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The Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary, police power in Latin America. The United States’ capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro — carried out through the bombing of Caracas — has resurrected interventionist concepts that many in South America believed had been relegated to history.

In 2013, at a moment defined by global multilateralism, the US’s then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine — the backbone of American hemispheric intervention — effectively dead. President Donald Trump is now ushering in a period of rupture, reviving 19th-century logic and openly embracing a system in which the brute force of great powers overrides international law and multilateral institutions. 

As we explained in December, this “Donroe Doctrine” places Latin America — a region rich in strategic natural resources — squarely at its center. 

Throughout its 200+ years of history, Brazil has always tried to keep the US close, but never too close. Even Brazil’s US-backed military dictatorship (1964-1985) mostly maintained a certain distance from Washington, with an independent foreign policy. The events of last weekend help us understand why…

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