President James Monroe gave his seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823. In that message, he presented the Monroe Doctrine, currently popping up in national and international news. It has been questioned recently, notably when Nydia Velazquez introduced a bill replacing the Monroe Doctrine with a new “Good Neighbor” policy. Still, the doctrine continues to be a foundational document of American foreign policy. When it was introduced — and later extended by President Teddy Roosevelt — the it fundamentally redefined the relationship between the United States and the European powers. Now, it still weighs heavily on relationships between the United States and Latin America.
What is the Monroe Doctrine?
The United States, enlarged by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, had spread westward beyond the Mississippi River. Mexico, Russia, and Great Britain all had claims to what are bow the western states, and it was rumored that Prussia (now Germany) had its eye on South America, wanting to return those nations to European domination. The United States continued to worry that European powers, which were at that time carving up Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific among themselves, would come for Hawaii and extend their possessions in the Caribbean into Florida, which the United States had wrested from Spanish and British powers a decade or two before.
The Monroe Doctrine established three crucial, intertwined principles:
- First, it declared the Western Hemisphere closed to future European colonization. Monroe stated that “the American continents… are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”
- Second, it declared that the United States would view any European attempt to impose its “political system” on any independent nation in the Western Hemisphere as “dangerous to our peace and safety.”
- Finally, the Doctrine pledged that the United States would not interfere in the internal concerns or wars of Europe, nor would it interfere with existing European colonies in the Americas, establishing the concept of two distinct spheres of influence.
The central point of the doctrine was to separate the Americas from Europe, ending European attempts to colonize the Americas. President Monroe did not propose to take away the existing European colonies in the Americas, but the Monroe Doctrine became connected with the concept of Manifest Destiny. This was the idea that the United States had a clear (manifest) destiny to stretch “from sea to shining sea” across the North American continent.
Theodore Roosevelt announced a “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine in December, 1904. Venezuela had defaulted on its debts to European nations and several of those nations — Germany, Great Britain, and Italy — had sent gunboats to Venezuela. Roosevelt believed that European intervention in the Americas, even if Venezuela was in the wrong in this case, would threaten the sovereignty of the United States and its neighbors. “Chronic wrongdoing…may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation,” he told Congress, “and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”
Throughout the 20th century, the United States cited the Monroe Doctrine as its reason to intervene in South American countries.
The Monroe Doctrine in the 21st century
In spite of Rep. Velazquez’s bill seeking to annul the doctrine, the current administration has recommitted to it. President Trump, in a speech to the United Nations, said, “It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.”
Following Velazquez’s introduction of a repudiation of the doctrine, a group of Members of Congress spoke up in favor of the policy. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said, “The Monroe Doctrine is one of the most important foreign policy strategies the United States has ever developed. Today, threats to our security and liberty no longer come from London, Paris or Madrid, but from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.” Salazar introduced a bill reaffirming the Monroe Doctrine.
Neither of the bills on the doctrine made it through the House.
The rising tensions with Venezuela, President Trump’s designs on Greenland and Panama, and China’s increasing influence in Latin America have all brought the Monroe Doctrine back into the headlines and analysis of news. Understanding it is important to understanding current events.
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