Smash the ‘Trump Corollary’!

A lot can be said about the Trump-era National Security Strategy 2025 for U.S. imperialism published this November. Similar  documents in the 1990s expressed confidence that a U.S.-dominated century would follow, and that the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union meant the “end of history.” 

While it bragged of Trump’s “accomplishments,” the document also noted U.S. losses over the past 35 years, blaming them on prior administrations.

This editorial, however, will consider just one aspect of the document: its concentration on using U.S. military, economic and media power to dominate the Western Hemisphere and use its control there to reset U.S. imperialism as the world’s preeminent superpower.

The document reads, “Strengthening supply chains in this Hemisphere will reduce dependencies and increase American economic resilience.” This will make “it harder for non-Hemispheric competitors to increase their influence in the region. And even as we prioritize commercial diplomacy, we will work to strengthen our security partnerships – from weapons sales to intelligence sharing to joint exercises.”

Readers might notice how the above quotation resembles the essence of a presidential statement of early U.S. history. James Monroe, the fifth president of the young slavocracy, a weak but rapidly developing settler state that had defeated the British king, issued the policy statement in 1823.

In the 1820s, the inhabitants of Spanish and Portuguese colonies south and west of the United States, from Mexico to Argentina, were expelling the Spanish- and Portuguese-appointed rulers and establishing independent nations. The Monroe Doctrine declared to the European colonial powers to keep out of the Western Hemisphere, although in 1823 the U.S. had little military power to enforce this demand. The 2025 strategic policy warns not French and British colonialism — but China and Russia.

Philadelphia march, Nov. 15, 2025. (WW PHOTO: Joe Piette)

Some 1820s independence leaders, such as Simón Bolívar, recognized that the Monroe Doctrine also meant the U.S. rulers considered the whole hemisphere their backyard.

It’s no accident that the new National Security Strategy calls its Western Hemisphere policy the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Trump already has declared he wants to “buy” Greenland, annex Canada, control the Panama Canal, send troops into Mexico, overthrow Colombia’s president and support vile reactionaries in Argentina and Brazil. Now he has deployed a hyperdestructive war fleet in the Caribbean Sea aimed especially at Venezuela, and at Cuba and Nicaragua.

The document states: “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity – a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.”

That’s what the warships aim at – establishing U.S. preeminence by murdering the peoples of South America and the Caribbean. The White House has announced that U.S. imperialism won’t allow the really sovereign nations of the hemisphere to remain independent. U.S. piracy against a tanker delivering Venezuelan oil to Cuba exposes this goal.

With this understanding of the “Trump Corollary,” Workers World condemns the document for its arrogant declaration of war against the peoples south of the U.S. and its threats against peoples to the north.

Down with the Monroe Doctrine! Down with the Trump Corollary!

Defend the sovereignty of Venezuela and its allies and neighbors!