Notwithstanding the Monroe Doctrine, the Chinese are making themselves at home in Latin and South America. From Doug Bandow at antiwar.com:
Nearly two centuries ago President James Monroe ordered the world’s powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. The still young American republic, which lacked a serious navy or army, thereby compounded the hubris of its earlier claim to be creating a novus ordo seclorum, or new order for the ages.
Although among the states targeted by Monroe, the United Kingdom turned out to be America’s greatest ally in deterring intervention by other powers. London had the world’s finest navy and wasn’t inclined to encourage competing powers’ imperial ambitions. Moreover, Latin America never was an arena of great power conflict. The European wars after Napoleon’s defeat focused on Europe, not more distant colonial territories.
In its naked form the Monroe Doctrine was shamelessly self-interested. Said Monroe: “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.” Notably, the U.S. was little concerned about the “peace and safety” of other residents of the region.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt claimed to change direction with the Good Neighbor policy, which emphasized nonintervention and noninterference. However, that pretense did not long survive. During the Cold War the US was active, militarily as well as economically and politically, throughout Latin America. Officially, little has changed since.
