Trump Does Not Have Very Bad Intentions

TEHRAN (Iran News) Donald Trump was, in essence, a believer in the Monroe Doctrine, and he also made some changes to it. It became clear to him during the JCPOA process that Europe, led by London and using Obama’s hand, had deprived the United States of entry into—and return to—the Iranian market, and had viewed everything through a European lens. Therefore, he became upset and withdrew himself from the fray. In essence, Trump’s first step in leaving the JCPOA was to break a plan that England had drawn up for the United States. Of course, Iran was also harmed, but the collapse of the JCPOA in the Iranian market mostly harmed a class that, over the past 30 years, had made Iran’s economy exclusive to itself. Companies were supposed to come, contracts were to be prepared, and the interests of this newly rich current were to be renewed. But let us see what the Monroe Doctrine is, to which Trump shows commitment.

The Monroe Doctrine is a fundamental principle in United States foreign policy that was announced on December 2, 1823 by James Monroe, the fifth president of the country. In essence, this doctrine had three main objectives:

Opposition to “new colonialism” by England, which was formulated against the United States and to preserve England’s colonial interests in its colonies.

Opposition to English interference in the affairs of countries that had not yet been colonized.

Creating understanding and cooperation with Europe so that the United States would not interfere in existing conflicts and colonies of England and some other countries such as Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium.

In practice, this doctrine meant declaring the Western Hemisphere as the “backyard” or exclusive sphere of influence of the United States, granting it the right to respond in the event of European intervention.

Over time, with the discovery of oil and key developments and later interpretations, the nature of this doctrine gradually changed and was used to justify U.S. interventions in the spheres of influence of England and other European countries.

President Theodore Roosevelt, by adding the “Roosevelt Corollary” to this doctrine, granted the United States the right to act as an international police power. According to this, if a Latin American country showed “chronic wrongdoing” in managing its affairs (for example, inability to repay debts to Europe), the United States had the right to intervene militarily in that country to prevent European intervention. This interpretation led to repeated U.S. military interventions in countries such as Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic—and later even Iran.

During the Cold War, the Monroe Doctrine was strengthened and revived to counter the influence of the Soviet Union and communist ideology in the Western Hemisphere. The most famous example was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, during which John F. Kennedy invoked this doctrine to force the Soviet Union to remove its missiles from Cuba.

In the contemporary era, although Barack Obama in 2013 implicitly described that doctrine as obsolete, Donald Trump in 2018 explicitly declared that the Monroe Doctrine is alive and used it to warn rivals such as China and Russia—and more recently Europe—about influence in Latin America and other countries of interest to the United States. This is exactly the same logic seen in the 2025 strategy and the policies of maximum pressure against Venezuela, and in the dealings of America’s 2025 strategy toward Europe.