{"id":10180,"date":"2026-02-15T16:42:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/15\/trump-gets-the-monroe-doctrine-wrong-he-should-take-a-page-from-bad-bunny-ted-widmer-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T16:42:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:42:50","slug":"trump-gets-the-monroe-doctrine-wrong-he-should-take-a-page-from-bad-bunny-ted-widmer-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/15\/trump-gets-the-monroe-doctrine-wrong-he-should-take-a-page-from-bad-bunny-ted-widmer-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump gets the Monroe doctrine wrong. He should take a page from Bad Bunny | Ted Widmer – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Throughout Bad Bunny<\/a>\u2019s mesmerizing performance during the Super Bowl, the word \u201cAmerica\u201d kept expanding, like an accordion, stretching out to embrace people of all nationalities. \u201cTogether we are all America,\u201d his football read, and he obviously meant it, in the largest, most hemispheric sense. Near the end, after shouting \u201cGod bless America\u201d (his only words in English), Bad Bunny ran through a long list of countries in the western hemisphere.<\/p>\n

That inclusiveness enraged Donald Trump<\/a>, who erupted on social media, and tried to take the word back, declaring the half-time show \u201can affront to the greatness of America\u201d. By which, of course, he meant the United States.<\/p>\n

It was refreshing to encounter this greater America \u2013 or more accurately, to welcome it back. It has always been there, since the word \u201cAmerica\u201d first appeared, hovering over Brazil in a 1507 map.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Detail of Waldseem\u00fcller\u2019s 1507 map, the first known map to use the name \u2018America\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Library of Congress<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ever since he was inaugurated, Trump has acted as if he owns the word \u201cAmerica\u201d. Throughout his second inaugural address<\/a>, he used it as a synonym for the US. (\u201cAmerica will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.\u201d) His \u201cAmerica first\u201d foreign policy assumes the right to take possession of any part of the hemisphere he wants, whether it\u2019s the oilfields of Venezuela or the frozen tundra of Greenland.<\/p>\n

This view is perhaps best understood through his repackaging of the Monroe doctrine, which Trump has increasingly invoked as a \u201cbig deal<\/a>\u201d <\/strong>to justify his desire to dominate the hemisphere. In his view, the doctrine appears to be a mantra for an amped-up foreign policy that may soon extend to other nations on Bad Bunny\u2019s list, including Cuba, Colombia and Panama.<\/p>\n

So why is a 203-year-old footnote from American history, <\/strong>first articulated in James Monroe\u2019s 1823 message to Congress, rattling around the president\u2019s head?<\/p>\n

While Trump has not paused to define what he now calls the \u201cDonroe doctrine\u201d, it appears to be synonymous with a \u201cTrump Corollary\u201d, recently announced in the 2025 National Security Strategy<\/a>, that would update the Monroe doctrine by alerting all \u201cnon-Hemispheric competitors\u201d \u2013 presumably China, Russia and Iran \u2013 that they will not be able to position forces or own \u201cstrategically vital assets\u201d in our region. (That will come as news to the Chinese, who have spent years and billions of dollars building an enormous deep-water port in Chancay, Peru, announced in 2019. They will not be leaving anytime soon.)<\/p>\n

After introducing the Donroe doctrine during a rambling news conference after the seizure of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, Trump promised that \u201cAmerican dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again\u201d. A month earlier, the White House issued a celebratory announcement<\/a> of the 203rd anniversary of the Monroe doctrine \u2013 not an anniversary noted by any previous administration, including Monroe\u2019s. In his message, Trump announced: \u201cI am proudly reasserting this time-honored policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

These announcements were followed in short order by the Maduro raid, and the threat to annex Greenland, which revealed an administration suddenly anxious over the foreign domination of this hemisphere (despite no evidence, in the Greenland case, of Russian or Chinese naval activity).<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/picture><\/div>
<\/svg><\/span>Bad Bunny performs during the Super Bowl LX half-time show at Levi\u2019s stadium on 8 February in Santa Clara, California.<\/span> Photograph: Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for Roc Nation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Except that Trump has read history incorrectly. Trump sees the Monroe doctrine as a military threat, a way to bully other superpowers out of the western hemisphere and plunder the Americas for any resources the US might want. But in its original formation, the Monroe doctrine was a statement of pan-American solidarity \u2013 much closer to Bad Bunny\u2019s than Donald Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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Self-determination, not dominance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The original doctrine, as written out by a visionary secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, is irreconcilable with the Trump administration\u2019s interpretation of it. It was a plea to give the nations of South America a chance to develop democratic institutions of their own, away from the great powers of Europe. It was more about self-determination than dominance, and more about allies than Trump\u2019s go-it-alone attitude. Specifically, it pulled together the United States and the United Kingdom, who only recently had been at war with each other. In its way, the Monroe doctrine showed just how much nations could accomplish when they stopped quarreling and worked toward the same ends.<\/p>\n

There is almost a fun-house mirror quality to the way that the current version of the doctrine has been stretched out of all resemblance to the original. Words like \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201cself-determination\u201d were noticeably absent in the White House version, the Donroe doctrine. The 2 December statement was all about strength, claiming that the \u201cmighty words\u201d from 1823 marked the beginning of a \u201csuperpower unlike anything the world had ever known\u201d. That statement overlooks the inconvenient fact that in 1823, the United States had no power to enforce its doctrine, and relied entirely on the British navy at a time when the American navy was a fraction the size of France\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Monroe doctrine was indeed a big deal when it was introduced, but not for the reasons being touted at the moment. In 1823, the United States was struggling to find its place in the world. It had fought two wars against the United Kingdom, including a recent one, between 1812 and 1815, that resulted in humiliation when British troops invaded the capital city of Washington DC, and torched most of the government buildings, including the Capitol and White House. The new country was growing quickly, but it could hardly be called a military threat to its neighbors. The US army had a little more than 6,000 troops, after a reduction in 1821. The navy had about 4,000. That total \u2013 10,000 \u2013 is smaller than the number (12,000) Cyprus can mobilize today.<\/p>\n

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Making matters worse, the progress of democracy, begun with so much fanfare in 1776, seemed to be stalling. The French Revolution had thrown Europe into more than a decade of war and convulsion, and after Napoleon\u2019s final defeat at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) reasserted a conservative vision of Europe dominated by kings and all that went with them. Suddenly, the principles of republicanism were decidedly out of fashion. The new power structure was strengthened by the 1815 creation of a \u201cHoly Alliance\u201d, linking the extremely old-guard monarchies of Prussia, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Together, they were determined to make sure that there would never be another democratic revolution.<\/p>\n

That put the United States at a disadvantage, except for the fact that John Quincy Adams was the secretary of state. The son of the second president, Adams had grown up in several European countries (his father, too, was a diplomat), and could speak French, Greek and Latin. He was variously the US minister to the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia and the Court of St James. At times, he lived in London, where he met and married his wife, Louisa Catherine Johnson, an American who had grown up in England.<\/p>\n

In other words, Adams was well prepared, by training and temperament, to advance America\u2019s interests. At the same time, he was willing to buck protocol. He was known to swim in the Potomac wearing nothing but a skullcap and goggles. Later, he would be a brave voice against slavery when most of the US government went the other way. This was not your ordinary diplomat.<\/p>\n

Adams became secretary of state in 1817 and would stay until 1825, when he became president. In 1819, he negotiated the Adams-Onis treaty, which transferred a huge amount of land, peacefully, to the United States from Spain, which was impoverished by the Napoleonic wars. Without this treaty, which secured Florida, Mar-a-Lago would be in a foreign country today.<\/p>\n

Adams also resolved a host of issues relating to the wars that had divided Great Britain and the United States. As a child, he had witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first major engagement of the American Revolution. But as secretary, he helped to reduce tensions, charting the western boundary with Canada (then a part of the UK), and reducing naval armaments on the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>John Q Adams, between 1855 and 1865.<\/span> Photograph: Heritage Images\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These acts of mutual respect improved relations, and the two powers began to see each other in a new light. In 1821 (the same year that the Guardian was founded), Adams gave a Fourth of July speech that praised the British, as a people \u201cdistinguished for their intelligence and their spirit\u201d, and announced that the United States would never go abroad \u201cin search of monsters to destroy\u201d. In other words, Adams was announcing a policy of nonintervention \u2013 the opposite of Donald Trump\u2019s interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. Although Adams was an expansionist in his own way \u2013 he felt that adjoining territories would eventually join the United States voluntarily \u2013 he was against the use of military threats to accumulate real estate.<\/p>\n

The warming of Anglo-American relations continued, and two years later, in 1823, the British foreign minister, George Canning, approached the United States with a proposition. As Spain\u2019s power continued to ebb, it was losing control of its colonies in the Americas<\/a>, and local independence movements had achieved full or partial success in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina. This was troubling to the Holy Alliance, determined to fight the spread of democracy and maintain the rule of absolutism.<\/p>\n

But it was not so troubling to Britain. Though a king, George IV, certainly sat on the throne, the British government was more open to a world with diverse forms of government, including democracies. It had a growing middle class, and a strong parliament that represented merchants, mill-owners, and the people at large. In fact, Canning, the son of an actor, was such a person himself.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Canning wondered if the United States and the United Kingdom might together indicate their joint support for the new republics, and warn the European powers not to send military expeditions into the Americas. Such a statement would bolster the new governments and deter any effort by Spain, France or the Holy Alliance to gain new colonies in the Americas.<\/p>\n

Adams saw merit in the idea, and drafted a statement, now known as the Monroe doctrine, that was included in James Monroe\u2019s annual message to Congress in December 1823. It asserted that the Americas \u201care henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers\u201d. It added that if European nations tried to impose \u201ctheir system\u201d \u2013 monarchy \u2013 anywhere in the Americas, the United States would regard it as \u201cthe manifestation of an unfriendly disposition\u201d.<\/p>\n

But it was hardly a sweeping statement of American power. It modestly promised that the US would not interfere in European affairs if Europe stayed out of the Americas. It did nothing to alter the status quo in the many places where European nations already possessed American colonies. And it needed the might of the British navy to be effective. In fact, no invasion from the Holy Alliance ever came, although Russia still had claims to the Pacific coast.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Donald Trump speaks to the press before signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America aboard Air Force One on 9 February 2025.<\/span> Photograph: Roberto Schmidt\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The new doctrine was welcomed by the leaders of Latin America\u2019s independence movements, grateful for the help. It also brought the UK and the US together in a way that began to paint a way forward, for each, toward a world of greater freedom and rights, earned grudgingly, year by year.<\/p>\n

That mutual understanding would pay dividends for both. It helped the United States that Britain, after some slowness, refused to recognize the Confederacy during the civil war. It helped the United Kingdom that the United States, after some slowness, put all of its might into the fight during two existential world wars.<\/p>\n

The Monroe doctrine was not static during these years. It was a flexible instrument, serviceable for different messages. Expansionists could enlarge it into a call for aggressive action against the other countries of the Americas, as they did during the 1850s, when pro-slavery advocates argued that the US should acquire new territories around the hemisphere, and again in the 1890s, when the US plucked Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain. The 20th century witnessed many interventions by presidents, well before Trump, in places ranging from the Dominican Republic to Haiti to Guatemala. That muscular approach feels closer to the Donroe doctrine.<\/p>\n

But its better angels were also available, as when FDR\u2019s secretary of state, Cordell Hull, promised<\/a> a policy of nonintervention by the United States, and support for free trade and democracy, at a conference in Uruguay in 1933. That approach paid huge dividends when Latin America generally supported the allied cause in the second world war, and Venezuelan oil supplied allied convoys. Franklin D Roosevelt\u2019s \u201cgood neighbor\u201d policy was echoed by John F Kennedy\u2019s Alliance for Progress, a program of economic cooperation, education and support for democracy.<\/p>\n

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A new order<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Is Trump\u2019s reformulation of the Monroe doctrine, in fact, a doctrine? His former national security adviser, John Bolton, recently told the Atlantic, \u201cThere is no Trump Doctrine: No matter what he does, there is no grand conceptual framework; it\u2019s whatever suits him at the moment.\u201d It\u2019s also true that presidents do not generally get to name doctrines and corollaries after themselves; that takes time \u2013 and consensus (Monroe\u2019s doctrine was not named after him until 30 years later).<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, the closest thing to a recent doctrine was the speech delivered at the recent Davos meeting by Canada\u2019s prime minister, Mark Carney. It has already been called<\/a> the Carney doctrine.<\/p>\n

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Arguing for an alliance of the world\u2019s \u201cintermediate powers\u201d, it proposed a \u201cnew order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states\u201d. It was coherent and pragmatic, seeking allies to resist a rising tide of reactionary thinking. That was very much in the spirit of John Quincy Adams and the original Monroe doctrine, a riposte to the great powers of its day, who were in their own way blind to the currents of history.<\/p>\n

It was also, in its way, aligned with Bad Bunny\u2019s half-time show. On the surface, the Canadian prime minister\u2019s sober speech and the Puerto Rican singer\u2019s rollicking performance could not be more different. But they hit many of the same grace notes. By acknowledging that we are not alone in this hemisphere, by naming so many nations \u2013 he proposed a radical way to make America, in the largest sense of the word, great again.<\/p>\n

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    Ted Widmer is the author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington (2020), and the editor of The Living Declaration: A Biography of America\u2019s Founding Text, forthcoming from the Library of America (spring 2026).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    Spot illustrations by Lucy Jones<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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