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Democrats Can Contain the Donroe Doctrine

Democrats have the tools to challenge Trump’s military interventions and electoral interference in Latin America—if they’re willing to use them.

As Democrats on Capitol Hill envision regaining control of one or both chambers of Congress in November, they are already gearing up to rein in the Trump administration’s imperial agenda in Latin America.

But beyond seeing the Western Hemisphere through the lens of the issues contributing to Democratic gains in polls nationwide—heavy-handed immigration enforcement, the tariff-fueled affordability crisis, high-level corruption—legislators in Washington should prioritize a robust oversight and accountability agenda that puts the brakes on the Trump administration’s reckless militarism and coercion in the region.

From the lethal boat strikes across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, joint military operations in Ecuador and beyond, blatant electoral interference from Honduras to Brazil, gunpoint diplomacy in Venezuela, and the military-enforced fuel blockade of Cuba, Democrats can stem the tide of Trump’s so-called Donroe Doctrine—if they are willing to use the tools at their disposal and resist the bipartisan, interventionist consensus on the region that has long plagued Washington.

In response to Trump’s foreign policy in Latin America, Democrats have, by and large, attacked the administration on largely partisan issues, many of which intersect with areas affecting their constituents, including immigration policy, affordability, foreign aid, and corruption.

Democrats have challenged the administration’s mass deportation campaign, “safe third-country” agreements and gutting of asylum and temporary protected status; questioned the basis for imposing levies on Mexico and Brazil and their impacts on the cost of living; bemoaned the impacts of aid cuts on farm communities and the impoundment of funds already appropriated by Congress; and sought answers about the pardoning of the former Honduran narco-president and the security contracts of Blackwater founder Erik Prince in Haiti.

These areas of concern are undoubtedly significant and, because of their impacts on US communities and nexuses to domestic issues, should continue to be pursued if and when Democrats take back the House and/or Senate.

But wielding these select issues for partisan purposes or electoral gain should not overshadow equally pressing foreign policy concerns that many establishment Democrats have long avoided to prevent fissures within the caucus—areas that the administration itself has prioritized and could present significant blowback to long-term US interests if left unchecked.

Atop the agenda for Democrats should be the administration’s lethal boat strikes, which experts say amount to crimes against humanity, having left 240 people dead and cost taxpayers nearly $5 billion. Lawmakers in both chambers........

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