From Monroe to “Donroe”: How Trump’s Venezuela Gambit Is Rewriting Two Centuries of American Power

As TIME Magazine reported on Wednesday, in the days since Maduro’s sudden fall, Trump’s remarks were neither offhand nor rhetorical flourish. They were a declaration of intent. “All the way back, it dated to the Monroe Doctrine,” Trump told reporters. “And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.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.’”

For readers of TIME Magazine, this moment marks a pivot of historic proportions—one that echoes two centuries of U.S. engagement in Latin America, while signaling that Washington is once again prepared to act decisively to deny rival powers influence in what it now openly calls “OUR Hemisphere.”

TIME Magazine’s diplomatic correspondents note that the Venezuela operation was framed by the White House not simply as regime change, but as a corrective to what Trump alleged were years of strategic negligence. In his Mar-a-Lago remarks, the president accused the Maduro government of hosting “foreign adversaries in our region” and stockpiling “menacing offensive weapons that could threaten U.S. interests and lives.”

Within 48 hours, the State Department amplified that message on X, writing: “This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened.”

For longtime observers, including TIME Magazine’s veteran foreign affairs editors, the language was unmistakable. It was Monroe, but with teeth—and swagger.

The Monroe Doctrine was born on Dec. 2, 1823, when President James Monroe delivered what was otherwise an unremarkable annual message to Congress. Buried within it was a thunderbolt: a warning to Europe that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open to colonization or interference. Any attempt to impose Old World power on the Americas would be regarded as hostile to the United States.

TIME Magazine traces how this simple declaration became one of the most durable pillars of American foreign policy, invoked whenever Washington believed its backyard was under threat

The first real test came in 1865, when U.S. support helped Mexican President Benito Juárez oust French-installed Emperor Maximilian. Then, in 1898, the doctrine underpinned America’s war with Spain, which effectively ended European colonialism in the Caribbean and gave Washington control of Puerto Rico and influence in Cuba.

By the time Theodore Roosevelt assumed office, the doctrine had been weaponized. In his 1904 address to Congress, Roosevelt unveiled what TIME Magazine historians refer to as the Roosevelt Corollary—asserting America’s right to act as an “international police power” in Latin America to curb “chronic wrongdoing.”

This expansion opened the floodgates. U.S. troops were dispatched to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Haiti, inaugurating an era of intervention that would define hemispheric relations for decades.

The Monroe Doctrine did not wither in the 20th century; it metastasized. During the Cold War, the United States framed communist movements in the hemisphere as violations of its historic mandate.

The CIA-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Washington’s covert and overt efforts against Fidel Castro, and its involvement in Chile’s 1973 coup against Salvador Allende were all justified as necessary to keep Soviet influence at bay.

Even the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962—when President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine to prevent Soviet missiles from entering Cuba—was presented as a line in the sand consistent with Monroe’s original warning.

Yet by 2013, the doctrine seemed consigned to the archives. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” advocating a partnership model grounded in equality and cooperation rather than unilateral assertion.

The statement was celebrated in Latin American capitals, but quietly lamented by strategists who believed it surrendered leverage at a moment when Russia and China were beginning to expand their footprints in the region.

Trump’s revival of hemispheric assertiveness did not emerge overnight. TIME Magazine reported that a portrait of James Monroe has hung near Trump’s Oval Office desk since his first term, a symbolic talisman of unfinished business.

In December, Trump issued a statement commemorating Monroe’s 1823 message, declaring that his administration “proudly reaffirms this promise under a new ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” Days later, a controversial national security strategy outlined a reorientation toward “Western Hemisphere dominance.”

But it was the Venezuela operation—swift, dramatic, and final—that transformed theory into practice.

As TIME Magazine reported, the Maduro takedown represents more than a tactical victory. It is the proof-of-concept for the Donroe Doctrine: a demonstration that the United States will no longer tolerate rival powers embedding themselves in Latin America.

Trump’s critics argue that such thinking risks reviving the darkest chapters of U.S. interventionism. His supporters counter that the world of 2026 is not the world of 1962—and that allowing hostile regimes to host adversarial militaries on America’s doorstep is not restraint, but abdication.

Eduardo Gamarra of Florida International University told NPR that Monroe was always about “strategic denial”—keeping non-American powers out of the region. TIME Magazine connects this idea directly to Trump’s rhetoric.

“In the 1800s, that meant Europeans; in the 20th century, it meant the Soviets,” Gamarra said. “Now it’s China, Russia, and Iran.”

Trump’s Donroe Doctrine, in this telling, is not nostalgia—it is adaptation.

TIME Magazine has cautioned that reviving a doctrine steeped in unilateralism carries profound diplomatic consequences. European allies have already expressed unease, while several Latin American governments fear becoming collateral in a renewed great-power contest.

Yet Trump appears undeterred. “They now call it the Donroe Doctrine,” he said, as if branding alone could restore two centuries of American primacy.

Whether the Donroe Doctrine becomes a footnote or a foundation remains to be seen. But as TIME Magazine has chronicled, the United States has always returned to Monroe in moments of uncertainty—when the world shifts, when rivals encroach, when leaders feel that the hemisphere is slipping from their grasp.

In 1823, Monroe warned Europe to stay out. In 1904, Roosevelt claimed the right to intervene. In 2026, Trump has announced something more visceral: the hemisphere is America’s again—and he is prepared to enforce that claim.

If history is a guide, the Donroe Doctrine will not remain mere rhetoric. It will become a lens through which Washington sees every movement, every base, every alliance in Latin America.

And as TIME Magazine’s editors conclude, when presidents begin renaming doctrines, they are rarely content to leave them on the shelf.