Monroe To Donroe Doctrine? How Trump Is Encouraging China's Land Grab Policy

From Monroe to Donroe: America’s Latin America Policy and Its Global Consequences

In a move that has sent ripples across the international system, the United States under President Donald Trump has effectively revived and radicalized the 1823 Monroe Doctrine—declaring the entire Western Hemisphere as America’s exclusive sphere of influence. This aggressive posture, characterized by the swift abduction of Venezuela’s sitting president and seizure of its oil resources, represents what Trump himself has termed the “Donroe Doctrine.” But the implications extend far beyond Venezuela, potentially encouraging similar territorial ambitions in China and leaving countries like India vulnerable to great power predation.

The Historical Precedent: Athens and Milos

The pattern is ancient—dating back to 5th century BCE Greece. When Athens confronted the neutral island state of Milos during the Peloponnesian War, it delivered a timeless ultimatum: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Two and a half millennia later, this maxim continues to define international relations. The Trump administration’s actions against Venezuela demonstrate this realist calculus with brutal clarity: declared neutrality offers no protection against a determined great power.

The Monroe Doctrine: From Defensive Policy to Expansionist Tool

President James Monroe’s 1823 declaration emerged when the United States was barely 50 years old and hadn’t yet reached the Pacific Coast. The doctrine warned European powers against interfering in the newly independent nations of the Americas. Initially a defensive policy reflecting America’s limited naval capacity, it gradually transformed into an aggressive assertion of American hegemony.

The transformation accelerated under President Theodore Roosevelt, who added the “Roosevelt Corollary” nearly a century later. This amendment claimed America’s right to exercise “international police power” in Latin America if nations failed to meet their obligations or created “instability.” The result: a century of American military interventions across the region, from Cuba and Puerto Rico to repeated Marine deployments throughout Central and South America.

What began as a shield against European recolonization became a sword for American imperialism.

Nicholas Spykman’s Three-Layer Strategy

To understand America’s global posture, one must return to the geopolitical theories of Nicholas J. Spykman, the American political scientist who refined Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory. Spykman proposed a three-layer strategy for maintaining American dominance:

First Layer: Absolute Control of the Western Hemisphere Spykman argued for unchallenged American military supremacy across both North and South American continents. No compromise, no negotiation—the Americas were to be America’s exclusive domain. The Monroe Doctrine, in its most expansive interpretation, provided the ideological framework for this control.

Second Layer: Eurasian Balance of Power America should not attempt to directly rule Eurasia but instead maintain a balance of power across the continent. This meant supporting local rivals: Europe against Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia against Iran, Pakistan against India, Japan and South Korea against China. The goal: prevent the emergence of any single dominant power in Eurasia at all costs.

Third Layer: The Rimland Spykman identified the Rimland—the coastal fringes of Eurasia—as the true seat of global power. Western Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia contain the world’s population centers, economic productivity, trade routes, and natural resources. America’s strategy here: prevent any single power from dominating the Rimland through indirect intervention and proxy balancing.

For decades after World War II, this strategy worked. American forces were permanently stationed across Europe and Asia. The USSR collapsed, and for a time America stood as the sole superpower.

Post-Cold War Overreach and Gradual Decline

America’s 1990 triumph proved short-lived. Emboldened by victory, the United States expanded NATO eastward to Russia’s borders, launched costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and attempted to reshape the Middle East. The 2008 financial crisis exposed the limits of this overextension. While America remained militarily dominant, its economic foundations had weakened.

Meanwhile, China’s rise presented the first genuine peer competitor since the Soviet Union. Over two decades, China built economic interdependence, expanded global infrastructure networks through the Belt and Road Initiative, and modernized its military. Chinese influence spread throughout South America—precisely the region America claimed as its exclusive sphere.

Trump’s Donroe Doctrine: A Strategic Catastrophe

Rather than implementing Spykman’s second-layer strategy to counter China, Trump has systematically undermined it:

1. Attacking China’s Economic Partners: Instead of strengthening alliances to contain China, Trump has attacked traditional partners like India, Japan, and European nations through trade wars and unilateral demands.

2. Destroying International Norms: The Venezuela intervention normalizes territorial aggression and regime change—precisely the tactics China employs in the South China Sea and along its land borders.

3. Empowering China’s Narrative: When America, the world’s leading democracy, engages in blatant imperialism, it weakens the case against Chinese expansionism. As the video notes, “if no difference, then China currently appears to be a better option than the US among other countries.”

4. Abandoning Balance of Power: Spykman’s strategy relied on American credibility as a stabilizing force. Trump’s actions reveal America as just another predatory power pursuing narrow interests.

5. Inviting Chinese Countermoves: By demonstrating that great powers can redraw borders and seize resources with impunity, Trump has given China a template for Taiwan, the South China Sea, and border regions.

China’s “Chunro Doctrine”

China has long pursued its own version of sphere-of-influence politics, though more economically focused until recently. Deng Xiaoping’s famous dictum—“hide your strength, bide your time, never take the lead”—guided China’s patient rise. But with growing power comes growing ambition:

• Territorial Claims: China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Indian territories like Arunachal Pradesh. It has already absorbed Tibet and occupies Aksai Chin.

• Economic Imperialism: Through Belt and Road Initiative loans, China has gained control over strategic ports and infrastructure across Asia, Africa, and even Latin America.

• Military Modernization: China’s rapid military buildup enables power projection far beyond its borders.

• Regional Dominance: China seeks undisputed primacy in East Asia, the South China Sea, and Southeast Asia—the Eastern Hemisphere equivalent of America’s Monroe Doctrine.

Trump’s actions in Venezuela have delivered a profound message to Beijing: the international system no longer enforces norms against territorial aggression. The “rules-based order” that constrained great power behavior since 1945 is dead.

India’s Precarious Position

For India, the implications are severe. As the video argues, India faces a two-front challenge:

1. An Uncertain America: The United States, once a relatively reliable counterweight to China, has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to uphold international norms or maintain consistent alliances. America’s sudden embrace of great power politics—the same tactics China uses—undermines its moral authority and strategic credibility.

2. A Rising China: With America distracted and discredited, China faces fewer constraints on its territorial ambitions. China already contests India’s borders, has engaged in military standoffs, and seeks dominance across the Indo-Pacific.

3. No Alternative Order: The United Nations, designed to provide collective security, has proven ineffective. With America abandoning its role as “global policeman” in all but name, there is no institution capable of checking Chinese expansion.

The Collapse of International Law

The video frames this moment as historic: “We witnessed an 80-year-old formula completely collapse. Rules based international order.”

Since 1945, despite its imperfections, the international system provided certain constraints:

• Sovereignty was normatively respected
• Military aggression carried diplomatic and economic costs
• International law offered at least minimal protections for small states
• The UN provided a forum for dispute resolution

America’s actions—combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s creeping annexations—have rendered these protections hollow. We have returned to an era where “the big fish eats the small fish,” as Chanakya observed millennia ago.

India’s Response Options

According to the video’s analysis, India has two fundamental paths:

1. Victimhood: Wait passively for one’s turn to be victimized by great power predation. This path requires accepting territorial concessions, economic subordination, and strategic vulnerability.

2. Deterrence: Focus on genuine military and economic strength to create credible deterrence. The video acknowledges India possesses nuclear weapons—but notes Russia also has nukes yet faces American pressure. True deterrence requires more than symbolic capabilities; it requires sustained economic growth, military modernization, technological self-reliance, and strategic autonomy.

The video concludes with a pointed critique of India’s domestic priorities: “If we keep doing Mutton, Mughal, Mosque, Mangalsutra then fine—you are giving an open invitation to China to take over the Eastern Hemisphere.” The argument suggests that internal divisive politics undermine the national unity and economic focus necessary to confront external threats.

A New Era of Great Power Competition

The convergence of American revanchism and Chinese ambition creates a volatile multipolar world. Both powers now embrace versions of sphere-of-influence politics:

• America claims the Western Hemisphere (Monroe/Donroe)
• China claims the Eastern Hemisphere (Chunro)
• Russia attempts to dominate its near abroad

Small and medium powers must navigate increasingly tight corners. The old post-WWII assumption that American power would be exercised in service of liberal internationalism no longer holds. America has revealed itself as a conventional revisionist power—one that seeks to maximize its relative advantage through unilateral action rather than cooperative frameworks.

For India, the strategic lesson is clear: rely on others at your peril. The Quad may provide limited cooperation with Japan, Australia, and a mercurial America, but ultimate security depends on India’s own strength.

The Path Forward

The video suggests India still has “one last chance” to establish itself as a “vishwa guru” (world teacher) by:

1. Moving beyond political polarization and “jumla” (rhetoric)
2. Genuinely strengthening the economy (India is currently the 4th largest by some measures, but needs to become “truly large and powerful”)
3. Revitalizing manufacturing and creating quality employment
4. Ensuring GDP numbers reflect real economic health rather than statistical manipulation
5. Building cohesive national identity instead of divisive politics

The alternative is to become a prize in the competition between great powers rather than a great power itself.

Conclusion: The Return of Realism

Trump’s Donroe Doctrine has accelerated the world’s return to raw power politics. When America justifies seizing Venezuela’s oil and kidnapping its president, it legitimizes Chinese seizure of Taiwan and Russian territorial revisionism. The normative firewall against aggression has burned.

In this environment, India must either build sufficient strength to deter predation or accept subordination. The choices that once seemed abstract—between engagement and confrontation with China, between economic liberalization and protectionism, between national unity and division—now carry existential weight. The era of cheap security guarantees is over. Every nation must secure itself or face the consequences.