WASHINGTON—The White House has responded after a group of House Democrats unveiled a resolution to annul the Monroe Doctrine, a foundational foreign policy that has become a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s approach to the Americas.

“The administration is reasserting and enforcing the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, control migration, and stop drug trafficking,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“It’s ridiculous that anyone would want to return to the failed Biden strategy of ignoring our own backyard and allowing deadly drugs and illegal aliens to invade our country,” Kelly added.

The House Democrats, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), were led by Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.).

Introduced in 1823, the doctrine outlined a sphere of influence for the United States in its own hemisphere, pushing back against European powers with colonies in the New World. President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 corollary further intensified the scope of American intervention in its neighborhood.

“The 200-year legacy of the Monroe Doctrine has been one of interventions, coups, and support for brutal dictatorships across Latin America,” Velázquez said during a Feb. 10 press conference.

The Puerto Rican-born congresswoman introduced a similar resolution in 2023, two centuries after the policy was developed by President James Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams. Adams would go on to become president.

Heightened American activity in the Western Hemisphere under Trump has sparked talk of a “Donroe Doctrine.”

The administration’s moves include a drive for control in Greenland, the military’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and an ongoing effort to cut off Cuba’s oil supplies.

The administration’s key defense and strategy blueprints put the Americas front and center.

Its National Security Strategy, published in November, calls for “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere,” including through a stepped-up military presence as well as expanded partnerships in the region. It explicitly advances a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.

The 2026 National Defense Strategy reads similarly.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) speaks at a hearing in Washington on July 13, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Many of the administration’s policies aim to curtail the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence in the region.

As in her 2023 proposal, Velázquez wants the United States to formally distance itself from the Monroe Doctrine, calling for a new Good Neighbor Policy.

The original version of that policy, first articulated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, reoriented the United States away from military intervention in the affairs of its close neighbors.

The United States pivoted back to a more assertive stance at the outset of the Cold War as communism and socialism spread through the region.

The congresswoman accused the Trump administration of “starving the Cuban people” through its effort to deny fuel to Cuba.

A portrait of James Monroe, circa 1819, by Samuel Finley Breese Morse. (Public Domain)

“This is not about fighting drug trafficking or promoting democracy. This is about regime change and control of other nations’ resources,” she said of the Donroe Doctrine.

Tlaib, a democratic socialist, decried the United States’ recent intervention in Venezuela as well as its 20th-century actions in Chile, where in 1973 the United States backed the ouster of a socialist leader, Salvador Allende, by General Augusto Pinochet.

“We know that violence and deep harm of our country’s actions across the hemisphere,” the Michigan congresswoman said.

Other lawmakers have defended the Monroe Doctrine.

Responding to the Trump administration’s recent policies, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) wrote on social media that “the Western Hemisphere is OUR sphere of influence.”

“Latin American countries would much rather partner with US than with the Chinese,” she added.