Progressive Democrats in the House issued a resolution calling for the official end of the Monroe Doctrine in the United States’s foreign relations with Latin America, citing the long history of U.S. military and political interventions in the Western Hemisphere.
Wikimedia Commons, 1912
The measure was presented in December by Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Democrat of New York, alongside Congressman Greg Casar, Democrat of Texas, following the 200th anniversary of the controversial foreign policy doctrine.
“U.S. foreign policy has too often contributed to instability in Latin America,” Casar said in a press release. “Instead of toppling duly elected governments, we can support democracy, grow our economies, and reduce forced migration. Instead of sanctions that starve our neighbors, we can work together to solve the climate crisis.”
He added, “We can begin charting this new way forward by eliminating the outdated Monroe Doctrine.”
The resolution calls for the “development of a ‘New Good Neighbor’ policy in order to foster improved relations and deeper, more effective cooperation” between the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The new relations with Latin America and the Caribbean would move beyond the problematic Monroe Doctrine, which justified U.S. interventions leading to coups d’état against democratically elected governments and ensuing military occupations.
The proposed resolution presented by House Progressives also seeks to reform the Organization of the American States, as well as supporting democratic reforms of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other international financial institutions.
The measure would also promote the declassification of all U.S. government archives that “relate to past coups d’état, dictatorships, and periods in the history of Latin American and Caribbean countries characterized by a high rate of human rights crimes perpetrated by security forces.”
The Monroe Doctrine was first presented to Congress by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, in response to the perceived threat of colonization by European powers in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout the last two hundred years, the way the doctrine has been interpreted has changed depending on the current geopolitical reality.
“But what has not changed is a totally asymmetrical relationship [within the hemisphere],” Héctor Lindo-Fuentes, an emeritus professor of history at Fordham University in New York and co-host of the Spanish language podcast Centroamérica: el presente y sus pasados, tells The Progressive, “one that considers, specifically the countries of Central America, as a part of a sphere of influence [of the United States].”
There have been attempts to seek alternatives to the Monroe Doctrine in the past. In 1933, the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt favored a “Good Neighbor” policy in the hemisphere, which sought to emphasize a policy of non-intervention and non-interference in the region, rather than military intervention.
But the Monroe Doctrine would soon return with more force during the Cold War. This re-emergence led to massive human rights violations through CIA-backed coups d’état in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973), and support for dictatorships carrying out dirty wars in both Central and South America in the 1970s to 1990s.
“Instead of toppling duly elected governments, we can support democracy, grow our economies, and reduce forced migration.” — Representative Greg Casar
During the Obama Administration, the policy would once again become sidelined. A shift occurred following the U.S. support of the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras and a diplomatic gaffe made by Secretary of State John Kerry in which he referred to Latin America as the “backyard” of the United States. ‘‘[The] Monroe Doctrine era is over,” Kerry later declared in a 2013 speech to the Organization of American States.
This shift in diplomatic policy didn’t last long. In 2019, Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, reversed the death of the doctrine, stating, ‘‘Today we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.’’
The right’s praise of the Monroe Doctrine has continued in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have both embraced a return to the doctrine.
The Congressional measure to disavow the Monroe Doctrine follows a visit by a Congressional delegation to South America in August 2023. The visits to Colombia, Brazil, and Chile brought together Democratic Congressional representatives—including Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of New York, Representatives Casar and Joaquin Castro, both of Texas, and Maxwell Frost, of Florida—with elected officials and activists in those countries.
The delegation was organized by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which hoped to challenge the rightwing Republican-and-conservative-Democrat-controlled narrative that dominates U.S. relations with the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The goal was for the legislators to not “lecture, but to listen,” as reported by Foreign Policy.
“[We] met with many policymakers and activists eager to turn the page on years of failed U.S. policies in Latin America,” Velázquez told The Progressive in October. “These lawmakers have a keen understanding of history and the role the United States has had in destabilizing countries in the region.”
She added: “Still, they want to build a collaborative relationship with the United States that treats countries as equals and helps address our shared challenges . . . . Our process must respect the sovereignty of Latin American countries and support their governments in these efforts.”