Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: A positive proposal

Part 2 of a series (Part 1 is here)

A Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine will provide the worldview and vision on which to build policies to address new and ignored threats in the hemisphere from Greenland to Antarctica.

In foreign policy and national defense, a “doctrine” is a stated principle to guide the nation’s actions to address a geopolitical challenge. Generally it reflects a strategic stance, sets national priorities, signals intentions to allies and foes, and since World War II, has guided interagency thinking.

Some of the key presidential doctrines beyond Monroe are the Truman Doctrine to contain Communism, the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine to build allies against Soviet expansion in the Middle East, the short-lived 1961 Kennedy Doctrine to counter Communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere, and the 1985 Reagan Doctrine to roll back Soviet Communism.

A “corollary” to a doctrine is an official extension or interpretation. It does not replace or contradict the original, but builds logically upon the existing principles with new applications for new circumstances. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, issued by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, is such an example.

A modification or policy change to a doctrine is one that alters or departs from prior doctrine. The 2012 Obama repudiation of the Monroe Doctrine, that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” is an extreme but historic illustration.

President Donald Trump has expressed strong support for the Monroe Doctrine and for President Teddy Roosevelt. Thus his approach to the security of the American hemisphere be a reaffirmation of both the doctrine itself and the corollary.

A Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine will permanently connect Trump to James Monroe, the last of the founding father presidents, and to the elder Roosevelt. It also leaves open the possibility for a larger, perhaps worldwide, Trump Doctrine.

This proposed Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine kicks off the discussion. It is short. It is not a policy menu. It is positive and hopeful. It is a broad vision, based on Trump’s stated positions, consisting of seven distinct principles to guide all policies concerning the hemisphere:

1. ‘Free, sovereign and independent nations.’ A Trump Corollary would revert to the original Monroe Doctrine and modernize it to defend against all empires and destructive foreign forces – not just European ones – that threaten, infiltrate, or invade the American sphere of influence and deprive countries of their freedom, independence, and sovereignty. It would recognize, as Trump said in his 2017 Warsaw speech, that uplifting “free, sovereign and independent nations is the best defense for our freedoms and for our interests.”
2. Roll back Russian and Chinese Communist Party penetration of the Americas. To restore the free, sovereign and independent nations in the hemisphere, a Trump Corollary would build a worldview to drive out foreign powers subverting the Americas. “Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world,” Trump said in his 2017 National Security Strategy.

The Monroe Doctrine envisioned only hostile European empires. A Trump Corollary would take into account hostile empires worldwide, particularly the Chinese Communist Party. Russia and the CCP, said Trump in his 2017 strategy, “are patient and content to accrue strategic gains over time – making it harder for the United States and our allies to respond. And as these incremental gains are realized, over time, a new status quo emerges.”

In the Western Hemisphere, that new status quo has emerged sharply in the eight years since. Part of the reason is that the US continues not to appreciate the notion of full-spectrum warfare. Trump took note of this in his first term’s national security strategy: “China, Russia, and other state and non-state actors recognize that the United States often views the world in binary terms, with states being either ‘at peace’ or ‘at war,’ when it is actually an arena of continuous competition. Our adversaries will not fight us on our terms. We will raise our competitive game to meet that challenge, to protect American interests, and to advance our values.” The task now is to protect those interests in our own primary sphere of influence.

“China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor,” Trump said in his 2017 National Security Strategy. Since that time, China has pushed across the entire Pacific to the Americas and into the Atlantic and Caribbean with corruption, subversion, debt-trap diplomacy, development of an imperial mercantilist system, and the infiltration and takeover-by-proxy of the principal US-built hemispheric security institution.

3. Drive out Islamic extremism from the Americas. A Trump Corollary would address the infiltration into the Americas of what President Trump, in his 2017 Riyadh speech, called “Islamic extremism” and “Islamist extremism.” These forms of outside ideological subversion, which inject colonial-style settlements in countries across the hemisphere, strip communities and countries of their sovereignty while building centers of intolerance, intimidation, violent crime and organized crime, and terrorist networks. Trump has expressed particular concern about Iranian regime-sponsored soft power, subversion, and terrorism in the hemisphere. Concerning Iran, his State Department said in 2025, “this is a great time for the region to decide which side they are on.”
4. Prevent any external power from using any part of the Americas as an ally or staging base. A Trump Corollary would reserve every measure necessary to prevent any part of the Americas from being used as a military ally, a military staging base, or any other military threat to the United States and its neighboring sovereign republics. It will prevent, and in many cases reverse, Chinese Communist and Islamist political, ideological, and economic subversion of the region that threatens us all. It will end, once and for all, Russian military and intelligence use of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. All of this is consistent with Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy, various speeches including one on Venezuela in 2019, and his comments since 2024. Applied strategically, this long overdue approach will prevent and un-do any attempts to undermine the United States borders, laws, political system, economy, and society.
5. Preserve the primacy of the US dollar. A Trump Corollary would ensure no outside collusion with governments in the hemisphere to destroy the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It would guide the employment of diplomatic, economic, and other tools to divide and subdue the BRICS economic bloc – splitting Brazil from Russia, India, Communist China, and South Africa – and terminate the foreign-directed, toxic policies that undermine America’s economic strength. BRICS was “set up to hurt us,” Trump said in 2025, “to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar off as the standard.” He vowed to penalize all BRICS members with a 10 percent tariff just for being part of BRICS and pledged similar actions on any country aligning itself with the bloc.
6. Drive out Marxist subversion from the Americas. Likewise, a Trump Corollary the Monroe Doctrine would identify Marxism as a malignant foreign influence that has been subverting culture and destroying the democratic republican forms of government across Latin America and among the parliamentary democracies of the Caribbean. “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs” that have infiltrated the nation’s institutions, Trump has said since 2023. He would also ban all foreign “communists” and “Marxists” from entering the United States. A Trump Corollary would inspire policies help our hemispheric neighbors clean their own houses, to mutual benefit.

Marxism is a foreign influence from the mid-19^th century to destroy democratic, republican forms of government. Just as President Trump did on the first days of his second term at home, a Trump Doctrine would guide the employment of American and other resources to resist Marxism in all its forms, from dialectical materialism and class struggle to critical theory and DEI. This means building solidarity and leadership among individuals, organizations, businesses, and political parties among all America’s neighbors who seek to resist and defeat Marxism once and for all, and to isolate and punish all Marxists.

7. Restore sovereignty. Drive out the transnational progressivism of globalism. Finally, a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine would free the Americas from the threat of globalism, the transnational progressivism that eats away at the sovereignty of every single country and every single citizen.[1] Globalism is a foreign power all its own, inspired partly by Marxism and critical theory, and by the malign post-Judeo-Christian forces devoted to subverting and uprooting all forms of Western civilization and its values. This part of the corollary would build on President Trump’s Warsaw speech to support those who “summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization,” and to invite troublesome regimes to “join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.”

In his 2017 speech to the United Nations, Trump made sovereignty the core of his foreign policy doctrine, using the word 21 times. All countries, he said, should prioritize their own interests. “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to strong, independent nations.”

He stressed it again his UN speech the following year: “We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and indoctrination.” He told the UN again 2019, “The future does not belong to the globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.”

What Trump said in Poland and at the UN applies to the Americas, where Western civilizational values still run deep. “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?” asked Trump. “Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?  Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”

These seven points summarize the basic architecture of a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: A positive, neighborly, productive, mutually uplifting set of principles to guide US policy in the Western Hemisphere for generations to come.

Part 1 of this series, published on July 25, provides an overview and historical background. Part 3 is forthcoming.

[1] The author acknowledges Michael Doran for providing the context of globalism as transnational progressivism.