US Renews 'Monroe Doctrine' for Latin America, Al Jazeera Calls It 'Rising Tensions'
Al Jazeera reports on Uruguay's Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin discussing Washington's 'revived' claims to police Latin America. 'Revived' is quite the creative spin for a doctrine that never truly died. From the Monroe Doctrine's 1823 declaration to the countless US-backed coups—Chile's 1973 Pinochet coup (orchestrated by the CIA), the Contra wars in Nicaragua (funded covertly by Reagan), or the
destabilization efforts against Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro—the US has consistently treated the region as its backyard, not a collection of sovereign nations. Perhaps 'continuous hegemonic interference' would be a more accurate descriptor than 'rising tensions.' One might wonder if 'tensions' is code for 'another country trying to operate independently of Washington's dictates.' The US's 'concerns'
about China's footprint in the region, often framed as security threats, conveniently ignore that nations might prefer to trade and develop without a gunboat in their harbor or a USAID-funded opposition movement in their parliament. When does 'sphere of influence' just mean 'our sphere of exploitation’?