In December 1823, James Monroe, fifth president of a young republic, gave a speech that launched the foreign policy of the United States and unilaterally placed Latin America and the Caribbean within its sphere of influence. Theoretically, he preached active resistance against the interference of European powers in the countries of the South in the emancipation process. In practice, it marked the beginning of decades of CIA-orchestrated invasions, military interventions, and overthrows of legitimate governments. Now, just two centuries later, five Democratic congressmen have decided that Washington and the continent have had enough of the Monroe Doctrine.
The representative for New York, Nydia M. Velázquez, has, as EL PAÍS has learned, introduced a resolution in the Capitol demanding that the State Department “formally” consider the influential framework of international relations to have been exceeded and in its place a “New “Developed “The Good Neighbor Policy” is intended to “promote better relationships and deepen more effective cooperation”.
Augusto Pinochet (left) greets Foreign Minister Henry Kissinger in Chile in 1976. Bettman
According to the text, this means the end of all unilateral economic sanctions, including the Cuba embargo; the immediate release of secret CIA files related to coups and support for dictatorships; the adoption of laws allowing for the automatic suspension of aid to any illegitimate government in the region; support for the “democratization” of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) or the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); and the beginning of Washington working with the other capitals to initiate “far-reaching reform” of the Organization of American States (OAS). The resolution accuses this last multilateral organization of being “silent” on “the numerous cruel abuses committed by right-wing dictatorships supported by the United States during the Cold War.”
Ocasio-Cortez's signature
“From drug trafficking to mass migration to climate change, the many challenges that the United States and Latin America share cannot be addressed with the outdated Monroe Doctrine. “They are among the most pressing issues of our time and require a process that emphasizes respect and collaboration,” said Congresswoman Velázquez, who is supported by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (also congresswoman from New York) and Greg Casar (Texas). will ) and Delia Ramirez and Chuy Garcia (both from Illinois).
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
The five support a text that can also be read as a statement of objection to two centuries of US expansionist policies in the region (or the Western Hemisphere, as Washington prefers to call it). Among other things, the genocide of the Indians, the invasion of Texas, Cuba and Puerto Rico, the “banana wars” of the early 20th century, the founding of the CIA, the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the embargo on Cuba, the overthrow are mentioned of Salvador Allende in Chile and Joao Goulart in Brazil, the support of Operation Condor between 1975 and 1980, the death squads in El Salvador, the Contras in Nicaragua and the other paramilitary operations in Central America, the drug war of Plan Colombia, the overthrow maneuvers by Hugo Chávez and the sanctions against Venezuela or the IMF's austericide policy.
Congress is taking a break for the Christmas holidays. When they return in January, the resolution's supporters will seek support from the rest of their party and try to force a plenary vote on the content of the text. This decision rests in the hands of the Republican majority, so the success of the initiative is uncertain.
The debate over the legitimacy of the Monroe Doctrine and its offshoot, the Roosevelt Corollary, which authorized the United States to intervene to secure its interests in the region, is not new. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry (under Obama) ended his era in a speech to the OAS. Six years later, John Bolton, national security adviser under President Donald Trump, “proudly” announced that the doctrine was “alive and well.”
In 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders addressed President Joe Biden on Capitol Hill saying, “Vladimir Putin may be a liar and a demagogue. But it is hypocritical for the United States to insist that we as a nation do not accept the principle of spheres of influence. For the past 200 years, our country has been the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine. In the United States' view, the United States has the right to intervene against any country that may threaten our legitimate interests. That is the policy of the United States. “In this way, the United States has undermined and overthrown at least a dozen countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean.”
/p>