Donald Trump released the imperialist US’ National Security Strategy in December 2025. The National Defense Strategy followed release on January 26. Both documents focused on the so-called “Trump corollary,” extending the Monroe Doctrine that propelled US domination over the Western Hemisphere.

The US first implemented the “Monroe Doctrine” in 1823 to deny Latin America from then-colonialist European powers, appropriating the region as its own backyard, and its resources and advantages as its private domain.

Intensified US military intervention in Latin America has revived the doctrine two centuries later. Like the earlier “Roosevelt Corollary” (1904), Trump aggressively brandishes US military superiority to repress and subjugate weaker countries and allies in Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Doctrine of imperialist intervention and aggression

The “Trump corollary” encapsulates US imperialism’s current attacks, aggression, and coercion in the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere in the world.

US forces raided Venezuela on January 3 and abducted its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, in an attempt to force the sovereign Chavista government to its knees and seize the country’s oil resources. On January 29, Trump declared a “national emergency” over Cuba and ordered additional tariffs against countries supplying it with oil. At the same time, he threatened similar brutal sanctions against Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and other countries trading with Russia and China.

Even before taking office back in 2024, Trump threatened to invade Panama unless it “returns” control of the Panama Canal to the US. He flooded the country with American troops under the guise of war games. This forced Panama’s Supreme Court in January to issue an order expelling Chinese companies from the canal and selling the facilities to BlackRock, the largest US financial firm.

That same January, Trump threatened eight NATO member countries with up to 25% tariffs on their exports if they continued opposing the US plan to “buy” Greenland from Denmark. The US plans to turn the entire island into a military base and preposition various missiles there for US defense (dubbed the Golden Dome) against “attacks from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.” Trump withdrew after European countries threatened retaliation and higher tariffs on American products. These countries also took steps to expand trade relations with China.

Beyond the Western Hemisphere, Trump’s genocidal wars and war provocations continue in Palestine, the autonomous Rojava region in Syria, Iran, Russia, and others. In Asia, he brandishes US military power through massive war games and expanding presence in the region. Using the Philippines as launchpad, US naval operations in the South China Sea run nonstop to provoke and challenge China.

The illusion of a “rules-based international order” collapses

Trump has totally discarded the pretense that a so-called “rules-based international order” exists and that the US upholds it. In a meeting of capitalist country leaders on January 20, US allies declared that such an order is “dead.”

Veiled under the “America First” slogan, he signed an order on January 6 to withdraw the US from 66 international organizations and treaties, including 31 United Nations (UN) agencies. The US finalized its withdrawal from the World Health Organization on January 22. The US stopped funding these institutions, resulting in mass office closures and pushing the UN to the brink of collapse. Trump established a “Board of Peace,” which primarily mandated itself to making Gaza a direct colony of the US and Israel.

Trump also wields “America First” inside the US against the supposed “mass migration” of “criminals” and “illegal aliens.” This justifies his fascist campaign of forcibly detaining and expelling migrants, immigrants, and even US citizens, from the country. The consequent severe unrest and violence is being met by the American people’s growing unity and resistance.