A few days ago, the United States Department of State released an almost five-minute video about the Monroe Doctrine, narrated by Kevin Marino Cabrera, US ambassador to Panama. The message concludes with a phrase that leaves no room for interpretation: American dominance in the Western Hemisphere “will never be questioned again.” The piece has been described by Democratic legislators, Latin American media and critics of Trumpism as imperialist propaganda. It probably is. However, reducing it to a rhetorical provocation would prevent us from understanding its true meaning.
The video does not reveal anything we didn't already know about the Monroe Doctrine. Since its formulation in 1823, the principle of “America for Americans” initially served to warn European powers not to intervene on the continent. Over time—and especially after the Roosevelt Corollary—it became the justification for US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean. In practice, “America for Americans” ended up meaning “America for Americans.” The novelty does not lie in the doctrine, but in Washington's decision to proclaim it again, without euphemisms, as the foundation of its hemispheric policy.
The piece is part of a communication strategy perfectly coherent with the project of Donald Trump's second presidency. Since his inauguration, in January 2025, the contours of a foreign policy concentrated in the Western Hemisphere were drawn. The threats to Panama and Greenland, the insistence on making Canada the 51st state, the growing pressure on Mexico and the priority given to migration, cartels and the Chinese presence anticipated a geopolitical withdrawal towards the immediate space of the United States.
The National Security Strategy published in December 2025 turned those signals into doctrine. The document expressly speaks of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine and establishes as a priority preventing extra-regional competitors from deploying forces, controlling infrastructure, acquiring strategic assets or dominating relevant positions on the continent. His formula for the region is revealing: “recruit and expand.” Washington aims to recruit allied governments, strengthen new partners and “reward and encourage” governments, parties and movements aligned with its principles and strategy.
The main recipient of this message is China. Russia and Iran also appear as adversary actors, but it is Chinese economic, technological, energy, port and financial expansion that constitutes the structural challenge. The United States seeks to remove China from the hemispheric equation and regain control of spaces that for decades it considered naturally its own. The Panama Canal, ports, critical minerals, telecommunications networks, supply chains and maritime routes are not separate issues: they are part of the same dispute over the reorganization of continental power.
This explicit return to the Monroe Doctrine may seem like a show of strength. In reality, it also reveals a profound weakness. A power secure in its global hegemony does not need to declare that its regional dominance will never be questioned again. The United States seems to recognize that it can no longer simultaneously control all the boards of the international system and that it must concentrate its resources on the territory where it retains overwhelming military, economic and political advantages. The Trump Corollary is, therefore, an affirmation of hemispheric power, but also the confession of a retreat: if Washington can no longer order the world, it will at least try to regain control of the Americas.
The most visible instrument of this reorganization is the so-called Shield of the Americas, created in March 2026 as a security coalition and combat cartels. Under the language of cooperation, intelligence sharing and the defense of sovereignty, a regional architecture led by the United States is being built. Each new addition expands the shield and consolidates a network of governments willing to facilitate operations, receive military assistance and adopt the US definition of continental threats.
It is not just about right-wing governments. These are, more precisely, leaders of the Latin American MAGA wing: leaders who find political, financial or military benefits in their alignment with Trump and are willing to advance Washington's agenda. The National Security Strategy puts it extraordinarily clearly: The United States will encourage governments and political movements that share its principles and objectives. The Shield is, then, a military and security alliance, but also a mechanism for ideological organization of the continent. Canada remains in an uncertain position, caught between its deep economic and military integration with the United States and the erosion of a bilateral relationship that for decades seemed stable.
For Mexico, the implications are especially worrying. The designation of several cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, carried out in February 2025, modified the legal, political and discursive framework of the bilateral relationship. The cartels stopped presenting themselves exclusively as criminal organizations to become, within the official US narrative, enemies comparable to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. The May 2026 US Counterterrorism Strategy confirmed that military and law enforcement campaigns against these organizations will continue, in coordination with governments that are “willing and able” to participate.
Until now, the US military intervention in Mexico has been carried out mainly through intelligence, technology, surveillance and indirect support for operations carried out by Mexican forces. But the border between cooperation and direct participation is increasingly thinner. The National Security Strategy itself contemplates selective deployments, greater access to strategic positions and, when Washington considers it necessary, the use of lethal force against cartels. The joint operations that are beginning to be developed or planned in other countries demonstrate that this possibility no longer belongs exclusively to the realm of speculation.
It cannot be said that the entry of US troops into Mexico is inevitable. It can be argued that it is no longer unthinkable. After the US operation in Venezuela and in the face of growing pressure on Cuba, the direct participation of the US Armed Forces in different countries in the region appears as an increasingly real possibility. The fight against “narcoterrorism” provides the justification; The Trump Corollary offers the doctrine; the War Department provides the capabilities, and the Shield of the Americas builds the necessary political coalition.
The State Department video matters, therefore, less for what it tells about the past than for what it announces about the future. It does not seek to explain the Monroe Doctrine: it seeks to normalize it. Its purpose is to convince American society and warn the rest of the continent that Washington once again considers the Western Hemisphere as its exclusive space of security, influence and control.
The Shield of the Americas is presented as protection against cartels and external powers. But every shield also delimits who remains inside, who remains outside, and who has the right to hold it. In this, the United States reserves control. The other countries will have to decide whether they will act as allies, agree to become subordinates, or end up being treated as targets.
