Trump Administration officials have frequently invoked the Monroe Doctrine, explaining the aggression toward Latin America.
Originally published in The Antagonist.
As the attacks on small vessels in the Caribbean off the coast of Latin America continue under the guise of targeting drug smugglers, the United States has yet to provide any evidence that it’s targeting anyone other than civilians. The false accusations about drug smuggling against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and now, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, alongside the militarized and hateful rhetoric toward Latinos, make it clear that this isn’t about “democracy.”
New reporting from Colombia shows that on September 15, the U.S. Navy fired on an incapacitated fishing vessel in Colombia’s territorial waters. The vessel was adrift and had it’s distress signal up due to engine failure, according to the report. The people on board were not drug smugglers, but fishermen in distress, in yet another case, out of an abundance of cases since Trump took office, that highlights the importance of due process, required by U.S. and international law.
Watch Señal Colombia’s (Signal Colombia), investigative report on the bombing of fishermen. The report is in Spanish, but YouTube offers auto-translated captions. It’s a must-watch.
Immediately after the report broke, President Petro publicly demanded answers from the U.S. government. President Donald Trump responded via a social media post on Truth Social that mispelled Colombia four times and was later edited. Trump loosely claimed President Petro was a “drug leader” and threatened to bomb Colombia while declaring that the U.S. would cut aid to the country. Colombia currently houses U.S. military assets as part of an aid agreement (Plan Colombia in 2000 and later replaced with Peace Colombia in 2017) to allegedly combat drug trafficking.
While some will argue that Plan Colombia was a success, it apparently had no effect on smuggling drugs out of the country as that has only grown with the U.S.’s presence.
In addition to the targeting of a fishing vessel in distress in Colombian Waters, the U.S. Navy also killed two fishermen from Trinidad and Tobago around the same time. These killings have raised many questions from voters in the U.S. and world leaders alike. However, the signals the administration is sending to the people of Latin America is one of a decision that has apparently been made: war is inevitable. Thus, putting the stability of the whole region at risk.
Maritime Safety, Only For the West
In late September, Secretary of State Marco Rubio co-hosted a ministerial meeting at the United Nations titled “Reinforcing Cooperation to Achieve a Secure and Stable Maritime Domain.” The meeting included Rubio’s counterparts from Australia, Estonia, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Romania, and the UK, among others.
“The meeting convened over 35 countries to discuss maritime security issues of shared concern, including upholding the freedoms of navigation and overflight as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, safeguarding shared maritime interests, and greater cooperation on combating common maritime threats,” reads a media note issued by the Department of State, Office of the Spokesperson
Rubio has made it abundantly clear that the only real concern for maritime safety and security is related to Western corporate interests and not much else. While the U.S. government typically never puts human life at the forefront of its foreign policy, the U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine and the bombing of boats while baselessly alleging they’re drug-smugglers akin to terrorists, make it more evident than at any other time in recent history.
The fashion in which the “narcoterrosist” label is thrown at leaders in Latin America is also being made obvious. If there’s one thing the Trump administration is doing well, it’s exposing how the U.S. imperialist war machine works. These actions are standard for the United States; however, they’re typically done in a much more covert and clandestine way. That is, behind the scenes. If caught, they’ll justify it later. Trump has made it all much more visible.
Enter the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is a foreign policy intitiative that was meant to warn Europe that the U.S. would defend the hemisphere from any neo-colonization efforts. The statement was written and dictated by President James Monroe to Congress in 1823. It argued that European powers were obligated to acknowledge and respect the Western hemisphere as solely the United States’ zone of interest. The doctrine was updated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 when European creditors threatened to collect their debts by force through armed interventions.
Roosevelt, like many presidents since, invoked the U.S.’s “international police power” in what is referred to as the Roosevelt Corrolary to the Monroe Doctrine. While these are never mentioned as a motivation factor in legacy news media or in the many conversations about the U.S.’s relationship with Latin America, the language used by both Monroe and Roosevelt is often invoked to assert that the U.S. has the authority to overthrow unfavorable governments in the entire region.
“…and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.,” reads the Roosevelt Corrolary, in part.
The Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary lay out how to oust an unfavorable leader or government. Using either privately-funded or government-funded media narratives, it’s easy to label a leader with every bad thing that they can, even inventing criminal-sounding allegations such as “narcoterrorists,” leading the corporate interests to label them dictators to justify sanctioning governments, crippling economies, and starving people. By only providing selected contexts, the corporate news ecosystem blames the targeted leader or government for their country’s struggles; creating portrayals surrounding human rights abuses. Corporate media bosses do this despite their participation in the U.S., starving the people in question.
Recently, Scott Bessent referred to the $40 billion bailout of Argentina as an “economic Monroe Doctrine.” He continued by saying, “Much better to use the heft of the U.S. economic power rather than have to use military power,” signaling somewhat of a taking of Argentina for a meager $40 billion. But when leaders aren’t as willing as Javier Milei is to sell their people out to U.S. corporate interests, that’s when “military power” enters the chat. Again, revealing their true intentions.
As pressure from foreign leaders demanding answers from the U.S. mounts, legacy media in the U.S. are already presenting the reports out of Colombia as speculative. Some use language suggesting that President Petro “accuses” the U.S. of killing Colombian fishermen and saying the strike “may have” killed Colombian citizens. They have not yet mentioned that the fishermen were attacked in Colombian waters and how the attacks are considered acts of war under international law.
The U.S. media has been carrying water for the Trump White House regarding these attacks, along with the ICE raids and the growing police state. The news media ecosystem is intentionally leaving out important contexts that are leading people to create false narratives. Corporate news has done this with immigration for years, and still does, by referring to Latino immigrants as “illegals” while never being able to define what an “illegal” is.
Corporate heels are doing it now by also whitewashing the horrendous impacts the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is having on Black people and their communities. As long as our media ecosystem is owned and operated by billionaires, the news stories you see mostly serve their interests. The narratives always benefit them, not you.
All of the exploitation, corruption, and theft related to what’s happening to nonwhite communities at home and abroad are connected. Right now, Latin American leaders are doing more to fight back than most leaders. It would behoove the reader to pay attention to Latin American leaders because the U.S. media is being awfully dismissive about them, a huge red flag.
*As of this writing, the U.S. has attacked another Colombian vessel in the Caribbean, and Trump continues to threaten Colombia and its President, Gustavo Petro, and the Colombian Ambassador to the U.S., Daniel Garcia-Pena, has been recalled to Colombia, according to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Additionally, despite the U.S. narrative on Venezuela falling apart, the White House has yet to back off attempting to foment a war.
Arturo is an anti-racist political nerd. He is an upcoming author, journalist, advocate for social justice, and a married father of three. He is a top writer on Medium and a regular contributor to several news media outlets. He writes educational and informative material about systemic racism, white supremacy, and racial injustice.
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