New U.S. dominance threatens several Latin American states

In the article “Donroe’ Doctrine: Attack on Venezuela Is a Warning to Other Governments in the Region”, published by Agência Pública* (an investigative journalism agency from Brazil) and originally written in Portuguese, journalist Natalia Viana analyzes how Donald Trump’s recent strike and the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, could signal a new phase of U.S. intervention in Latin America, and what this might mean for governments across the region.
Below is an excerpt translated into English by Andrea Dip from the article:

The Brazilian government only joined, at 10 a.m., the few countries in the region that condemned Maduro’s kidnapping. According to Celso Amorim (ambassador and head of the president’s special advisory team), speaking to Agência Pública, Brazil was caught off guard by the attack.

In his statement, President Lula condemned the attack and said that “the action recalls the worst moments of interference in the politics of Latin America and the Caribbean and threatens the preservation of the region as a zone of peace.”

The response, however, appears fragile in the face of the new “Donroe Doctrine”. After all, there are already signs that Venezuela may be only the beginning.

Shortly before taking part in the press conference, Donald Trump gave an interview to FOX News in which he issued a direct threat to Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, following the same narrative. “We’re very friendly with her, she’s a good woman. But the cartels run Mexico, she doesn’t run Mexico,” he said, when questioned by the host, who even let out a complicit laugh at the misogynistic tone Trump adopted next: “We can be political about it and say, ‘yes, yes, she’s very afraid of the cartels’… I asked several times, ‘would you like us to fight the cartels?’, ‘no, no Mr. President, please.’ So we have to do something, something will have to be done about Mexico.”

The same threat was reiterated against Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro. Asked during the press conference, Trump said Petro “has cocaine factories, has factories where he’s producing cocaine. He’s producing cocaine and they’re sending it to the United States, so he really needs to watch his ass.” In other words: be careful.

Petro is already subject to sanctions from the U.S. government for having “allowed drug cartels to thrive” and having “refused to curb this activity,” according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

These threats reinforce the idea that the narrative of fighting drug trafficking - or rather, “narco-terrorism” - is the main pretext the United States will cling to in order to intervene on the continent. It is a warning for Brazil’s 2026 elections in October and foreshadows that the issue of combating crime will be the most important topic of the year - as well as the possible intensification of disinformation campaigns seeking to associate the Workers’ Party (PT) and Lula with criminal or narco organizations in Brazil, such as the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital).

Cuba was also mentioned at the conference. Asked by a journalist, Trump said it is “very similar” to Venezuela, “in the sense that we want to help the people of Cuba, but we want to help the people who are outside Cuba as well.” He added: “I think Cuba is something we’re going to end up dealing with, because Cuba is a failing nation.”

Marco Rubio was more direct: “If I lived in Havana and worked for the government, I would be worried right now.”

For journalist Luz Mely Reyes, founder and director of the Venezuelan outlet Efecto Cocuyo, currently living in exile in the United States, the weak response of the international community to the U.S. military action amounts to tacit support for the plan in which “Venezuela ends up being the experiment of the Trump corollary — an experiment of what the new Trump doctrine will be.” She reflects that “in the end, I’ve always said this: we Venezuelans are alone.”

The “lukewarm” reactions do not surprise her, “because the establishment of Maduro’s dictatorship was also the product of a hesitant reaction from the countries in the region” — Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia were unable to ensure that the results of the 2024 election were enforced, she says.

Now, the European Union’s, Russia’s, and China’s equally “lukewarm” responses point in the same direction: the new Donroe Doctrine seeks only to redistribute spheres of dominance among the world’s great powers.

“This strategy sees the world as spheres of influence, not as a world of alliances, which is what defined U.S. policy over the last 70 years. This represents a huge change in the way regional policy is crafted,” explains Ricardo Zúñiga, former diplomat and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. “Critics argue that what is happening is that the United States is yielding to China and Russia within a vision of dividing the world into three parts, with the U.S. maintaining strategic control of the Americas.”

Perhaps the greatest revelation of this morning (January 3) is that, in the face of the Donroe Doctrine, unless there is a major and coordinated global reaction, we Latin Americans will be irredeemably alone.

*You can read the full article in Portuguese HERE:

Redaction & Translation: Andrea Dip