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Monroe Doctrine: The Controversial Cornerstone of US Foreign Policy

The Monroe Doctrine, a significant piece of United States foreign policy, was first articulated by President James Monroe in 1823, and it essentially warns the powers of Europe from meddling in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere, claimed by the US as its own sphere of influence. Initially, the doctrine was meant to oppose European colonialism while simultaneously asserting the US as a rising regional power. By the turn of the 20th century, it had taken on a new meaning and was often used as justification for the 'policing' of Latin America by the US. Since its inception, the Monroe Doctrine has routinely been invoked to justify various US foreign policy positions and remains relevant today.

Origins

Towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), a wave of revolutions swept across Latin America. Spain had been ravaged by the armies of Napoleon I (reign 1804-1814; 1815) and could barely afford to keep control over its colonial empire in the Americas, a weakness that liberty-seeking revolutionaries managed to exploit. Under the leadership of men like Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) and José de San Martín (1778-1850), the revolutionaries cast off the shackles of Spanish colonial rule and established independent republics based on the ideals of the Enlightenment. But even then, with the taste of victory still on their lips, it was clear that these republics' grasp on independence was tenuous at best. As the great European powers rallied and rebuilt after the downfall of Napoleon, it was clear that it would be only a matter of time before they turned their imperialist eyes back West, toward the lost colonies of the Americas.

Indeed, plans to recolonize the New World were already materializing in the Old. Austria, Prussia, and Russia – three of the victors in the wars against Napoleon – sought to cleanse the world of radical Enlightenment ideals and restore the kind of absolute monarchism that had been the status quo before the French Revolution (1789-1799) had turned the world upside down. These empires formed a coalition called the Holy Alliance and vowed, among other things, to return the Bourbon Dynasty to the Spanish throne and resubjugate the Latin American peoples to Spanish domination. Naturally, this worried the fledgling republics, which knew that they could do little to resist a European incursion upon their shores. Fortunately, there seemed to be two stronger nations that opposed the Holy Alliance and might be able to help.

The first of these potential allies was Great Britain, then the foremost world power. A constitutional monarchy, Britain was ideologically opposed to the absolutist empires of the Holy Alliance. Moreover, the British had spent years cultivating a lucrative market for trade in South America and would be loath to see these eager customers fall back under Spanish rule. The other nation, of course, was the United States. Another republic founded on Enlightenment ideals, the US had won its own independence barely half a century earlier and would not stand to see absolutism take root in its own backyard. Less altruistically, the US dreamt of expanding its own empire ever westward – an "empire of liberty" as Thomas Jefferson once put it – which would eventually put it at odds with Russia, which had long laid claim to the Pacific Coast, and a post-Napoleonic France, which was eyeing its own return to the Americas. If the US could not prevent European recolonization, it may as well kiss its own imperialist dreams goodbye.

Seeing as both Britain and the US opposed the Holy Alliance's intervention in Latin America, it seemed sensible for them to make common cause. Indeed, British Foreign Minister George Canning offered to do exactly that and proposed that the two nations issue a joint statement warning the Holy Alliance to stay out of the Americas. At first, US President James Monroe (served 1817-1825) thought this was a good idea, but he was soon dissuaded by his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848). A shrewd diplomat, Adams understood that by making a joint statement, the US would be perceived as merely a junior partner doing the bidding of Britain. But if the US were to issue a statement on its own, it would be asserting its authority in the Western Hemisphere and would be claiming the status of a rising power. "It would be more…dignified," Adams wrote, "to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France then to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war" (quoted in Crandall & Crandall). Monroe, ultimately, agreed.

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John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was an American statesman and diplomat who served as the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829). The son of a former president, Adams had a long and distinguished political career both before and after his single presidential term, in which he sought to strengthen the US and advocated for the antislavery movement.

Early Life

John Quincy Adams (pronounced 'Quinzy') was born on 11 July 1767, in his parents' home in Braintree, Massachusetts. His father, John Adams, was then an up-and-coming Boston lawyer who had recently married Abigail Smith Adams, John Quincy's mother. John Quincy grew up amidst the turmoil of the American Revolution, which began practically in his own backyard; indeed, when he was only seven, he witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill from afar. His father was heavily involved in the Second Continental Congress, helping to spearhead the push for the independence of the United States, which was finally achieved in July 1776. In 1778, John Adams was selected to go to Paris as part of a diplomatic mission to secure political and financial support for the Patriot cause. He decided to take John Quincy with him, and, after a tumultuous transatlantic voyage, the Adamses arrived in France in April 1778.

Upon arriving in Paris, John Quincy was sent to a French boarding school, where he quickly became proficient in French. In 1780, when John Adams went to Amsterdam to secure loans from the Dutch Republic, John Quincy accompanied him there as well, furthering his education at Leiden University. During this time, he formed a close relationship with his father, whose personality and political beliefs he came to emulate. Like his father, John Quincy grew into a solitary man with few intimate friends and more comfortable in the company of his books; indeed, around this time, John Quincy began to keep a diary that would become his main confidant over the next 60 years. In 1781, John Quincy parted from his father to go to Saint Petersburg as the personal secretary of Francis Dana, the newly appointed US minister to Russia. He was back at his father's side by 1783, where he acted as an informal secretary during the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War and secured British recognition of US independence.

James Monroe

James Monroe (1758-1831) was an American statesman who served as the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825). The fourth president to belong to the so-called 'Virginia Dynasty', and the last of the generation of the Founding Fathers to hold the office, Monroe is primarily remembered for the Monroe Doctrine and the Era of Good Feelings.

Early Life & Revolution

James Monroe was born on 28 April 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was the eldest son of Spence Monroe, a craftsman, and Elizabeth Jones Monroe, the daughter of a family of wealthy Welsh immigrants. James grew up on the 600-acre family farm on which he was born, and, at the age of eleven, he was enrolled in Campbelltown Academy, considered the best school in Virginia. Here, he excelled in Latin and mathematics and befriended fellow student John Marshall, future chief justice of the US Supreme Court. In the early 1770s, both of Monroe's parents died, forcing him to drop out of school to take care of his younger siblings and to look after the property he had inherited, which included several enslaved people. In 1774, Monroe was able to return to school and attended the College of William and Mary, where he became increasingly involved in Whig politics and the opposition to Parliamentary taxes.

For the past decade, British Parliament had imposed a series of direct taxes on the colonies that American Whigs, or 'Patriots', had condemned as unconstitutional, on the basis that they were not represented in Parliament. The conflict had gradually escalated until, in April 1775, the American Revolutionary War broke out between Britain and the rebellious colonies. In the days leading up to the war, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, dissolved the colony's elected legislative body, the House of Burgesses, and sent British soldiers to confiscate arms and ammunition belonging to the colony's militias. Outraged, Monroe and hundreds of other Virginians followed Patriot leader Patrick Henry to the Governor's Mansion in Williamsburg, to demand the weapons' return; the conflict, later known as the Gunpowder Incident, was de-escalated when Dunmore agreed to pay the Patriots £330. Monroe, feeling this was not good enough, later broke into the Governor's Mansion with 23 other students and stole hundreds of muskets and swords for the Patriot cause.

In 1776, Monroe dropped out of college and enlisted in the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army. That December, he crossed the icy Delaware River with General George Washington and participated in the ensuing Battle of Trenton (26 December 1776). During the battle, he was severely wounded in the shoulder while capturing a Hessian cannon and nearly died of his injuries. After recovering, he was promoted to captain for his valor and saw further action at the Battle of Brandywine (11 September 1777) and Battle of Germantown (4 October 1777). He spent the winter shivering with the rest of the Continental Army at Valley Forge, where he befriended Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, and shared a cabin with his old schoolmate John Marshall. The following year, he served at the Battle of Monmouth (28 June 1778) and was later promoted to lieutenant colonel, with recommendations from both Washington and Alexander Hamilton.

American War of Independence, 1775 - 1783

Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

In 1780, Monroe resigned from the army and returned to Williamsburg to study law. Here, he was mentored by none other than Thomas Jefferson, who took Monroe under his wing and influenced his political development. In 1782, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, which he used as a stepping stone to win election to the Confederation Congress the following year. During his three years in Congress, Monroe supported the westward expansion of the United States as well as the Northwest Ordinance, which laid out the procedure whereby such lands could be admitted into the Union as states. He strongly supported the right of the US to navigate the Mississippi River – which was a point of contention with Spain – and argued against the need for a stronger central government than the one laid out in the Articles of Confederation.

On 16 February 1786, the 27-year-old Monroe married Elizabeth Kortright, the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent New York City family. Monroe retired from Congress that same year, and the couple settled in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where Monroe opened a law practice. The couple would have two daughters: Eliza (1786-1840) and Maria (1802-1850); a son, James, was born in 1799 but tragically died sixteen months later. Monroe re-entered politics in 1788 when he attended the Virginia Ratifying Convention, tasked with ratifying the newly drafted US Constitution for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Though by now Monroe agreed that the feeble Articles of Confederation should be amended, he was concerned that the Constitution left the federal government too powerful and ultimately voted against it. Nevertheless, Virginia voted to ratify the Constitution by a narrow margin, and it went into effect nationwide in March 1789, with Washington elected as the first president.

The Gene Ho Show Season 4 Premiere Breaks Down the New Monroe Doctrine

As 2026 kicks off, a new term is dominating political conversations across America: The DON-roe Doctrine. In the highly anticipated Season 4 premiere of The Gene Ho Show, host Gene Ho alongside Dave delivers a compelling analysis of what this doctrine means for America’s position on the world stage.

This isn’t just another political talking point-it’s a fundamental shift in how the United States approaches its role in the Western Hemisphere and beyond.

What is the DON-roe Doctrine?

The DON-roe Doctrine represents President Trump’s modern reinterpretation of the historic Monroe Doctrine from 1823. While President James Monroe originally declared that European colonial powers should stay out of the Americas, Trump has taken this concept and supercharged it for the 21st century.

The clever wordplay-combining “DON” (Trump’s first name) with “Monroe”-captures the essence of this policy: America is reasserting its dominance in the Western Hemisphere with renewed vigor and without apology.

The Trump Takeover: Key Elements

Reasserting Hemispheric Dominance

The administration has made clear that the Western Hemisphere falls firmly within America’s sphere of influence. From renewed focus on border security to strategic positioning in the Caribbean and Central America, the DON-roe Doctrine signals a return to proactive American leadership in the region.

Challenging Foreign Influence

A central pillar of this doctrine is limiting the influence of rival powers-particularly China-in America’s backyard. Whether it’s infrastructure investments, trade relationships, or strategic partnerships, the administration is working to ensure American interests come first.

Strategic Territorial Interests

The administration’s discussions around Greenland and other strategic territories reflect this expanded vision of American security interests. The DON-roe Doctrine isn’t just about maintaining the status quo-it’s about positioning America for long-term strategic advantage.

Why The Gene Ho Show Matters

Gene Ho brings a unique perspective to political commentary. As a photographer who worked closely with President Trump during his campaigns, Gene offers insights that go beyond typical media analysis. His show has become essential viewing for those who want to understand the deeper currents shaping American politics.

In this Season 4 premiere, Gene and Dave break down:

The historical context of the Monroe Doctrine and why it matters today

How Trump is applying these principles in modern geopolitics

What this means for America’s allies and adversaries

The strategic implications for the coming years

Historical Context: From Monroe to Trump

The original Monroe Doctrine, established in 1823, declared that the United States would view any European interference in the Americas as a hostile act. For two centuries, this doctrine shaped American foreign policy.

Now, President Trump has revived and expanded this concept. The DON-roe Doctrine applies the same protective principles but adapts them for a world where the threats come not from European colonial powers, but from global competitors seeking economic and strategic footholds in the Americas.

Watch the Full Episode

Ready to understand the DON-roe Doctrine and the Trump Takeover? Don’t miss this essential Season 4 premiere of The Gene Ho Show.

🎬 Watch Now: The DON-roe Doctrine | The Gene Ho Show, Season 4 Episode 1

About The Gene Ho Show

The Gene Ho Show has become one of the most trusted voices in conservative political commentary. Gene Ho’s unique background-combining artistic vision with political insight-creates content that’s both informative and engaging.

Now in its fourth season, the show continues to deliver the analysis and perspective that viewers have come to rely on.

Connect with The Gene Ho Show:

Watch on American Pulse TV

Subscribe to George Magazine

Shop American Pulse Merch

More Episodes to Watch

Continue your journey through Season 4 and explore related content:

Season 4, Episode 2: The Art of the Double Down

Season 3, Episode 36: Trump, Hunted to Hunter

Season 3, Episode 24: What’s the Trump Endgame?

Season 3, Episode 20: Trump: The Takeover

Season 3, Episode 15: Trump Political Chess

The Bottom Line

The DON-roe Doctrine isn’t just a catchy phrase-it represents a fundamental shift in American foreign policy thinking. As the United States reasserts its position as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere, understanding this doctrine is essential for anyone following global politics.

Gene Ho and Dave provide the context and analysis you need to make sense of these transformative times. Whether you’re a longtime viewer or new to the show, Season 4 Episode 1 is the perfect place to start.

America is back. The DON-roe Doctrine is here. Are you paying attention?

Share this article to help others understand the new direction of American foreign policy.

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