Liberals and the foreign policy establishment scoffed at President Trump when he bluntly announced that he was reviving the Monroe Doctrine to enhance U.S. hemispheric security. In their view, the Monroe Doctrine was an anachronism that belonged to earlier periods of American history. The Obama administration announced in 2013, in Secretary of State John Kerry’s phrase, that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Late last year, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Michael Rubin called Trump’s revival of the Doctrine “dangerous,” explaining that “globalization moots the Monroe Doctrine.” Ed Kilgore in New York magazine echoed Rubin’s sentiments. Stewart Patrick, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote that Trump’s approach to the Western Hemisphere is “counterproductive to U.S. foreign policy and the global order.” Other “experts” have called it shortsighted, a return of U.S. imperialism, and a gift to China.
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On Tuesday at the United Nations, President Trump and the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland signed an enhanced security arrangement for Greenland, enabling the United States to expand its military presence on Greenland and to prevent any adversaries from infiltrating the island. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen praised President Trump and the new agreement for enhancing the security of Greenland, Europe, and the United States. Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielson also praised the new deal with the United States, explaining that the agreement recognizes that Greenland matters in the security of the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
“United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere…”
Trump’s Greenland deal is simply the latest example of Trump’s revival of the Monroe Doctrine. It follows Trump’s deal with Panama, which ended China’s growing influence in the canal region, and his Venezuela coup that ended Venezuela’s pro-China regime, transformed that country’s government into a strong U.S. ally, and provided the U.S. with control of huge Venezuelan oil reserves. Those moves also received expressions of ridicule from the usual suspects. (RELATED: Trump’s Greenland Deal Offers a Lesson for the Iran War)
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In his speech at the United Nations, President Trump stated that the “United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere — and if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital interests of the United States.” The president singled out Cuba’s communist regime as a threat to the United States, accusing it of working with domestic communist and radical groups to harm America. Trump bluntly described Cuba as a “failed state,” and said, “Communism will never be coming to America — but freedom will be coming to Cuba.” (RELATED: Cuba Is Next)
The Cuban regime has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. since it took power in 1959. Previous American presidents pledged to end the regime, but other than a flawed Bay of Pigs operation and equally flawed assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro under the Kennedy administration, no action was taken. The same was true, of course, about Iran’s current regime. Since it took power in 1979 and sought to acquire nuclear weapons, every U.S. president said we would not allow the Mullahs to obtain nuclear weapons, but none, except Donald Trump, took decisive action in June 2025 and since late February 2026 to prevent this from happening. The Cuban regime should take note: Trump means what he says. (RELATED: Cuba’s Hidden Proxy Network: The War Against America)
Should the current regime in Cuba fall from U.S. pressure and internal turmoil, and should the successor regime — as in Venezuela — develop strong ties with the United States, it would be the crowning achievement of a hemispheric security strategy that has already succeeded in making the Monroe Doctrine great again. John Quincy Adams and James Monroe would approve.
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