In 2026, Trump’s upgraded version of the Monroe Doctrine—the “Donroe Doctrine”—has formally taken shape. The United States is seeking to strengthen its absolute control over the Western Hemisphere, and its interference in Latin America is steadily escalating. At the same time, emerging right-wing conservative political forces in Latin America have risen strongly, already taking power in multiple countries and continuing to expand. The United States’ rapidly intensifying interference in Latin America, combined with the expanding political footprint of the region’s new right, is bound to produce reinforcing interactive effects, and the relevant issues warrant close attention and study.

I.   The Formal Implementation of the “Donroe Doctrine”

In 1823, U.S. President James Monroe issued the “Monroe Declaration,” establishing the foreign policy principle of the “Monroe Doctrine.” Since then, successive U.S. administrations have continuously carried out theoretical elaboration and practical application of the Monroe Doctrine, and interference in Latin America has never ceased. Since Trump returned to office, the United States has significantly strengthened its strategic emphasis on Latin America and continuously increased its strategic investment in the region, with the interventionist policies of the Monroe Doctrine steadily escalating. At the end of 2025, the Trump administration released the National Security Strategy report, which provided a comprehensive exposition of the strategic importance of the Western Hemisphere to the United States, its strategic objectives in the region, and the pathways for policy implementation. Its core meaning lies in the strategic choice of “Western Hemisphere first” and the objective of absolute control over the “backyard.” In essence, Trump’s new Western Hemisphere strategy represents a continuation of more than 200 years of Monroe Doctrine–based hegemonic maintenance, while also incorporating some new narrative logic, strategic priorities, and means of control. Because it bears a clear personal imprint of Trump, it has been described by outside observers as the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, or the “Donroe Doctrine.”

The “Donroe Doctrine” has a number of distinctive features. First, it directly abandons the hegemonic logic of conducting interference under the banner of “American rules and values,” replacing it with overt coercive control based on “force and power.” Second, it directly links Latin America to U.S. domestic issues, claiming that the region is the root cause of problems such as drugs, illegal immigration, and organized crime. Under the banner of “Make America Great Again,” and in the name of advancing domestic priority agendas such as counternarcotics, border governance, and nearshoring, it seeks to add legitimacy and support to its interference. Third, it adopts a more diversified mix of policy tools, employing military, political, economic, and scientific and technological (S&T) means to instrumentalize and weaponize trade and security issues. It explicitly proposes prioritizing control over key sea lanes, critical infrastructure, strategic minerals, and key supply chains in Latin America, without concealing its strategic ambition of comprehensive control.

The U.S. military action against Venezuela in early 2026 represents the first formal implementation of the “Donroe Doctrine” in Latin America. Its purpose is not only to establish full control over Venezuela, but also to generate deterrent and demonstration effects, enabling the new Western Hemisphere strategy to take root in Latin America as quickly as possible and yield maximum benefits, while building momentum for Trump’s midterm elections. This operation also served as a stress test, probing the reactions and limits of Latin American countries and extra-regional competitors. At present, the United States, through a military operation against Venezuela characterized by high speed, small scale, low cost, and high returns, has achieved success in exerting strategic deterrence and securing tangible gains in energy control. It can be described as a tactical victory. However, from an overall strategic perspective, the Venezuela issue remains unresolved. The abducted President Maduro and his wife may appear to be “hostages,” but in reality have become a “hot potato.” More importantly, the United States has suffered significant losses in terms of soft power, including moral standing and institutional credibility, and its actions against Venezuela may ultimately prove counterproductive.

A fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward Latin America is that it increasingly views China’s expanding influence in the region as a major challenge to its control over the region, and the exclusion and suppression of China has become a core objective of its Western Hemisphere strategy. For a long time, the United States has identified the maintenance of democracy, prosperity, and security in the Western Hemisphere as the three main objectives of its Latin America policy. In recent years, however, as China–Latin America cooperation in trade, energy, infrastructure, and S&T has continued to expand and deepen, U.S. strategic anxiety has risen sharply. It is highly concerned that the continued erosion of its economic and trade influence in Latin America will lead to a complete loss of control over its “backyard.” As a result, it has adopted a new round of intensive measures against China, including media smears, economic countermeasures, regulatory constraints, and disruptive pressure. These include unfounded accusations that China controls ports and critical minerals, the use of tariffs to pressure Latin American countries into decoupling from China, and even direct attempts to block China’s use of the Panama Canal. It should be noted that the United States’ comprehensive containment and suppression of China in Latin America is driven not only by regional interests, but more importantly by its view of Latin America as part of its global competition with China. It seeks to leverage this advantageous region to gain more bargaining chips in global strategic competition. It can be anticipated that, following the success of its military operation in Venezuela and the strengthening of its control in Latin America, the United States will inevitably take further actions to exclude and suppress China. Next steps are likely to focus on controlling energy resources, tightening investment security reviews, and imposing unilateral sanctions, thereby compressing China’s development space in Latin America. By controlling Venezuela’s oil production, sales, and profit distribution, the United States aims to cut off Venezuela’s energy cooperation with China and replicate this model in other countries in the region that maintain energy resource cooperation with China. The United States may also use investment and technology provisions as inducements to pressure Latin American countries into signing cooperation agreements containing anti-China clauses. The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) will be reviewed in 2026, and the United States may introduce new “poison pill” provisions to hinder cooperation between China and Mexico as well as China and Canada.

II.    The Interactive Dynamics Between the “Donroe Doctrine” and the New Right in Latin America

The “new right” in Latin America refers to an emerging right-wing conservative political force that has taken shape in recent years under the influence of a global wave of conservatism, as well as political and social currents in the region characterized by opposition to tradition, the establishment, and incumbent authorities. Most of these actors advocate economic liberalism, political authoritarianism, and cultural conservatism, and promote comprehensive and far-reaching transformation as a means of addressing national development challenges. As their organizational logic and policy orientation differ from those of the traditional right, they are referred to as the “new right.” In recent years, the new right has come to power through elections in multiple countries, including Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Honduras. In addition, countries such as Paraguay, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Belize have long been governed by right-wing forces. As a result, the right now occupies roughly half of the governing landscape in Latin America. Moreover, a number of emerging right-wing politicians have appeared in other countries. They are gradually moving from the margins to the center of political life, with continuously expanding influence and repeated breakthroughs in congressional and local elections, developing strong momentum. The new right has become an important dominant force in Latin American politics and shows a clear tendency to replace the left.

It is noteworthy that the new right in Latin America has maintained close interaction with Trump over a long period, and recently there has been a marked increase in coordination and mutual reinforcement. Leaders of the Latin American new right generally hold Trump in high regard, taking pride in being described as the “Trump of their respective country,” and exhibiting many similarities with Trump in terms of ideology, policy orientation, and personal style. A representative figure of the new right in Latin America, Argentine President Javier Milei, is an ardent supporter of Trump and closely aligned with him ideologically. He has visited the United States multiple times to meet Trump, and the two frequently echo and support each other on social media. During the 2023 Argentine presidential election, Trump repeatedly voiced support for Milei on social media, referring to him as the “Trump of Argentina.” Trump’s backing became an important external factor in Milei’s electoral victory. Since Trump’s second term, the United States has clearly intensified its efforts in Latin America to support the right while suppressing the left, particularly through open intervention in several key elections and various forms of support for right-wing leaders. In Argentina’s midterm elections, which were decisive for the trajectory of Milei’s governing position, Trump personally called on Argentine voters to support Milei’s party, warning that otherwise the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would halt financing crucial to Argentina. The election results demonstrated that Trump’s intervention played a key role in securing victory for Milei’s party. In elections in Chile, Bolivia, and Honduras, the United States provided various forms of overt and covert support to right-wing leaders, ultimately helping the right come to power in all three countries. In return, new right-led governments in Latin America have provided various forms of cooperation and support for Trump’s Western Hemisphere strategy. They did not express condemnation or opposition to the United States’ military invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of President Maduro and his wife—an extremely egregious act—and some countries, such as Argentina, even expressed open support.

III.    Future Choices for Latin American Countries

In the short term, the United States has increased its deterrence and control in Latin America. Left-wing governments in countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua face greater survival pressures, and tensions between the left and the right in the region are bound to intensify. The process of regional integration will also be seriously hindered. Latin America is likely to enter an unstable and exceptional phase marked by intensified external interference, deepening internal contradictions, and escalating political and social conflicts, with “black swan” and “gray rhino” events likely to occur more frequently. In the face of the United States’ increasingly aggressive posture, Latin American countries will generally face a dual pressure: a crisis of autonomy and the need to “choose sides” amid great power competition. However, their strategies and responses are likely to diverge. Resource-rich countries such as Chile may strengthen national sovereignty and control over resources, including designating lithium as a strategic national resource, promoting state-led development, restricting wholly foreign-owned development, and strengthening antitrust measures and supply security. Mexico and some Central American and Caribbean countries seek to leverage China–U.S. competition to enhance their industrial position, strengthen domestic industrial chains, and improve employment. Most South American countries maintain closer economic and trade ties with China, but remain constrained by the United States in political and security terms. As a result, they are unlikely to openly “choose sides” in their diplomacy, though they may display tendencies on specific issues.

U.S. interference in Latin America is a “double-edged sword” for the development of the region’s new right. On the one hand, the new right in Latin America has leveraged U.S. political and economic support, as well as the continued pressure on left-wing forces, to strengthen itself while weakening its opponents. As left-wing forces across the region encounter widespread difficulties and public dissatisfaction grows, the right possesses favorable internal and external conditions to maintain its strong position. In the 2026 elections, it cannot be ruled out that countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Costa Rica may collectively shift to the right. At that point, South America could witness an extreme scenario in which the right achieves near-complete dominance, thereby breaking the basic political pattern of left–right coexistence that has characterized the region over the past two decades. On the other hand, U.S. misdeeds have already triggered anti-American sentiment among segments of the population in the region. If U.S. interference in Latin America continues to escalate, public anger may be redirected toward pro-U.S. right-wing governments or political figures. Coupled with the potential inability to quickly fulfill campaign promises to boost economic performance, the momentum of the new right’s rise may slow or even come to an abrupt halt.