Trump is repeating the long, painful history of US ‘policing’ of Latin America

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has launched military strikes against more than a dozen boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, killing more than 60 people.

The administration claims it is defending the United States from what it says are drug-trafficking vessels. However, Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro has accused the US of “murdering” its citizens and threatening its sovereignty.

US interference in Latin America is hardly new. In fact, the US has been meddling in the affairs of its southern neighbours from the time many Latin American nations gained independence from European powers in the 1820s.

In 1823, US President James Monroe issued a foreign policy proclamation called the Monroe Doctrine that warned European countries not to intervene anymore in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

The United States saw Latin America as its sphere of influence, and the Monroe Doctrine set the stage for future US expansionism and intervention in the region.

By 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine claimed the United States had the right to “police” the hemisphere in response to “flagrant cases of […] wrongdoing or impotence”.

Such “policing” has since led to revolutions, coups and what some analysts are now calling illegal extrajudicial killings.

A new “corollary” of the Monroe Doctrine is seemingly taking shape today under current president, Donald Trump. Ignoring the painful history of US interventions in Latin America, the Trump administration’s strategy is based on open hostility, military force and a carefully stoked moral panic.

Preparing for invasion?

Some believe the US attacks on suspected drug boats may be merely a prelude to a much bigger military operation.

In recent days, the Pentagon has deployed the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford and a fleet of warships to the Caribbean Sea. They will join about 10,000 US troops already in the region aboard eight other warships, ostensibly to fight “narcoterrorism”.

Yet, many experts believe the US might be preparing for an invasion or other military action to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration has already authorised covert operations in the country and put a bounty of US$50 million (A$76 million) on Maduro’s head.

The legitimacy of Maduro’s government has long been in question – he’s been accused of rigging elections and jailing opposition figures.

Next door, however, Colombia’s president has been democratically elected – and Trump is targeting him, too.

Trump has called the left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, a “thug” and “illegal drug leader”. The US Treasury has also imposed sanctions on Petro, along with his family and cabinet members, based on the alleged permissiveness of his government toward drug trafficking.

Petro, in turn, has accused Trump of seeking to interfere in Colombia’s elections next year to weaken its democracy in order to more easily access Venezeula’s oil.

History, however, suggests that such adventures rarely end well. As the CIA itself put it, the United States can suffer “blowback” – or unintended consequences and side effects – from its own covert operations.

Trump would do well to remember that Latin America has long been the graveyard of US certainty. Two examples stand out: Mexico and Nicaragua.

Mexico: descent into civil war

Mexico has constantly been a testing ground for Washington’s imperial actions, beginning with the Mexican-American war (1846-1848) that resulted in Mexico ceding 55% of its territory to its northern neighbour.

Then, in 1911, the US helped facilitate the assassination of President Francisco I. Madero, the democratically elected reformer who had overthrown Porfirio Díaz’s dictatorship. US Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, acting far beyond his diplomatic role, brokered the infamous “Pact of the Embassy” that paved the way for General Victoriano Huerta’s coup.

Three years later, US Marines occupied the port of Veracruz, ostensibly to prevent a German arms shipment from reaching Huerta’s forces. In reality, the invasion aimed to depose the dictator that Washington had helped install.

The intervention, which left hundreds of civilians dead, ignited a nationalist backlash and deepened the chaos of the Mexican Revolution.

By the time the last Marines withdrew, Mexico was engulfed in civil war – one that would last a decade and shape a century of suspicion toward US power.

Nicaragua: occupation in the name of ‘stability’

Nicaragua’s long entanglement with the United States began in 1909. This was when Washington helped oust President José Santos Zelaya, who had dared to negotiate with Germany and Japan over the construction of a trans-oceanic canal.

US Marines occupied the country in 1912, ostensibly to preserve “stability” but in reality to protect American financial interests and ensure no other canal would threaten the one being built in Panama.

The occupation lasted, on and off, for more than two decades. During that time, the US created and armed the Nicaraguan National Guard, which later became the personal army of the Somoza dynasty of dictators.

Opposition to US rule was led by Augusto César Sandino, whose guerrilla movement fought American troops until his assassination in 1934 – carried out by the same National Guard the Americans had trained.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front, founded in the 1960s, took its name and inspiration from Sandino’s struggle. When it overthrew President Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, the US again intervened – this time through the Contras, a paramilitary force funded and armed by Washington.

In 1986, the International Court of Justice ruled that Washington had breached international law by supporting the Contras and mining Nicaraguan harbours to destabilise the Sandinista government.

But the Reagan administration dismissed the judgement and prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation. The UN General Assembly later passed a resolution urging the US to comply, to no effect.

Today, Nicaragua remains a perennial thorn in the side of the United States – a reminder that its quest to remake the hemisphere has instead eroded the moral authority it once claimed as the champion of liberty.

In Latin America, US interventions have always promised order but delivered chaos. Trump’s “new corollary” seems poised to repeat the cycle.

The potential blowback to Trump’s actions is not only political, it is also moral. The tragedy of US power in the region is that it never realises its greatest enemy has always been itself.