News that Nicolas Maduro was in U.S. custody within hours and without any American casualties did not simply change the leadership of Venezuela. It marked the end of an era in U.S. foreign policy and put into practice the new National Security Strategy.
That strategy emphasized an “America First” approach that focuses on strengthening the Western Hemisphere through a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Whatever name you give it, this return to the ancient and basic concept of maintaining a “sphere of influence” is the most important foreign policy shift since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Though attributed to President James Monroe, the concept of keeping the Americas safe for democracy (and under U.S. influence) was first advocated by Alexander Hamilton, while the broader concept of the need for a regional “buffer zone” with your enemies dates back to antiquity. It stands to reason: An enemy at your border, regardless of the enemy’s size, is a launchpad for greater enemies.
After the Cold War, the drunkenness of victory made us forget this principle. The West was so confident in its superiority that some authors even wrote about humanity having reached “the end of history.” We believed, equivocally, that after the Soviets, the world would turn to democracy and even China — a then poverty-stricken state — would change by exposure to capitalism (without emphasizing democracy).
The United States erroneously calculated that Cuba would not require any push; it would fall like a domino. As such, we abandoned the Americas and granted China new economic and trade benefits that have made it the juggernaut it is today.
Predictably, this led to a flight of manufacturing jobs from the Americas to China, further economic collapse in many countries in the region, depleted already weak government coffers, and made it easier for well-financed organized crime to compete with or supplant government authority. This led to further spikes in immigration. Meanwhile, our adversaries did not forget the basic concept of a sphere of influence or buffer zone, and so a newly empowered China and a recovering Russia — aligned with Cuba — began to fill the void left by American abandonment of the region.
The consequences began with Venezuela falling in 1999, and Nicaragua falling back to our enemies soon after, followed by others more willing to defy U.S. interests while profiting from U.S. aid. The new dictatorships blended into an international crime syndicate funneling people and narcotics to the United States as policy. That’s why the majority of those killed last week in Venezuela were not actually Venezuelan.
By the time Donald Trump ran for office in 2016, immigration was out of control, and China had gained a significant influence in the region by offering to finance and build infrastructure projects (often of potential military use and subject to Chinese software). Equally alarming, China and Russia had permanent espionage and eavesdropping bases in Cuba.
Ignoring history only ensures its repeat. For this reason, in 2023, I advocated for the return to a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine and argued that such a hawkish view on the Americas aligned perfectly with Trump’s America First policy. It was not a new discovery, but an observation of how far America had deviated from an ancient principle of international relations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio brought this principle back into U.S. foreign policy. But Rubio’s push for the democratization of the region is not based solely on ideological reasons. It is a pragmatic recognition that dictatorships will always treat a prosperous American democracy as a threat because America, even if it pursues isolation, is an inconvenient reminder to their subjects that freedom and prosperity are possible. That reasoning augments the policy’s long-term effect on the region.
Trump is not the first president to face these issues, but he is the first to prioritize it over political considerations, and that is the key. History often ignores the minor political considerations of the time and judges leaders by the historic effect of their decisions. By that standard, Trump will be remembered historically as the most effective foreign policy president since the collapse of the Soviet Union, so long as, when the dust settles, the region is run by enduring allied democracies.