the spectacular success of that raid may keep the doves at bay for a while, it\u2019s notable that\u2014at least at the time of writing\u2014Trump has committed to precisely zero American \u201cboots on the ground\u201d in Caracas or elsewhere.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s tone toward Latin America also appears to differ from his predecessors.<\/p>\n John Adams, the second president, wrote that \u201cthe people of South America are the most ignorant, the most bigoted, the most superstitious of all the Roman Catholics.\u201d Taft spoke of the \u201cmiserable\u2026 character of the governments of that continent\u201d and the \u201cright to knock their heads together.\u201d Henry Kissinger famously<\/a> said in 1970, regarding Chile, that \u201cI don\u2019t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.\u201d Other presidents were guided by grand principles, such as Wilson\u2019s goal of spreading democracy or McKinley\u2019s desire to \u201cuplift and civilize<\/a>\u201d Spain\u2019s former colonies.<\/p>\n Trump, by contrast, seems driven not by moralizing ambitions or any particular disdain toward Latin America\u2019s leaders, but by a comparatively narrow view of U.S. interests \u2013 namely, the need to reduce the flow of drugs and unauthorized migration into the U.S. Trump\u2019s desire to contain the influence of China in the Americas, while important, has not yet morphed into the overriding policy priority in the way that stopping the Soviets, Spaniards or Germans did for previous presidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n To what extent motive and tone truly matter remains to be seen. But they may help explain why Trump has been able to establish working relationships not just with his growing number of conservative allies in the region, but with leftist leaders like Brazil\u2019s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Mexico\u2019s Claudia Sheinbaum.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has been surprisingly respectful,\u201d a Brazilian official who has participated in calls with Trump told me. \u201cAt least, he hasn\u2019t treated us any worse than (he has) the Europeans.\u201d<\/p>\n SIX KEY U.S. ADMINISTRATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n 1817\u201325<\/p>\n James Monroe<\/p>\n Monroe outlined the region\u2019s most famous \u201cdoctrine,\u201d warning European powers against further colonization in the Western Hemisphere. As conceived by his administration, the doctrine was mainly defensive, asserting U.S. interests without committing to military intervention or regional management.<\/p>\n 1901\u201309<\/p>\n Theodore Roosevelt<\/p>\n Roosevelt dramatically expanded U.S. interventionism through the Roosevelt Corollary, claiming a U.S. right to act as a \u201cpolice power\u201d in Latin America. His presidency marked the shift from hemispheric warning to direct occupations and financial control, especially in the Caribbean and Central America.<\/p>\n 1909\u201313<\/p>\n William Howard Taft<\/p>\n The author of \u201cDollar Diplomacy,\u201d which saw Latin America primarily through the lens of trade and corporate interests\u2014and often used U.S. military force to support them. Attempted to create a protectorate in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n 1933\u201345<\/p>\n Franklin Delano Roosevelt<\/p>\n FDR reversed decades of military intervention with the Good Neighbor Policy, pledging non-interference and respect for sovereignty. Under his leadership, U.S. troops withdrew from occupied countries, and helped pave the way for Latin American countries to join the Allied cause in World War II.<\/p>\n 1961\u201363<\/p>\n John F. Kennedy<\/p>\n In the wake of the Cuban revolution, Kennedy aimed to contain communism through the Alliance for Progress, an ambitious economic development program. He also resorted to direct military action including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban blockade of 1962 that almost led to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n 1981\u201389<\/p>\n Ronald Reagan<\/p>\n The U.S. became deeply involved in wars in Central America, which Reagan saw as an integral part of the global fight against communism. His 1983 invasion of Grenada reaffirmed the U.S. willingness to use military force following the non-interventionist Jimmy Carter years.<\/p>\n Photos: Getty Images<\/p>\n While Trump often seems singularly unpredictable, the truth is that it\u2019s never been easy to anticipate how a White House will behave toward Latin America.<\/p>\n Even the most famous regional \u201cdoctrine\u201d of all, announced by President James Monroe in his State of the Union address of 1823, was greeted by confusion at the time\u2014and for decades afterward. The warning against foreign (then, European) interference was expressed in such obtuse fashion that, a century later, Wilson complained the doctrine \u201cescaped analysis.\u201d A presidential candidate of the 19th century mused that the Monroe Doctrine<\/a> \u201cmight be a good thing, if one could only find out what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n In modern times, observers have raced to parse Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy<\/a>, published in November. It contained an unusually lengthy and prominent section on the Western Hemisphere, declaring that Washington would \u201creadjust our global military presence\u201d to focus on the Americas, and also outlined a \u201cTrump Corollary<\/a>\u201d to the Monroe Doctrine, vowing to \u201cdeny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But history tells us such declarations tend to be written by people other than the president\u2014and reflect the views and disagreements of Cabinet officials more than any real-world governing philosophy. One reason the Monroe Doctrine confused early readers was because its authors, namely John Quincy Adams, Monroe\u2019s secretary of state (and future president himself), strongly believed the U.S. should not fill the void left behind by European powers in the Americas\u2014a fairly radical idea during that era, as well as this one.<\/p>\n Indeed, U.S. presidents have often openly contradicted themselves\u2014or, perhaps more charitably, evolved in the face of evidence. Even as Wilson oversaw the peak era of U.S. interventionism, he declared that \u201cIt does not lie with the American people to dictate to another people what their government should be.\u201d Theodore Roosevelt, in Schoultz\u2019s analysis, was much less enthusiastic about the big stick by the end of his presidency, telling an audience with regard to Cuba: \u201cI am seeking the very minimum of interference necessary to make them good.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Crandalls note in their book, even Reagan, the ultimate cold warrior, changed tack on Chile policy twice\u2014and was instrumental in convincing Augusto Pinochet to hold, and accept, a 1988 referendum that would lead to the end of his rule. Reagan\u2019s bet, which proved correct, was that Chile would be more stable once democracy had returned.<\/p>\n Latin America has spawned an outsized share of \u201cdoctrines\u201d over the years. History suggests most of them should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n And so we return to Venezuela one last time:\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1958, as Fidel Castro and his fellow rebels were gaining momentum in the mountains of Cuba, and the Communist threat seemed to be spreading throughout Latin America, Richard Nixon\u2014then Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s vice president\u2014agreed to undertake a regional goodwill tour.<\/p>\n It started well enough with stops in Argentina and Uruguay, but Nixon faced an angry crowd of students in Lima, and was then met by a booing, hissing crowd at the airport in Caracas. On his way to a wreath-laying at the tomb of Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar, Nixon\u2019s motorcade was stopped<\/a> by an angry crowd that smashed out the vehicles\u2019 windows. \u201cFor fourteen agonizing minutes,\u201d Schoultz wrote, \u201cNixon and his wife sat trapped in their separate limousines while the press captured an occurrence unique in U.S. history\u2014enraged demonstrators spitting on the vice president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Nixon\u2019s driver eventually guided the car over the highway\u2019s median and raced through opposing traffic to the safety of the U.S. embassy. But the incident in many ways presaged the difficulties that the U.S. would face throughout Latin America in the second half of the 20th century.\u00a0<\/p>\n Such events were often the product of local dynamics. But opposition to U.S. \u201cimperialism,\u201d past and present, clearly helped fuel the rise of leaders from Castro to Juan Domingo Per\u00f3n, Daniel Ortega, and Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. The consequences for U.S. policymakers and business interests were devastating.<\/p>\n Even the most hawkish U.S. officials recognized the seemingly inevitable cycle of intervention and backlash. Upon returning to Washington and addressing his peers in Eisenhower\u2019s Cabinet, Nixon blamed the Caracas incident on Communist agitators, but added: \u201cThe United States must not do anything that would support an impression that it is helping to protect the privileges of a few.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In today\u2019s rapidly evolving context, it\u2019s difficult to know where the parallels might begin and end. Polls suggest that people throughout Latin America were even more supportive of Trump\u2019s intervention than the public in the U.S. The hard, reflexively anti-American left of old seems to be in retreat all over the region, and Trump-aligned conservatives like Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast and Daniel Noboa have been winning recent elections. Yet polling by the Pew Research Center<\/a> and others has suggested that the image of the U.S. may have fallen since Trump\u2019s return, while China\u2019s is on the rise in parts of Latin America\u2014likely presaging at least some trouble in years to come.<\/p>\n There may also be a backlash within the U.S. itself. Key senators of the 1920s launched investigations into the U.S. occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and even held hearings in both countries. Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s \u201cGood Neighbor\u201d policy of the 1930s, which helped pave the way for Latin American countries to join the Allied cause in World War Two, was a direct counterreaction to the interventionism of the early 20th century. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In the final reading, there is probably no substitute for the observation by Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s own secretary of state, Elihu Root, made in 1905, about a year after the president announced his famously aggressive corollary:<\/p>\n \u201cThe South Americans now hate us, largely because they think we despise them and try to bully them,\u201d Root wrote a senator. \u201cI really like them and intend to show it. I think their friendship is really important to the United States, and that the best way to secure it is by treating them like gentlemen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to make a man your friend,\u201d he concluded, \u201cit does not pay to treat him like a yellow dog.\u201d<\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR Winter is the editor-in-chief of\u00a0Americas Quarterly and a seasoned analyst of Latin American politics, with more than 25 years following the region\u2019s ups and downs.<\/p>\n \t\t\tTags:<\/strong> Maduro<\/a>, Putin<\/a>, Russia<\/a>, Venezuela<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-514698450-1024x680.jpg\")
U.S. troops patrol the streets of St. George\u2019s, the capital of Grenada, in 1983.
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U.S. Army soldiers are posted outside a movie theater in the Dominican Republic, in 1965.
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Protesters in Caracas attack U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon\u2019s limousine in 1958.
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Brian WinterReading Time: 11 minutes<\/p>\n