Liberals and the foreign policy establishment scoffed at President Trump when he bluntly announced that he was reviving the Monroe Doctrine to enhance U.S. hemispheric security. In their view, the Monroe Doctrine was an anachronism that belonged to earlier periods of American history. The Obama administration announced in 2013, in Secretary of State John Kerry’s phrase, that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Late last year, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Michael Rubin called Trump’s revival of the Doctrine “dangerous,” explaining that “globalization moots the Monroe Doctrine.” Ed Kilgore in New York magazine echoed Rubin’s sentiments. Stewart Patrick, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote that Trump’s approach to the Western Hemisphere is “counterproductive to U.S. foreign policy and the global order.” Other “experts” have called it shortsighted, a return of U.S. imperialism, and a gift to China.
The Panama Canal, Venezuela, Greenland: Is Cuba Next?
The Monroe Doctrine is back in business.
