The U.S. and the Trump administration are at the center of the chaos, fear, division, war, and climactic and human destruction that we see every day in the news. This is directly related to the fact that the U.S. is no longer the sole hegemonic power in the world that it once was. The rising star of China is threatening to eclipse the dominance of the U.S. led world order. Much of the perceived threat is from China’s investments worldwide, including those in Latin America and the Caribbean which are seen as a major threat in the U.S.’s own backyard. China is already the largest investor in Latin America after the U.S.
Looking at the actions of the Trump administration in that light helps to explain the global aggressions of the current U.S. administration. Particularly, it helps to explain foreign policy towards Cuba, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America.
MONROE DOCTRINE/ DONROE DOCTRINE
The original Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was intended to keep European powers out of the Americas. The fact that the U.S. seized over half of Mexico’s territory in the U.S./Mexico war of 1848, and then intervened militarily or indirectly in nearly every country in Latin America, reveals that altruism was not the motive.
Donald Trump has retooled the Monroe Doctrine as the Donroe Doctrine, or as many Latin Americans deridingly call it: “the Americas for North Americans.” This updating of the Monroe Doctrine also includes renaming the Gulf of México as “Gulf of America”, Lake Ontario as “Lake America”, and threats to acquire Canada, the Panama Canal, and Greenland.
Trump’s designation of Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela as “narco-terrorist” was used to justify killing fishermen off Venezuela’s coast and then invade Venezuela to kidnap President Maduro. His accusations that 95-year-old Raul Castro of Cuba killed “American citizens” 30 years ago could become a pretext for invading Cuba. The claim that drug cartels run Mexico and not President Sheinbaum could potentially be used as a pretext to invade Mexico.
The broadscale building of detention centers for arrested immigrants in the United States, 90% privately run at taxpayers’ expense, is mirrored by the use of detention centers abroad for ICE detainees, such as CECOT in El Salvador and the U.S.-run Guantanamo Base in Cuba. There is no due process in any of them. Even sites for data centers in the U.S. are being considered as detention centers if public opposition prevents those data centers being opened.
While attacking voting rights in the U.S. ahead of midterm elections, Trump interfered in elections in Colombia, Honduras, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador. He is seeking to align them against the more independent governments of México and Brazil, both of which he specifically excluded from his 2026 Shield of the Americas conference on fighting drug cartels. The White House also helped right-wing leaders and criminal influencers such as Argentina’s Fernando Cerimedo, who win elections by outright electoral fraud and disinformation campaigns playing on fear of crime and drugs. Ecuador’s recently elected President Daniel Noboa has agreed to sponsor joint U.S. and Ecuadorian military exercises against alleged Ecuadorian drug cartels. Even Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was successfully pressured to arrest the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, which she did to avoid direct U.S. military intervention.
CUBA NEXT IN THE LINE OF FIRE?
Cuba has endured the U.S.-assisted invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1964, a U.S. economic blockade for over 64 years, and much more. Trump has stepped up the pressure, catering to a powerful Latino Lobby centered in Miami, Florida. Originally concentrated among wealthy Cuban exiles, they are now joined by wealthy Latin Americans who fled left-leaning leaders like Evo Morales of Bolivia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Lopez Obrador of Mexico, Lulu of Brazil, and others sometimes called the “pink tide.”
An oil blockade of Cuba has been in effect since January of 2026, before and after the U.S. military takeover of Venezuela, Cuba’s primary provider of oil. Ships of other countries have been boarded or diverted on international waters by U.S. forces. This is leading to electrical blackouts, food shortages from failing refrigeration and inability to transport food, medication and vaccine spoilage, and a deteriorating medical situation for hospitals and clinics requiring electricity to save lives. It is already being seen in rising deaths of the most vulnerable, including the elderly and children, particularly premature infants and cancer victims.
Despite 60 plus years of U.S. economic blockade, Cuba has had one of the strongest population-level outcomes in health care relative to its income level, with universal coverage, a high doctor density, strong vaccination and public health systems, strong preventive care with neighborhood doctor-nurse teams in the communities, and an enviable domestic biotech innovation sector. Cuba even exports doctors, with 30,000 deployed at any given time in under-served regions in Latin America and Africa. However, since the oil embargo began, Trump is pressuring countries to expel them due to “forced labor” claims, putting a further financial squeeze on Cuba, let alone eliminating doctors in poor underserved areas abroad.
Some have called the blockade the Gazafication of Cuba. Others call it the possible beginnings of genocide. A recent diplomatic visit by 3 U.S. Congresspeople witnessed garbage accumulating in the streets due to the lack of gas, food donated by countries like Brazil and Mexico sitting in the harbor due to lack of land transport, power outages affecting water plants and hospitals, and a lack of banking resources affecting livelihoods of everyday Cubans.
China, Russia, and representatives of G-7 countries publicly condemn the sanctions on Cuba as a flagrant violation of the UN charter. Countries sending humanitarian aid cautiously navigate around the threat of reprisals by the US, much like organizations seeking to send humanitarian aid to Gaza face Israeli opposition.
RETURN TO McCARTHYISM WON’T FEED PEOPLE
The threat by the Trump administration is in a report put out by Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “Cuba, the Capital of 21st Century Communism”, which labels prominent Americans, elected officials and organizations as agents of Cuba. This hearkens back to the post World War II era of McCarthy/Hoover anti-communism. It is only the beginning.
However, unlike the McCarthy era when good-paying jobs with benefits lulled many into complacency, today there is no such social bribe for the vast majority of us. You can’t convince an empty stomach for long that it is full. As people start awakening to this reality, especially seeing that the rulers have only death and destruction to offer them, we must remember that the fate of U.S. people, people throughout the Americas, and throughout the world are increasingly intertwined, especially by Climate Change and persistent wars.
Our Mexican, Cuban, Haitian, Central American, other Latin American and Canadian brothers and sisters are not our enemy. Whether immigrants in the U.S. or working people in their native country, we all face the same enemy — the class led by billionaires such as those of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, including the Miami-based clique of Latin American capitalists.
As our brothers and sisters abroad fight to make their governments truly represent them, we must reach out to them in solidarity. We have much to learn from them. Meanwhile, we must do our part from here in the belly of the beast, fighting to abolish ICE and shut down detention centers in the U.S. and Latin America. Fighting to protect voting rights and take money out of politics in the U.S. and Latin America. Fighting for health care, food, clothing, and shelter, education, and safety for all.
All of this is within our reach if we work together hemispherically and globally to defend the working class from the fascism being launched against it. Together we can overcome the global capitalism that produces poverty, war and ecological disaster to create a new society that serves the needs of humanity and the planet.
Published on September 21, 2026.
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