Stewart Patrick
At a press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump once again vowed to push U.S. foreign policy back to the future. Trump reiterated his desire to reassert U.S. control over the Panama Canal, by military means if necessary; make Canada the fifty-first U.S. state; and annex Greenland for “national security purposes.” Such approaches would be startling departures from the Biden administration’s liberal internationalism—but with deep roots in U.S. foreign policy.
Trump’s determination to treat the Western Hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence signals a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, the strategy first introduced by President James Monroe in 1823 that shaped U.S. foreign policy decisively through the early twentieth century and subsequently during the Cold War. Trump’s remarks suggest that unchallenged hemispheric dominance will be at the core of his “America First” approach for the same two motives driving the Monroe Doctrine: to prevent outside powers from meddling and mitigate perceived chaos in the region. Resurrecting this tradition, however, would be both risky and counterproductive to U.S. foreign policy and the global order.
Both Shield and Sword
Two hundred years ago, as rebellions against Spanish colonial rule rocked Latin America, U.S. leaders worried that other European powers might fill the vacuum. To preempt this outcome, Monroe conjured an “American system” in which European powers were forbidden to meddle. He declared that the Western hemisphere would be off limits and put the imperial powers on notice: “We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and security.”
No comments:
Post a Comment