In 1823, President Monroe declared that the United States would not interfere in European affairs, and this changed the course of American policy for almost a century. In 2025, a redefinition of what has been called the Monroe Doctrine is taking place, and Europe is once again being taken by surprise.
By Veton Surroi
1.
I was a student in elementary school, in an American school, when I had heard about the Monroe Doctrine; then it came back to me in my senior year of high school, now with more information and general context. I was reminded these days of Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, with a TV interview and his first trip as head of American diplomacy. Rubio said in the TV interview that he is the Secretary of State in a multipolar world, no longer the Secretary of State in a unipolar world in which the US is the hegemon. And in a multipolar world, he continued, we protect our sphere of interest, just as others protect their spheres of interest.
After this interview, Rubio embarked on his first trip as Secretary of State, through Latin America, clearly an area long defined as a sphere of interest for the United States. In fact, defined by President Monroe in his annual address to Congress in December 1823. At that time, President Monroe defined what would be the broad outlines of American foreign policy for almost a century, until America’s involvement in World War I.
Monroe determined that the Western Hemisphere (which at that time was the American continent) was a sphere of interest for the United States and that Europe could not interfere in it; neither establish new colonies nor install puppet regimes. The United States, according to Monroe, would not interfere in the internal affairs of Europe and Europe would not interfere in the internal affairs of America, which now included all of North, Central, and South America.
2.
This reading of my high school lessons can be extended even further and interpreted as the actions of the Trump administration this week. The president imposed tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, and one way of interpreting it is that he started a trade war everywhere, starting with the first neighbors. But wars have their own logic (are they deliberate actions or the consequence of deliberate actions) and this tariff war finds itself in the Monroe Doctrine.
In the renewed version of the Monroe Doctrine, two hundred years later, the world is divided into two major spheres of interest: the United States and China. In the logic of the renewed doctrine, the punitive tariffs against Canada and Mexico have had no commercial logic. In fact, they would ultimately punish the American consumer who would pay more for fruits and vegetables, electricity, automobiles and many other products from Mexico and Canada that have been operating as part of a free trade area for decades. The logic of the renewed Monroe Doctrine is the discipline of the Western Hemisphere – that is, the American continent is the sphere of interest, which must adapt to the new policy of redefining American interests. In the background is China: it was imposed a 10 percent tariff, while Mexico and Canada were threatened with a 25 percent penalty, among other things due to President Trump’s accusation against the two countries that fentanyl, a synthetic drug produced in China that has reached epidemic proportions, enters the US through Mexico and Canada.
3.
Two hundred years later, things have changed fundamentally in the role of Europe. In the Monroe Doctrine, Europe was the great power from which the United States protected itself by defining its sphere of interest. In the renewed doctrine, Europe is weaker and is entering an interesting phase of defining its role vis-à-vis the United States. The Monroe Doctrine principle that the United States will not interfere in the internal affairs of Europe, two hundred years later, means something completely different from the original principle. Back then, it was a bargaining chip – you don’t interfere in my hemisphere, I don’t interfere in yours. But Europe has learned after World War II to be a natural part of the Western Hemisphere. Now it must prove that belonging to the new American administration. And, although it is not a neighbor, like Mexico or Canada, Europe (the EU first, and then others) will also be forced to show its ability to adapt to the redefinition of the new American policy. There will be at least three immediate challenges in this regard. The first is to balance trade relations by increasing pressure for Europe to buy more American products, even those products that would negatively affect European production (automobiles, aerospace, digital technology, armaments). The second is to increase defense spending to 5 percent of Gross National Product, namely, to enable NATO’s European armies to defend their continent (and this while the war on the European continent, in Ukraine, is still ongoing). And the third, to align European and American policies towards China. This means not only – as happened at the last NATO Summit in Washington – identifying China as a competitor and strategic adversary in the field of security, but also as a competitor and adversary in the global economy, in the system of values.
4.
The three initial challenges for Europe have a profound significance, posing fundamental strategic questions along the way. One, what would the EU (and Europe as a continent) be like in a free market of the “Western Hemisphere”, that is, the EU with the US and the surrounding economic zones. Two, can “strategic autonomy”, a European security umbrella within NATO, be built and with what speed, now that this concept is not only a European (French and then German) idea, but somehow necessarily also an American one. And three, how can the issue of the economic relations of the EU member states with China be transformed into an EU policy towards China, a policy that approximates the American one?
All three questions significantly exceed the level of debate taking place within European societies or even the EU itself.
And this is nothing new. In completely different conditions – and especially in relation to completely different forces – the Monroe Doctrine took the European powers by surprise. The lesson of 1823 was that the European powers quickly learned that they could no longer continue with the old ways. The time for the colonization of the American continent by the European powers was over, and with it the world was changing radically. The lesson of 2025 could have equally great strategic consequences: Europe will learn that it cannot continue with the old ways, the time when “Euro-Atlantic” belonging was implicit is over. Europe must learn this lesson of history quickly. / Source: Koha.net /