Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler, December 19, 2025

President Donald Trump is flexing his Teddy Roosevelt moment. With the release of the National Security Strategy 2025, the administration has presented a global blueprint and guide for what’s described as America First Policies.

Rather than trying to cover all bases geographically, the policy has put forward a more focused if still very ambitious approach to the world, through a peace through strength policy. “Strength is the best deterrent,” the document stresses.

First and foremost, the Trump Administration addresses the long overlooked, some would say forgotten, Western Hemisphere most especially the Latin American region.

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.” It asserts.

“We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”

Plainly stated, Washington does not want other counties, especially China, involved in ongoing commercial and politically coercive acts in the Western Hemisphere.

A corollary being an extension of a previous idea, in this case the Monroe Doctrine, it refines and expands upon the original plan.

Such sentiments hark back to the Monroe Doctrine dating from 1823. President James Monroe established this key American position precisely to stop the expansion of any European territorial expansion in the Caribbean.

The Monroe Doctrine became a long-standing bulwark of American policy.

Thus the new Trump Corollary, is in itself an interesting update on President Teddy Roosevelt’s policy dating to the early 1900’s. Back then the U.S. was increasingly nervous about the gunboat diplomacy of Britain, Italy and Germany blockading Venezuelan ports. This long forgotten fracas was rooted in Venezuela’s unpaid debts to some European powers which in turn gave the Old World the excuse for muscle-flexing in Latin America.

Teddy Roosevelt became concerned that a crisis between Venezuela and its creditors could spark intervention in that nation by European powers.

In a message to Congress in December 1904, the “The Roosevelt Corollary” was established.

As President Roosevelt told Congress, “All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship.”

Teddy Roosevelt warned bluntly however, “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,” cites a National Archives record.

The new Trump policy expands, “We will enlist established friends in the Hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea. We will expand by cultivating and strengthening new partners while bolstering our own nation’s appeal as the Hemisphere’s economic and security partner of choice.”

The United States will prioritize commercial diplomacy. Yet the document concedes, ”Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse, given the political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors.” No specific countries are mentioned including Cuba or China.

“We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.”

Without question, the Administration will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, the document underscores. Again, no specific countries friend or foe are mentioned. But the U.S. has positioned a naval flotilla near Venezuela to enforce an oil blockade.

This deployment clearly concerns Venezuela, a country under the control of an authoritarian narco regime. Significantly democratic opposition leader Maria Corina Machado remains a respected figure who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. She was spirited out of hiding in Venezuela so that she could accept her prize in Norway.

Venezuela’s crisis has been brewing for a long time.

The recent regime-rigged election in 2024 delayed but did not derail freedom. During a powerful address Maria Machado told the Nobel audience, “what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: That to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom.” Indeed so.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]

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