There's been a lot of talk recently about the so-called "Donroe Doctrine," which is basically Donald Trump's shittier version of the Monroe Doctrine—and the ridiculous notion in Donald Trump's own diseased brain that he is somehow Emperor of the Western Hemisphere.
Increasingly there is a growing chasm between the bloated image of Donald Trump's power and its shrivelled reality. This can be seen in the case of Venezuela, where Trump has destroyed a lot of American soft power in exerting minimal hard power over the country by kidnapping its leader and hijacking its oil tankers. He now claims to "control" the country. Meanwhile, a recent meeting with US oil executives showed just how reluctant they are to invest even a single cent in the country with the world's largest oil reserves. On top of this, the State Department is now advising all Americans to leave the country as Trump's unhinged actions have created serious blowback.
Also, the "hard power" component of what Trump is attempting must be seriously doubted, as the US military is clearly too chickenshit to put boots on the ground, something that America has obviously been incapable of doing due to past humiliations. Without that there are extreme limits to America's much vaunted hard power.
Also, it should also be said that the Venezuelan regime was a piece of particularly low-hanging fruit, with a particularly illegitimate and unpopular president, who had hung onto power by blatantly rigging elections. A less cack-handed president than Trump could easily have overthrown and replaced the Chavists in Caracas with a pro-American government to the enthusiasm of the people. Trump, meanwhile, hasn't overthrown the regime and has in fact strengthened it to some degree by his blatant contempt for Venezuelans and Latin Americans in general.
But there are other flaws in Trump's moronic iteration of the Monroe Doctrine. These have now been emphasized by what I shall call the "Vonroe Docrtine," named after the EU President Ursula VON der Leyen and the EU's recent geopolitical success in making Trumpian America look increasingly irrelevant in its own "backyard." This was done by signing a major trade deal with the Mercosur group of South American states.
For those unfamiliar with it, Mercosur is South America's free trade imitation of the EU's free trade area. It includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Venezuela is a full member but has been suspended due to its undemocratic government, while Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, Peru, and Suriname are associate countries. Mexico and New Zealand are observer countries, which means they might be interested in joining sometime in the future. At one time it was thought that Mercosur would one day link up with NAFTA, which is clearly mouldering somewhere in a shallow grave somewhere near the building site that used to be the White House.
The EU-Mercosur deal represents a massive expansion of European influence and economic power in Latin America at a time when America has nothing to offer but corrupt arrogance and geopolitical incontinence.
Under the deal, the European Union and the Mercosur group will create the world's largest free trade area embracing over 700 million people.
Doubtlessly, a lot of the difficulties that normally arise in signing such a complex agreement were overcome partially thanks to the growing antipathy both sides now feel towards Donald Trump's America, with its tendency to engage in random tariffs and sporadic, terroristic military operations.
The Vonroe Doctrine is simply the inverse of the Donroe Doctrine, substituting sensible trade, democracy, mutual respect, and anti-corruption for the incoherent and shambolic gangsterism vomited forth by a clearly senile Donald Trump.
Right now it looks like a winner and will doubtlessly have many Americans casting envious glances at the grown-up politics that the rest of the World is engaging in, while their own President continues to shit everywhere except in his potty.
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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.
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