Matias Spektor
No great power sustained as dominant a position over its neighboring region as the United States did during most of the twentieth century. But in recent decades, Washington has largely disregarded its neighbors. Since a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and a military initiative to help Colombia combat drug cartels were negotiated more than 25 years ago, United States policy in the Americas has consisted mostly of failed measures to stem flows of migrants and drugs across U.S. borders. This neglect has opened the door for China and Russia to exert increasing influence across the Western Hemisphere.
Since the beginning of his political career, U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled his intention to reassert U.S. dominance in the region. He hopes to resist China and Russia’s growing diplomatic, economic, and military engagement with countries that have traditionally been within the United States’ sphere of influence, and doing so while delivering on issues important to his base, including securing favorable trade terms and stopping flows of both migrants and fentanyl. During Trump’s first administration, these goals were largely aspirational. He and his officials frequently invoked the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 declaration asserting exclusive U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere, when they opposed Russian military cooperation with Latin American countries, say, or framed Chinese economic expansion in the region as a security threat. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first secretary of state, called the doctrine “as relevant today as when it was written.” Ultimately, these appeals amounted mostly to rhetorical posturing and, because of policy inconsistencies and incompetence, effected little concrete change. In his second term, however, Trump is accompanying radical rhetoric about regional hegemony with real action.
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