From Monroe’s warning to Trump's seizure of Maduro

Unveiling the Donroe doctrine

James Monroe buried the lede.

The fifth U.S. president waited until the end of the tenth paragraph of his seventh annual message to Congress to pronounce the foreign policy principle that still bears the name of the “Monroe Doctrine.”

It was a far cry from today’s Mar-a-Lago press conference, where President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth crowed over the U.S. military’s seizure of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro to face criminal charges — and the president approvingly noted the coining of a “Donroe Doctrine.”

In Monroe’s message on December 2, 1823, he updated Congress and the American people on diplomatic discussions with the British, French, Russian and Spanish governments. Then he drew a big red line.

“The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

The United States favored “liberty and happiness” for those engaged…