If you are wondering what the motivation or “logic” might be behind some of the more recent international atrocities it is time to dig deep in the “Doctrines” – the Doctrine of Discovery (1493), the Monroe Doctrine (1823), Manifest Destiny (1843) and most recently the Donroe Doctrine (circa 2025-26) named by US President Donald Trump, after he reached into the annals to try to prop up his administration’s dystopian policies.
While Canadians might consider the Monroe Doctrine as something belonging to a history class about the United States, it’s time to recognize that this Doctrine has in fact shaped the development of all countries in this hemisphere and beyond – and yes, a Doctrine that also shaped the development of Canada.
If you are wondering what has possessed Trump and his sidekicks to threaten to acquire Canada as the 51st state, or to acquire Greenland for US security reasons, or to bomb Venezuela and kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores, or bomb more than 50 fishing boats in the Caribbean, or to continue to justify suffocating sanctions against Cuba and blocking third countries from delivering oil, look no further than the President’s belief in the archaic Monroe Doctrine and its reformulated clone the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’
As I write, and with US President Trump continuing to bombard Iran, and to supply not-so-covert guidance and arms to Israel to destroy Gaza, and neutralize/destroy Lebanon, plans are well-underway for expansion of military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dubbed with names such as “Operation Southern Spear” — the operation that has so far led to the bombing of close to 50 fishing boats and the killing of 160 people since September 2025 due to unproven connections to drug cartels — the Trump administration continues to use the guise of controlling narco-traffickers to expand US control over the region.
This March 17 a US government document outlined Trump’s launch of “Operation Total Extermination” which has already led to bombings on the Ecuadorian border and into Colombia as part of the expansion of ‘Operation Southern Spear’. The U.S. administration has confirmed ongoing land attacks, one of which led to a March bombing of a dairy farm on the Ecuador/Colombia border as reported in this article.
Couple these events with Trump’s recent comment about taking Cuba and doing whatever he wants with it — along with his sharing of images that portray him as God healing the sick — and there is a huge need to understand this lunacy! Trump is trying to show us that he receives “divine” messages….akin to the beliefs espoused in ‘Manifest Destiny’.
It is becoming increasingly clear day by day, though we hear hardly a whisper about these events in traditional Canadian media outlets, that the application of Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” is well-underway.
Here is an update on the origins of the Monroe Doctrine and what this newly-coined “Donroe Doctrine” might actually mean for both North and South America these days. And stay tuned for a new twist that will steepen the current crisis along the way!
Harken back to 1823 and the initiation of the Monroe Doctrine through which the US Government proclaimed that it would not tolerate any further colonies or interference in the Americas by the great powers of Europe.
At that time, U.S. President James Monroe began to articulate and share this new policy which was initially interpreted positively by some countries and leaders.
The Monroe Doctrine came into being at a time when anti-colonialism against Europe and its empires was at an all time high. The colonies of North and South America no longer wanted to be vassal states of Europe. The United States was still a small and largely wild country – not yet an Empire – but rather a country trying to stave off future interference from Europe. The Monroe Doctrine was seen by Latin American leaders of the day as largely a good thing since it appeared to reinforce an anti-colonialist stance. Even Simon Bolivar at a meeting of international and Latin American leaders in 1826 in Colombia seemed to have been largely in favour.
Meanwhile a few short years later Bolivar’s thinking had changed dramatically as he noted that the Monroe Doctrine was much more about protecting the United States and its neo-colonial dominance in the region than it was about cooperating with sovereign nations to avoid European interference. Just three years later after the 1826 summit, Bolívar is quoted to have said: “The United States appears to be destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” Prescient!
Hot on the heels of the Monroe Doctrine, which aimed to keep Europe from further interference in the hemisphere, the decade of the 1840s spawned the US ideology known as Manifest Destiny, an overlapping ideology that promoted U.S. expansionism across the Americas. Basically, Manifest Destiny promotes the belief that the United States has been divinely ordained – and so it is its right to expand U.S. territory and to promote so-called democracy and capitalism across all of North and South America.
Meanwhile, in 2026, Trump is acting to revive these age-old practices via the ‘Donroe Doctrine’.
The US-based publication NACLA’s website is home to a series of podcasts titled Under the Shadow. The first podcast in the series is “The Beginning: Monroe and Migration” provides detail of the Monroe Doctrine and how it is at the root of a series of coups and regime changes, and CIA orchestrated disruptions undertaken by the United States throughout Central and Latin America. The list of countries that have witnessed and suffered these interventions based on application of the principles behind the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny is a lengthy one. Some countries have been through several US-backed interventions.
A few of these are: Mexico (1846, 1914, 1916); Haiti (1915); Dominican Republic (1916 & 1965); Honduras (major interventions in 1903, 1919, 2009); Guatemala (1954); Nicaragua (1912-33); Chile (1973); El Salvador (1980s); Grenada (1983); Panama (1989); and Bolivia (most recently 2019).
There have also been softer takeovers or interventions in countries such as Cuba prior to 1959. And there are, of course, the on-going activities or the recent threats from the US by Trump – threats that readers here are more than familiar with.
Meanwhile, as noted in Under the Shadow podcasts, there have also been several reports and even books showing the direct link between the migration patterns to the US by people fleeing brutal governments in Latin America and elsewhere and the U.S. imposed regime changes via military intervention or CIA-supported covert coups in several Latin America countries. Those countries where the US has intervened are also the countries from which the vast majority of migrants to the United States have come – the migrants that Trump and his ilk accuse of being behind the so-called “migration crisis”. Who created the crisis?
And so the impact of more than 200 years of the Monroe Doctrine is very much alive.
What does the Donroe Doctrine promise to add?
Both Monroe and Donroe Doctrines promise so-called liberty and freedom U.S. style. These days the guise is liberty from the drug cartels, while encouraging US military involvement to secure borders and territory.
On March 7, 2026 President Trump greeted the leaders of more than 13 countries (about half of the 33 countries in the region) with the exception of Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Colombia, among others. The meeting was called the “Shield of the Americas”. Among the countries attending were primarily right-wing governments from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and government representatives from a few others such as Guatemala and Peru.
So what is the “Shield of the Americas” initiative all about — apparently about creating an ‘Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition’ touted to be aimed at coordinating military and law enforcement efforts related to drug cartels, narco-terrorism and illegal migration.
Once again, the US is promoting peace through strength, working to enhance border security and security more generally throughout the western hemisphere, and pretty much promising to protect everybody by expanding US military activities in the region.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has made it clear on several occasions and also previous to this meeting that Mexico will cooperate in curtailing the drug cartels, but that it will absolutely not allow the US military into the country.
The “Shield of the Americas” Summit was Trump’s attempt to justify the actions against Venezuela, and Cuba and to justify future actions against Latin American states. It was his way of selling the “Donroe Doctrine” and a renewed Manifest Destiny.
All of this helps to understand how Trump might think that he has the “divine” right to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, including challenging the Pope and picturing himself in ‘saintliness’ garb. The sad part is that some countries are drinking the Kool-aid, too scared to speak-up.
Some progressive US media outlets are documenting the steps that Trump and his cabal are undertaking. This article from The Intercept provides additional detail and links to relevant US government documents.
If it wasn’t so sad and surreal, it might make a good Monty Python skit!
