Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
After U.S. troops apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro this month, President Trump referenced the Monroe Doctrine, an 1823 U.S. foreign policy.
Civics 101 host Nick Capodice joins Julia to explain the Monroe Doctrine, how it’s changed over time and how it's used today by the Trump administration.
Transcript
So, to get started, what is the Monroe Doctrine?
Well, it's not an executive order and it's not a law. The Monroe Doctrine started as just a few paragraphs in President James Monroe’s 1823 State of the Union address. And basically it is this: No European country should interfere with governments in the Western Hemisphere.
Now, the reason he wrote this is that after America and France had their revolutions and became republics, and South America followed suit and had a lot of republics as well, monarchies started to come back in a big way in Europe. There was this fear that these large European monarchies would reconquer, as in take over, all of these South American republics. The reason that this would be a problem for the U.S. is all about economics. It was a lot easier and a lot more profitable to trade with smaller republics than to trade with, say, Spain. It benefited the United States and Britain for these to remain independent republics.
Now, even though we call this the Monroe Doctrine, it didn't really have a name at first, and it wasn't really used in any meaningful way until the turn of the 20th century, because the U.S. didn't have an army or a navy to enforce it before that.
So Nick, when did the Monroe Doctrine start being, well, something that the U.S. cared about?
That is due to President Teddy Roosevelt, who added a little rider to the Monroe Doctrine, which we now call the “Roosevelt Corollary” in his justification of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Roosevelt Corollary said that not only should Europe stay out of the Western Hemisphere, but that the U.S. is responsible for the economic well-being of all nations in the Americas. The U.S. military could be and was deployed to defend business interests in South America. And it was largely to protect American business ventures there, ventures like fruit companies for example. This led to a long, protracted armed conflict known as the Banana Wars. It's far easier for large corporations in South America to lean on the U.S. Marines to protect them, than for them to hire private security firms like the Pinkertons. But with the Great Depression and World War II, military presence in South America dwindled.
The Monroe Doctrine has had a renaissance lately. It's been cited specifically by President Trump in reference to recent military activity in South America. What is going on there?
The Monroe Doctrine was specifically cited in Trump's new national security strategy in 2025. He has used it to justify attacks on boats in the Caribbean, attempting to take over the Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, invading Venezuela and kidnapping its president Nicolás Maduro, and potentially his stated attempt to take over Greenland.
Julia, I want to say that all of this, even going back to the Roosevelt Corollary, is in direct violation of international law. We do not invade a country unless we have “casus belli,” a reason to invade. And while some say this is not a problem and America should just maintain dominance in the Western Hemisphere, others wonder about the repercussions. If we repeatedly break international law, what is stopping other major powers from doing the same?
