For decades, American foreign policy talked about democracy promotion, humanitarian missions, and global cooperation. But beneath the slogans, power politics never went away—they just went unspoken.

On this episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone are joined by national security expert and investigative journalist Dr. Mike Waller to unpack what many critics—and even supporters—have misunderstood about former President Donald Trump’s strategy in Venezuela and Latin America.

The takeaway is clear: this isn’t about regime change or exporting democracy. It’s about drawing a hard line against China, Russia, and Iran in America’s own backyard.

“Stay Out of Our Hemisphere”

Chuck Warren frames the issue bluntly: Trump’s approach to Venezuela is a message to America’s global rivals—stay out of the Western Hemisphere.

Waller agrees.

He explains that while democracy promotion often dominates the media narrative, it’s not the driving force behind Trump’s national security strategy. In fact, Trump’s recently released strategy document says relatively little about China directly—yet pushes back against Chinese Communist Party interests worldwide in unmistakable ways.

Nowhere is that pushback more important than the Western Hemisphere.

China, Russia, and Iran have all increased their influence in Latin America through energy deals, infrastructure projects, intelligence cooperation, and technology transfers. For Trump, allowing hostile powers to entrench themselves so close to home isn’t just bad diplomacy—it’s unacceptable strategy.

The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

Waller highlights a key moment that many overlooked: Trump explicitly tied his policy to the Monroe Doctrine, the 200-year-old principle established by President James Monroe to prevent European empires from reasserting control in the Americas.

But Trump didn’t stop there.

He went further—branding his approach as the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, deliberately placing himself in the lineage of Monroe and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt famously expanded the doctrine with his own corollary to justify U.S. intervention to block foreign influence.

Calling it a “corollary” is significant. As Waller explains, it signals that Trump intends this policy to outlive his presidency—to become a lasting pillar of American strategic thinking.

This isn’t rhetoric. It’s architecture.

Why This Matters in the Age of AI and Global Competition

Sam Stone presses the point further: how critical is it for Trump not just to attempt this strategy—but to succeed?

Waller’s answer points to the future.

As artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and data dominance become central to global power, geography matters again. Control over infrastructure, energy routes, rare earths, and digital systems in the Western Hemisphere could determine who wins the next phase of competition between the United States and China.

If adversarial powers establish deep roots in Latin America now, reversing that influence later may be impossible.

In that sense, Venezuela isn’t a sideshow—it’s a signal.

Not About Ideology—About Power

Perhaps the most striking insight from the conversation is what Trump’s strategy is not about.

It’s not about exporting democracy.
It’s not about nation-building.
And it’s not about moral lectures.

It’s about preventing hostile powers from projecting influence into America’s near abroad—a principle every major power in history has understood, whether openly or not.

As Waller makes clear, Trump’s approach revives an old truth: global competition begins close to home.

And the hemisphere is no longer uncontested.

Transcript

Chuck Warren: Well, we know what happens in Poland for you Mike. Hey, all right. So With Mike Waller here. He is a claimed an investigative writer on national security matters counterintelligence and an author and So one thing I want to talk about which I find interesting which I don’t Understand why Democrats don’t get this Trump’s play in Venezuela to me is about him saying Russia, China, Iran stay out of the Western Hemisphere. This is our background

This is where democracy flourishes. Stay out. Is that a fair assessment, what you think is going on and what Trump’s plans are?

**Mike Waller: **That’s, you just nailed it there. Maybe not so much on democracy because we’re not trying to push other forms of government, but, and it’s a super low priority for the Trump strategy. But if you read his national security strategy, which just came out a couple of weeks ago, he doesn’t say a whole lot about China around the world in there. He’s got a section on China, but if you read it, he’s pushing back at all of the Chinese communist party’s interests worldwide without saying China.

Chief of which is our own hemisphere.

Sam Stone: How important is it for him to not merely attempt that, but to succeed for the future? Because you’ve written quite a bit about what happens in the next phase with AI and in the global contest between China and the US.

Mike Waller: Well, this is a, some of the things you think, well, is Trump just doing this because, you guess what the reason is. But in the, national security strategy, he took the Monroe doctrine, just over 200 years old, president James Monroe, no European empires coming back into our hemisphere. And he called it his, the Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine.

After Teddy Roosevelt’s Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. He’s linking his name to two great former presidents, one of them was the last founding father president, to an actual corollary to a doctrine, which means he plans on this outliving him.

Chuck Warren: Right.

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