“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot…they now call it ‘The Donroe Doctrine’.” – President Donald Trump
No, no and no, Mr. President. Nobody calls it “The Donroe Doctrine.”
In a press conference last Saturday, Trump laid out the jist of the strike on Venezuelan capital Caracas that was done and detailed with bluster the kidnapping of a sitting head of state. That head of state, Nicolas Maduro, is an awful individual and had to go, sure, but 1.) we went about it all wrong and 2.) why are we putting our nose into these things when we’ve got so much domestically over which to worry?
During his remarks, Trump summarized our military’s action in Venezuela as part of the “Donroe Doctrine,” and my historian brain that possesses an appreciation for the absurd alternated between wanting to vomit and uncontrollable laughter.
The whole “Donroe Doctrine” business is, in true Trumpian fashion, another way for our president to put his name on something, this being a portmanteau of his name and the Monroe Doctrine, which is a foreign policy precedent named after James Monroe.
For all of its faults, the 19th century measure kept European influence out of the Western Hemisphere, with the mindset that any nosing into our political affairs by foreign powers is taken to be a potentially hostile act against the United States.
With Trump’s penchant for carny barker-esque pronouncements that trumpet his mighty name above all else, this “Donroe Doctrine” business is, I guess, committing acts of war for his own entertainment purposes. In the wake of the Venezuelan action, Trump has mentioned other countries, such as Cuba, could be ripe for the picking, and he warned Colombian president Gustavo Petro to watch his derriere. And, of course, there’s that nonsense about Greenland that has inhabited much of the conversation recently.
If illicit drug exports were the real reason behind the Venezuelan invasion, as cited, initially, by the administration, then why don’t they go after the Mexican cartels?
The true reason likely owes more to the oil that is underneath Venezuela. Trump, who is not known for subtlety or nuance, made this clear in remarks after the strike, however some oil executives have warned that the country is not the potential liquid goldmine Trump thinks it is, unless significant changes were made.
Plus, if drugs were the main reason for invading Venezuela, why then, did Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez get a pardon from Trump? Hernandez, who once said he would “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” was convicted of conspiring to traffic more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. in March of 2024.
Perhaps the Venezuelan strike could be Trump’s own “Wag the Dog” moment. There is, after all, that pesky ongoing Epstein files saga, of which the White House is still in full denial mode. Whatever the reason(s), there are two sensible conclusions: 1.) Nicolas Maduro was horrible and needed to go and 2.) The way we went about removing and detaining him was wrong.
While Maduro’s repressive regime has been widely criticized, and Venezuela, in recent years, has become synonymous with what a country can become under socialist rule, with rampant human rights abuses, the seizing of its leader sets a troubling precedent, one that will carry broad, negative consequences.
The forcible removal of a foreign leader without the host nation’s consent is a blatant violation of the United Nations charter, which forbids member nations from using force against another state.
This sort of action will undoubtedly erode global trust in our country, but Trump seems to view impunity in such actions as entertainment.
In his comments to reporters, he said, “If you would’ve seen what I saw last night, you would’ve been very impressed,” describing the bombing of a foreign capital and the kidnapping of its leader as if it were the Super Bowl.
Any protracted political entanglements to result from this action are secondary to the entertainment value, I suppose. We are, after all, in the Jerry Springer phrase of politics.
