What is the Monroe Doctrine, which Trump has cited over Venezuela? 

United States President Donald Trump has set out to justify the attack launched on Venezuela and Washington imposing its will in Latin America by citing a policy from a 19th century president.

Trump on Saturday called the raid that led to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro being abducted an update to the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 declaration by the fifth US president, James Monroe, adding that the US will “run the country” until “a safe, proper and judicious transition” could be carried out.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document,” Trump said, attaching the first letter of his name to the series of principles.

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he added.

Here is what you need to know about the Monroe Doctrine:

What is this 19th century US policy?

The Monroe Doctrine essentially urged the division of the world into spheres of influence overseen by different powers.

Monroe first spoke of the doctrine on December 2, 1823, during his seventh annual State of the Union address to Congress although the doctrine was not named after him until decades later.

He warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Americas, stressing that any action of that sort would be viewed as an attack on the US.

The president stated that the affairs of the Western Hemisphere and Europe should remain separate and should not influence each other.

How doctrine addressed colonisation of Americas

He promised in return that the US would recognise and not interfere with existing European colonies or the internal affairs of European countries.

However, North and South America would no longer be subject to future colonisation by any European power, Monroe said.

In many aspects, the Monroe Doctrine urged keeping the status quo in the Americas but also dictated a European disengagement from them.

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting a US right to intervene in Latin American countries to prevent European interference, especially concerning debt or instability, to maintain stability and protect Washington’s interests in the Western Hemisphere.

That year, when European creditors threatened several Latin American countries, Roosevelt stated the right and responsibility of the US to get involved in line with the doctrine.

The Roosevelt Corollary was articulated in the aftermath of the Venezuelan crisis of 1902-1903 when the country rejected paying its foreign debts.

How has the US imposed this in recent decades?

Over the next decades, the evolved Monroe Doctrine served as justification for US intervention in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan pursued an aggressive approach to the region, branded “imperialist” by his detractors. In Nicaragua, he supported the right-wing Contras against the left-wing government of the Sandinistas and landed the US in the Iran-Contra arms-trafficking scandal. He also supported right-wing governments accused of atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Cuba has long been under intensive pressure from the US since Fidel Castro’s revolution, both militarily and economically under punishing sanctions that exist to this day.

There have also been reports of attempts to foment coups against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez before his death in 2013.