The Donroe Doctrine Just Went Fully Live

And if you blinked, you probably missed it. 

With Washington stirring up violence and mayhem all over the planet — including, most importantly, in West Asia, where the fallout from the US-Israeli war against Iran is inflicting crippling damage on the global economy — it is easy to lose track of what is happening in the US’ direct neighbourhood.

For instance, when was the last time you saw news coverage of US Southern Command’s Joint Task Force-Southern Spear, which has seen the US armed forces conduct a total of 63 strikes on boats allegedly (since no proof has been presented) transporting drugs in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific?

A long time ago, I imagine.

For two main reasons. First, as the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy Research notes, “there has not been a US military strike on an alleged drug boat since mid-June — the longest such break since the campaign began in September”. The second reason is a general lack of interest among the legacy media.

As the Washington Office on Latin America notes in its report, “Killing Spree: Extrajudicial Killings in the US Boat Strikes Campaign“, the boat strikes, which have claimed the lives of 221 people during an 11-month period, all “torn apart by bombs and missiles fired by the US armed forces,… barely register in U.S. and regional news”:

Each attack is so similar to those that came before it that there is little “news handle” to grab onto. The boat strikes are blending into the background, buried under layers of newer crises distracting public opinion. After initial shock and outrage, the consequences of these illegal, lethal operations are becoming normalized…

[T]he U.S. government’s boat strikes are not normal and must never become so. They are murder under domestic law and extrajudicial killings under international human rights law. They are the result of the executive branch’s reckless use of the “terrorist” label to enable employing the U.S. military to target civilians. Their deaths come with no presentation of any evidence of wrongdoing, much less any due process for those being attacked. They must stop now, and those who have ordered and carried them out must be held accountable in all available venues.

Unfortunately, not only does the US government show no sign of halting its extrajudicial killings on the high seas, though they have been paused temporarily, it is actually expanding its so-called “war” on so-called “narco-terrorist organisations” to Latin America’s entire land mass.

At midnight on Monday, US Southern Command retired Joint Task Force-Southern Spear and put in its place Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere (JTF-WHEM), with the stated goal of “build[ing] on a legacy of excellence to secure the region and defeat all threats.” SOUTHCOM commander Francis Donovan stated:

“We will apply total systemic friction on these networks that threaten our homeland and our partners here in our shared region. And along with Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, our 18 other nations that all support the same effort, we will take the fight to the enemy. So today, we initiate the stand up of Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, the action arm of U.S. Southern Command.”

SOUTHCOM expands military operations into the entire Western hemisphere. Says it has a legacy of “precision and professionalism” after illegally killing hundreds of civilians in the Caribbean and Pacific, and bombing a dairy farm in Ecuador. https://t.co/mKyL8AdkdW

— Joseph Bouchard (@GeopolWonk) August 4, 2026

In other words, the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (aka the Donroe Doctrine) just went fully live. And if you blinked, you would have probably missed it.

As far as I can tell, the New York Times has not even deigned to cover this latest development, which Spain’s Defensa.com describes as “one of the most significant operational reorganisations [of the US military] in recent decades”. Nor for that matter have the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC or The Guardian.

“Naked Machiavellianism”

Established in the Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy, published in November, the Donroe Doctrine seeks to secure hemispheric dominance of Latin America and the Caribbean for US interests by asserting a hardline US sphere of influence across the region. It also explicitly aims to shut out strategic competitors — primarily China, but also Russia and Iran — from controlling vital infrastructure, resources, or military positioning in the region.

We have already seen this in action in Marco Rubio-controlled Venezuela. “Brazen thuggery” and “naked Machiavellianism” were the four words Prof. Jeffrey D Sachs used to describe the US’ new (but not that different from the old) security doctrine:

The United States, the NSS declares, will ensure that Latin America “remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets,” and alliances and aid will be conditioned on “winding down adversarial outside influence.” That “influence” clearly refers to Chinese investment, infrastructure, and lending.

The NSS is explicit: US agreements with countries “that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage” must result in sole-source contracts for American firms. US policy should “make every effort to push out foreign companies” that build infrastructure in the region, and the US should reshape multilateral development institutions, such as the World Bank, so that they “serve American interests.”

Latin American governments, many of whom trade extensively with both the United States and China, are effectively being told: you must deal with us, not China—or face the consequences.

Such a strategy is strategically naive. China is the main trading partner for most of the world, including many countries in the Western hemisphere. The US will be unable to compel Latin American nations to expel Chinese firms, but will gravely damage US diplomacy in the attempt.

The Pentagon already began the process of expanding its war against narco-terrorist organisations from sea to land when it launched joint counter-narcotics operations with Ecuador in March. As we have been warning since September 2023, the US’ intensifying war against the drug cartels — recently designated as “narco-terrorist” organisations — is really nothing more than a pretext to justify deploying US military forces anywhere in Latin America. Which is what we are now seeing.

Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa government has also opened the door to a plethora of US government agencies, including the DEA, the DHS and the FBI. We are likely to see similar developments in other countries in the region closely aligned to the US, such as Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. As with Ecuador, it won’t even matter if the people of those countries are broadly opposed to the presence of the US military and three-letter agencies on their soil.

In the case of Ecuador, an overwhelming majority of voters voted in a 2009 referendum to close down the US military base at Manta. Besides evicting US military personnel from Ecuador, the then-Rafael Correa government inserted an article (#5) into the country’s 2008 constitution stipulating that Ecuador is a country of peace, and expressly prohibiting the establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities for military purposes.

The Noboa government tried to overturn this article through a constitutional amendment, but in a November 2025 referendum an overwhelming majority voted against the reinstalment of foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil. That didn’t stop Noboa, whose family business has been repeatedly implicated in cocaine trafficking, from opening the doors to joint military strikes with US Southern Command.

Now, the US is seeking to impose joint military strikes across the entire region, starting with Mexico’s Central American neighbours, Honduras and Guatemala, notes New York Times investigative correspondent Maria Abi-Habib in a tweet:

This is the announcement we expected: the Pentagon is standing up a task force that will see Latin American countries accept joint US strikes inside their borders. It moves the boat strikes from intl waters to sovereign inland territories across the region.

In May we wrote about how the US was pressuring Guatemala & Honduras to accept joint strikes. It’s part of a campaign to normalize US troops across Latin America. SOUTHCOM chief Donovan traveled to Guatemala & Honduras right after our story published

Why would the Pentagon first target Honduras and Guatemala? So Mexico feels the pressure to finally accept greater US military action inside its borders. It’s a tactic of “everyone else is doing it why won’t you?” Who knows if it’ll work but DC Mexico is DoD’s biggest “prize.”

The Other Main Prize

The other main prize is, of course, Brazil. Tensions between the two countries have escalated, through tariffs, accusations of interference and increasingly fiery speeches. As we reported a few weeks ago, Wahington is also targeting Brazil’s digital payments system, Pix. In the process, the Trump administration — or more specifically, Marco Rubio — is inflicting serious harm on diplomatic relations between the American continent’s two largest economies.

Brazil and the US are on the verge of breaking all diplomatic ties, after Trump and his allies keep trying to rig the Brazilian elections, interfering to protect Bolsonaro, and meddling in domestic affairs. https://t.co/Gr3lPzpRQa

— Joseph Bouchard (@GeopolWonk) August 5, 2026

In the latest round of tit-for-tat sparring, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva lambasted the Trump administration’s decision to revoke the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, calling the move “irresponsible and thoughtless.”

The US Department of State announced the visa revocation on Tuesday in retaliation for Brazil’s refusal last month to issue visas to two US State Department officials who wanted to “observe” Brazil’s upcoming elections. Washington is also apparently smarting from Brasilia’s alleged delays in approving Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Perez.

O Globo correspondent Guga Chakra describes the escalating tensions between the two American giants as a war for the future of Brazil between Rubio and Lula (machine translation):

The actions against Brazil and the suspension of the visa of the Brazilian ambassador in Washington, Maria Luiza Viotti, confirm that the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is willing to use all weapons at his disposal to help candidate Flávio Bolsonaro defeat incumbent President Lula in the presidential elections in October.

I write “Rubio” because the entire strategy for Latin America is drawn up by him and not by the U.S. president… [Rubio] knows that the US president almost blindly trusts him to deal with Latin American issues after what is seen by Washington as the successful action to overthrow Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and force the Venezuelan regime to capitulate entirely to the US…

The election of Flávio Bolsonaro would represent the consolidation of Rubio’s ideological and strategic victory [in Latin America]. The re-election of the Brazilian president, on the other hand, would represent a serious set back for the Secretary of State.

The US’ long-term goals in Latin America, as clearly outlined in the Donroe Doctrine, is to retain — and maintain — strategic dominance of the Western hemisphere. The doctrine signals not only Washington’s near-divine right to extract and exploit the resources of the region, but also the denial of non-hemispheric competitors — namely China, Russia and Iran — the possibility of controlling assets or positioning threatening capabilities.

Let’s be clear, here: this strategy predates Trump 2.0, and was first mapped out in public by former SOUTHCOM commander, Laura Richardson, as we reported in our January 23, 2023 article, “Monroe Doctrine Redux: US Military Trying to “Box Out” China and Russia from Strategic Resources in Latin America“.

Rare earth elements, lithium, oil, light sweet crude, copper, gold, the Amazon, and fresh water.

This is what the United States wants to plunder from Latin America and the Caribbean. pic.twitter.com/Q9Rh5XP0jB

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 21, 2023

This is exactly what the US has done in Venezuela: it has boxed out China, Russia and Iran from the country’s strategic resources while staking exclusive claim to said resources.

Washington has already collected over $13 billion in revenues from sales of Venezuela’s oil. While US government documents claim that the money is being managed for the benefit of the US and Venezuelan people, Trump himself has repeatedly bragged about “making a lot of money from Venezuelan oil”, even suggesting the US has recouped the costs of the Jan 3 invasion 28 times over.

The Trump administration has collected more than $13bn in revenues from Venezuelan oil sales this year, according to FT calculations. So what has happened to the money? John Reed unpacks Washington’s conflicting accounts. https://t.co/qaOUYQ7Ghe pic.twitter.com/FqfYjjjxgb

— Financial Times (@FT) August 5, 2026

Some serious revelations. Private sector spokesperson Luigi Pisella said in a radio interview that the Trump administration is deducting the costs of its “military mobilization” from the Venezuelan oil revenues deposited in the US Treasury (cont)https://t.co/hisD8IQ1xR

— Venezuelanalysis (@venanalysis) August 6, 2026

Trump brags that the US government is looting Venezuela: “To the victor belong the spoils.”

Barely any international pushback. We’ve completely normalised US imperial conquest. https://t.co/CyaoQBnMqo

— Jostein Hauge (@haugejostein) August 6, 2026

Hauge makes a key point here: in recent months, US imperial conquest of its so-called “backyard” is once again being accepted as normal. The media’s radio silence on the Trump administration’s mass bombing of boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific has already helped to normalise the first phase of the Donroe Doctrine.

Then, the often gleeful, broadly uncritical coverage of the US’ attack on Venezuela and the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Celia, helped to normalise the idea that the US can attack any country in the region and kidnap the head of state on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Now, certain voices in the media are suddenly shocked to learn that the US is openly plundering Venezuelan resources as if it were the late 19th century and “The Colonel” (TR) was back in power. In El País, Mely Reyes called what the US has done to Venezuela “21st-century colonialism”, with her country as the century’s “first corporate colony”.

In the case of Brazil, Marco Rubio’s recent moves have not only pushed Lula closer to his BRICS partners, China and Russia; they have also prompted Lula to beef up his commitment to military spending and Brazil’s armed forces. In recent days, Russia’s head of the National Maritime College and senior Putin advisor was in Brasilia, where he held talks with government ministers on naval cooperation between the two nations and “ocean security”.

🇷🇺🇧🇷 BRICS Maritime Partnership in Focus: Russian Presidential Aide Patrushev Tours Rio Shipyards and Naval Museum

Nikolay Patrushev had talked up the ‘strong potential’ for bilateral cooperation between the nations prior to the tour.

‘Developing the oil and gas sector,… pic.twitter.com/MqlCqRKrKG

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 6, 2026

Further north, the US continues to escalate its maximum pressure campaign on Cuba, this time by setting up a “secret” CIA task force for the island, much as it did for Venezuela in the months leading up to the Jan 3 invasion. According to the NYT, the task force will “allow the spy agency to quickly direct more financial, human and technical resources at the island, with the goal of creating fissures among the Cuban political elite.”

As Tony Wood notes in an excellent article for the London Review of Books, titled “Maximum Pressure“, the intervention in Venezuela was instantly billed by US politicians as a trial run for a takeover of Cuba. That said, Cuba is likely to present a tougher proposition for US forces. Also, for those who believe in omens, the last time the CIA established a Cuba task force, in 1960, the agency ended up overseeing the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba just a year later.

In his LRB article, Woods aptly describes the US’ recent designation of Cuba as “the capital of 21st-century communism” as “one of the most deranged self-denunciations on record”:

Across its hundred pages, the report paints Cuba as the centre of hemispheric subversion, bent on destroying the United States through a ‘long war of attrition’ that made use of ‘espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks’ as well as ‘left-wing terrorism on American soil’. Cuba supposedly recruited an array of allies and dupes, ranging from the Black Panthers to the Democratic Socialists of America to ‘the highest reaches of US government’. This unparalleled ideological campaign, according to the report, has ‘in contrast to every other aspect of Cuba’s failed state ... yielded remarkable success’.

This charge sheet would make more sense if read backwards. It is, of course, the US that has been engaged in a decades-long project to contain and destroy the Cuban revolution, starting with the Eisenhower administration and culminating in Trump’s total blockade of the island. During the intervening 67 years, one American government after another has maintained or expanded measures intended to sink the Cuban economy, while also deploying an arsenal of covert tactics, all the way from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 to the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner to the attempted motorboat assault off the coast of Villa Clara in February this year…

Like so many of the activities of the second Trump administration, the State Department’s latest report on Cuba is both moronic and sinister. Although its main purpose is to justify further pressure on the island, it will also be used to clamp down on domestic dissent, in particular from the left.

And not just domestic dissent in the US. In countries across Latin America being governed by US vassal states, Rubio’s global war on “left-wing terrorism” will be used to justify ruthless suppression of political opposition as well as information sharing at the regional level, just like Operation Condor.

In Argentina, where support for the Javier Milei experiment is cratering as economic conditions deteriorate, an increasingly unhinged Milei said in a recently televised interview:

“Gramsci already said that the communists would infiltrate… Today we have communist terrorists disguised as students, terrorist journalists, terrorist teachers, terrorist researchers… It’s not a conspiracy, it’s real.”

As articles in Argentina’s left-wing press have cautioned, these words bear chilling echoes of the words used by former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in a 2010 trial to justify his government’s repressive measures during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s and early ’80s.