What the 'Donroe Doctrine' means for Latin America

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Podcast: Consider This from NPR
Episode: What the 'Donroe Doctrine' means for Latin America
Date: June 7, 2026
Host: Adrian Florido
Guest: Greg Grandin, Professor of History at Yale University

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the aggressive shift of U.S. policy toward Latin America in President Trump's second term, centered on what’s been labeled the “Donroe Doctrine”—a play on the Monroe Doctrine. Host Adrian Florido and historian Greg Grandin discuss the doctrine’s impact, the use of military and economic force, the U.S. approach to Cuba, repercussions across the region, and the future of U.S.–Latin American relations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 'Donroe Doctrine' Explained

[00:12–01:18, 03:24–04:01]

• The Trump administration has captured Venezuelan President Maduro and is now heavily intervening throughout Latin America, using both military force and economic sanctions.
• The doctrine reimagines America’s historical claim to hemispheric dominance, now enforced primarily through the “war on drugs” but with little justification or attempt to legitimize actions to Latin Americans.
• Notable incidents include military attacks on boats suspected of smuggling drugs, an embargo crippling Cuba, and pressure on other countries to allow U.S. military operations.

Notable Quote:

"You have quite a remarkable cohesive and I would say efficient application of... US Hard power to Latin America under the rubric of the war on drugs."
—Greg Grandin [04:01]

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2. Political Motives: Why Latin America?

[04:48–06:30]

• Trump’s Latin American policy is motivated by a rejection of globalization and a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine: Instead of shared interests in the Western Hemisphere, Trump claims outright U.S. ownership.
• The political power of exile communities (Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Brazilians) centered in Florida plays a major role; their influence encourages a "maximalist position" on Latin America.

Notable Quote:

"The Western hemisphere belongs to the United States. More importantly... the way that the, the... Cuban lobby... it's a greater diaspora of exiles... have been pressing Trump."
—Greg Grandin [05:10, condensed]

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3. The U.S. Push Against Cuba

[06:30–08:27]

• The U.S. has intensified its attempts to end the communist system in Cuba, emboldened by success in Venezuela (removing Maduro).
• Grandin cautions that Cuba has a deeper, more legitimate state structure than Venezuela; tactics that worked in Venezuela may not succeed in Cuba.
• Miami exile community’s demands are ambitious: they want restoration of property and full regime change, not the compromises accepted in Venezuela.

Notable Quote:

"They're going to want, they want their island back, they want their property back, they want their house on, on the Malecon back."
—Greg Grandin [07:32]

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4. Regional Fallout: Change in Latin America’s Geopolitics

[08:03–09:40]

• Trump’s model is “domination without hegemony,” meaning pure force and transactional relationships with the region.
• U.S. aid is used transactionally to win over governments, such as Ecuador and Chile, but these policies have created instability and crisis.
• Anti-imperialist sentiment and demands for sovereignty could rebound, as populations react against the new U.S. assertiveness.

Notable Quote:

"Trump is basically operating on a model of domination without hegemony. It is just pure force and pure power and pure, at best, transactional relations."
—Greg Grandin [08:27]

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5. Spotlight on Colombia

[09:40–11:01]

• The Trump administration’s endorsement of a right-wing Colombian candidate signals a shift back to militarized tactics against cartels.
• An Ecuador-Colombia alliance would mean a significantly escalated, coordinated “war on drugs,” reminiscent of past militaristic crackdowns, threatening fragile peace treaties.

Notable Quote:

“It would be a return to a very militarized state of war. Colombia has... tried to bring the war to a close. They signed a very important peace treaty... and what you saw... is increasing provocations by Ecuador..."
—Greg Grandin [09:54]

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6. The War on Drugs—Effectiveness and Consequences

[11:01–11:31]

• Despite ramped-up violence—including the killing of over 200 speedboat operators—there’s no significant change in cocaine volume or price in the U.S.
• The policy is largely symbolic, with actual impact on drug flows negligible, but with real human and political costs.

Notable Quote:

"Despite killing more than 200 speedboat operators, the price of cocaine and the quantity of cocaine on the US Market is exactly the same..."
—Greg Grandin [11:01]

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Memorable Moments and Quotes

• Drone and Boat Attacks [01:02–01:18]: NPR report highlights fishermen attacked by U.S. drone, representing the on-the-ground (and at-sea) consequences of militarized policy.
  • "Boom. It exploded. The cabin filled with flames." —Reporter [01:11]
• Distinction with the Monroe Doctrine: Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” is more about enforcement than building hemispheric consensus: “The Monroe Doctrine… was based on the premise that the Western hemisphere shared certain interests. The Trump administration has largely redefined that doctrine…” —Greg Grandin [05:10]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:12–01:18: Setting the scene: U.S. interventions, Venezuela, and Cuba
• 03:24–04:01: Introduction of Greg Grandin and the aggressive U.S. turn
• 04:01–04:48: Grandin describes new U.S. tactics in Latin America
• 04:52–05:10: Underlying political/electoral motivations
• 06:30–08:03: U.S. moves against Cuba and comparison to Venezuela
• 08:03–09:40: Predictions for regional backlash and anti-imperialist resurgence
• 09:40–10:53: Colombia’s political shift and renewed militarism
• 11:01–11:31: Ineffective drug war escalation

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Conclusion

In this focused, rapid-fire episode, Adrian Florido and Greg Grandin lay out how the “Donroe Doctrine” is reshaping U.S.–Latin America relations through force and transactional alliances, without concern for regional legitimacy or long-term stability. Grandin warns that these policies may breed future backlash and destabilization, even as they deliver short-term rhetorical victories for Trump's administration and its supporters in the U.S. exile communities.

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For listeners seeking to understand the current and future trajectory of U.S. policy in Latin America, this episode provides indispensable context, historical perspective, and expert analysis.

Transcript

[Adrian Florido]

It Consider this where every day we go deep on one big news story. The Trump administration is aggressively intervening in the affairs of Latin America.

[Greg Grandin]

The US has captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

[Adrian Florido]

Venezuela's longtime leader is sitting in a New York jail cell after U.S. forces hauled him out of his bedroom in Caracas in January on drug charges. Expats in Miami celebrated across the region. President Trump is sending in the US Military, using threats and sanctions to try to get what he wants. Like in Cuba, he wants the communist government to fall. This year, he started blocking almost all shipments of oil to the island nation. Its economy is collapsing. And in the seas surrounding Latin America, the US has killed hundreds of people by bombing small boats it says are carrying drugs, though it's offered no proof of NPR recently reported on fishermen who said a US Flagged vessel attacked them at sea.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The guys say, captain, look, two drones are coming at us. One then ripped through the captain's cabin.

[Commercial Announcer]

Boom.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It exploded. The cabin filled with flames. He said, very soon we're going to

[Greg Grandin]

start doing it on land, too.

[Adrian Florido]

It's already bombed suspected drug cartels in Ecuador and is reportedly pressuring Guatemala and Mexico to to allow the US Military in, too. All of this under the umbrella of what Donald Trump has called the Don Roe Doctrine, a play on the Monroe Doctrine, a foreign policy framework the US used in the 19th century to establish domination over the Americas. Consider this the Trump administration is supercharging its aggression toward Latin America. Will the Donroe Doctrine backf? From npr, I'm Adrian Florido.

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[Adrian Florido]

Consider this from npr. The Trump administration has moved aggressively to exert its power across Latin America. Much of President Trump's second term has been defined by extreme force in the region, but he's also exerted a tremendous amount of political pressure. In Colombia, a Trump endorsement helped carry a right wing challenger for the presidency into a runoff against the leftist frontrunner later this month. To talk about what all this signals, we spoke with Greg Grandin, the author of many books on the US And Latin America and a professor of history at Yale. I asked him what this turn toward Latin America looks like right now.

[Greg Grandin]

Well, it's remarkable in its aggression. It's remarkable in the sense that it feels no need to legitimate itself in terms of any kind of moral or normative justification in Latin America. In the Western Hemisphere. You have quite a remarkable cohesive and I would say efficient application of all of the different applications of hard power of US Hard power to Latin America under the rubric of the war on drugs. I would say that maybe with the exception of Uruguay, Washington is meddling in Latin American politics to different degrees of intensity in almost every Latin American nation.

[Adrian Florido]

Why has Latin America suddenly taken on such importance for this administration?

[Greg Grandin]

I think there's a couple of reasons. I think that rejection of globalization and rejection of the post Cold War and the post World War II premises of foreign policy where the United States would superintend a global order based on rules.

[Adrian Florido]

Right.

[Greg Grandin]

The Trump administration has made much of its rejection of that vision. And in all of the talk of rehabilitating and revitalizing the Monroe Doctrine, it's a very particular reading of the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, for all of its faults at least, was based on the premise that the Western hemisphere shared certain interests. The Trump administration has largely redefined that doctrine to mean that the Western hemisphere belongs to the United States. More importantly, I think, is the electoral calculations of Florida and the way that Florida, having become kind of the command center of maga, you know, the way that, the way that the, the, you know, the Cuban lobby, which has now is no longer the Cuban lobby, but it's the Cuban, it's the Venezuelan, it's the Colombian, it's the Brazilian lobby, it's all of the, it's a, it's a greater diaspora of exiles of fairly wealthy and privileged Exiles have retreated to Florida and have been pressing Trump. They wanted the Trump administration to put forward a very maximalist position on Latin America, which it has done.

[Adrian Florido]

Let's talk about Cuba. The US Is moving really aggressively to bring the communist government down, or at least bring it to heel. President Trump seems emboldened by how swiftly he was able to usher in a friendly government in Venezuela after abducting President Maburo there. Is he right to think that he could accomplish the same thing in Cuba?

[Greg Grandin]

I imagine that the Trump administration probably would like this to be resolved through some kind of uprising on the island out of desperation. It seems like that's what their calculus is, that turning the screws time after time and making life as miserable as possible for Cubans and until it becomes unbearable. Now, on the other hand, the Cuban state, it's not the Venezuelan military and it's not the Venezuelan state. It, it's, it's deeper and has more organic legitimacy. I think in some ways, Trump's not going to be able to do in Cuba what he did in Venezuela, where he basically turned. He basically left the Chavista state in power, the Maduro state in power, and is, and is running it like a holding company. The Miami Cuban lobby is going to want substantial changes. They're going to want, they want their island back, they want their property back, they want their house on, on the Malecon back. They wouldn't put up with the kind of compromise that they did in Venezuela, where they just basically made a deal with one faction of the, of the Maduro state.

[Adrian Florido]

Ending the communist system in Cuba has been a longtime goal of the US and it's pressured other countries for a long time to take a stance against Cuba. But a lot of Latin American countries, you know, have maintained relationships with Cuba and even, even that seems to be changing right now. How does Trump's end game in Cuba have the potential, you think, to alter the entire US Latin America dynamic across the continent?

[Greg Grandin]

It's good question. Trump is basically operating on a model of domination without hegemony. It is just pure force and pure power and pure, at best, transactional relations. And the asymmetrical relationship of power with Latin America is clear. I mean, a promise of $20 million in aid and you get Ecuador on board, he's got his way in Chile and Venezuela and Ecuador and Bolivia. But we've already seen that there is this crisis of govern those countries as a result of him getting his way. So I think the, the future is wide open and I think that that old anti imperialist demand for national sovereignty ideal might snap back. In any given election, voters are looking at a range of things they're basing their decisions on, on particular candidates. And, you know, there is a, there is a social base for Trumpism in Latin America. But the problem with Trumpism is that it contains ele own negation. Right, because it starts acting out in ways that, that lead to destabilization.

[Adrian Florido]

Let's talk about Colombia for a minute. President Trump endorsed a right wing candidate who has promised to crush drug smugglers, to shoot down their airplanes, to sink their boats. What would that mean for Trump to have an ally in the Colombian president?

[Greg Grandin]

What it would mean is, I think, an alliance between Ecuador and Colombia and a return to this very militaristic response to cartels and CR in the Andes in the countryside. It would be a return to a very militarized state of war. Colombia has moved away from, you know, being dominated by conservative governments that were tied to paramilitary regimes. They tried to bring the war to a close. They signed a very important peace treaty with the far. And what you saw in the last couple of months, especially since Ecuador and the US Military are running operations, is increasing provocations by Ecuador over the border to kind of create a sense of crisis. The right wing candidate is promising a hard line to bring the hammer down, and a lot of people are responding to that.

[Adrian Florido]

Is Trump building an effective, unified battlefield against the drug traffickers with, you know, this group of country leaders?

[Greg Grandin]

Well, he's using the pretext of a campaign against the drug traffickers. There was just a study done that despite killing more than 200 speedboat operators, the price of cocaine and the quantity of cocaine on the US Market is exactly the same as it was. And I think it'll be the same by escalating the war on drugs in the Andes. But yes, bringing Ecuador and Colombia together would provide quite a large field of operations for this renewed war on drugs.

[Adrian Florido]

Well, I've been speaking with Greg Grandin. His most recent book is called America A New History of the New World, and he's a professor of history at Yale University. Greg Grandin, thanks for your time.

[Greg Grandin]

Well, thank you so much for having me.

[Adrian Florido]

This episode was produced by Henry Larson and Michael Levitt. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Courtney Dorn. It's consider this from npr. I'm Adrian Florido.

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