Remember when John Kerry stood at the Organization of American States in 2013 and declared the Monroe Doctrine dead?

“The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” he announced, practically beaming with self-satisfaction. America would no longer act like it had special interests in its own backyard. We’d treat every Latin American country as an “equal partner.” No more interventionism. No more protecting the homeland from hostile foreign influence just 90 miles from our shores.

How’d that work out?

Fentanyl flooded across the southern border. Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro turned his country into a narco-state. Chinese influence spread throughout the region. Drug cartels grew so powerful they now operate like governments. Tens of thousands of Americans died every year from poison that waltzed right through our neighborhood.

But hey, at least we weren’t being “interventionist.”

The Doctrine Returns

President Trump just tore up Obama’s Latin American policy and threw it in the trash where it belongs.

The administration’s new National Security Strategy explicitly revives the Monroe Doctrine — the 1823 policy that told European powers to keep their hands off the Western Hemisphere. But Trump isn’t just dusting off an old idea. He’s expanding it.

They’re calling it the “Trump Corollary.” And if you’re a drug cartel, a hostile foreign power, or a tinpot dictator who’s been enjoying America’s absence from its own neighborhood, you should be very nervous right now.

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland,” the strategy document states.

Translation: The adults are back, and we’re done pretending that what happens in Latin America doesn’t affect American lives.

More Than Just Words

This isn’t empty rhetoric. The Trump administration has already conducted more than 20 military strikes in Latin American waters since September, targeting drug boats tied to Venezuelan narco-trafficking.

Twenty strikes. Vessels destroyed. Drug shipments sent to the bottom of the ocean.

Trump posted footage of a Venezuelan vessel getting blown out of the water back in September. The message wasn’t subtle: run drugs toward American shores and you might not make it home.

The administration designated Maduro’s regime as a foreign terrorist organization. Not just the cartels operating under his protection — the regime itself. Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa cartel, and other major trafficking organizations now carry the same designation as ISIS and al-Qaeda.

That’s not symbolic. It unlocks an entirely different set of tools for going after these organizations and anyone who supports them.

Kerry’s “Equal Partnership” Fantasy

Let’s revisit what John Kerry actually said when he killed the Monroe Doctrine.

“The relationship that we seek… is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It’s about all of our countries viewing one another as equals.”

Sounds lovely. Very diplomatic. The kind of thing that gets standing ovations at international conferences and approving nods from European intellectuals.

There’s just one problem: it’s delusional.

Venezuela isn’t our “equal partner.” It’s a failed state run by a dictator who finances his regime with drug money and human trafficking. The cartels aren’t interested in “shared responsibilities.” They’re interested in moving product and eliminating anyone who gets in their way.

You can’t have an “equal partnership” with people who are actively poisoning your citizens. You can’t cooperate on “security issues” with governments that profit from insecurity.

Kerry’s policy wasn’t enlightened. It was surrender dressed up in diplomatic language.

The Fentanyl Reality

Here’s what the Obama-era approach actually produced: a fentanyl epidemic that kills more Americans every year than car accidents.

The drugs don’t materialize out of thin air. They come from somewhere. They travel through somewhere. And for decades, American policy essentially gave drug traffickers a free pass through our own hemisphere because we were too worried about looking “interventionist.”

Trump campaigned on ending this. He promised to secure the border, take on the cartels, and treat drug trafficking like the national security threat it actually is.

“President Trump has prioritized enforcing the Monroe Doctrine unlike any other President in decades,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News. “He was elected on his promise to eliminate the scourge of drug deaths in our country… He has delivered on both fronts by stopping the flow of drugs by land and by sea.”

By land and by sea. That’s the key phrase. Border security alone isn’t enough when cartels are running maritime operations throughout the Caribbean and along both coasts.

The Critics Emerge

Naturally, some in Washington are clutching their pearls.

Chuck Schumer, Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff, and even Rand Paul introduced a war powers resolution trying to block Trump from conducting strikes against Venezuelan targets. They’re questioning the “legality” of destroying drug boats.

Because apparently, the real crisis isn’t the 100,000 Americans dying from overdoses every year. The real crisis is that Trump might be exceeding his authority by sinking the boats that deliver the poison.

This is the same crowd that spent years demanding Trump be more aggressive against Russia, more confrontational with adversaries, more willing to use American power abroad. But the moment he uses that power to protect Americans from drug cartels in our own backyard? Suddenly they’re constitutional scholars worried about executive overreach.

The administration says it has full authority to conduct these operations. And given that the targets are designated terrorist organizations running drugs toward American shores, the legal ground seems pretty solid.

What the Trump Corollary Actually Means

The National Security Strategy lays it out clearly: “We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.”

That’s aimed at China as much as the cartels.

Beijing has been expanding its influence throughout Latin America for years. Building ports. Investing in infrastructure. Cultivating relationships with governments that Washington ignored. The Panama Canal — arguably the most strategically important waterway in the Western Hemisphere — now has significant Chinese involvement in its operations.

The Monroe Doctrine was originally about keeping European colonial powers out of the Americas. The Trump Corollary updates that principle for the modern era: keep hostile foreign powers — whether they’re European, Asian, or narco-terrorist — from threatening American security from our own neighborhood.

It’s not imperialism. It’s common sense.

Maduro’s Days Are Numbered

Trump said publicly on December 22 that it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down. The administration doesn’t recognize him as a legitimate head of state. They consider him the leader of a terrorist organization masquerading as a government.

Senator Lindsey Graham issued a “fatal” warning about what happens if Maduro stays in power as American pressure intensifies.

The strikes are increasing. The designations are expanding. The military assets in the region are growing.

Maduro can read a map. He can see what’s happening. The question isn’t whether American pressure will continue — it’s whether he’ll leave voluntarily or wait until he has no choice.

The Bottom Line

For over a decade, American policy in Latin America operated on the fantasy that being nice would make hostile actors behave nicely in return.

It didn’t work. The cartels got stronger. The dictators got bolder. The drugs kept flowing. Americans kept dying.

Trump is trying something different: actually defending American interests in America’s own hemisphere. Using American power to disrupt the networks that poison American communities. Treating the Western Hemisphere like it matters — because it does.

John Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine dead in 2013.

Donald Trump just proved him wrong.