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On Jan. 3, U.S. forces struck Venezuela and seized President Nicolás Maduro, flying him and his wife to New York for prosecution on drug-trafficking allegations and other charges. U.S. President Donald Trump quipped that the operation felt lifted from a blockbuster. Its aftermath, however, is more likely to deliver a painful history lesson than a Hollywood ending.

The raid shattered international law and steamrolled the United Nations Charter, which bars the use of force against other states unless authorized by the U.N. Security Council. Yet it fits squarely within a long U.S. tradition of coercive diplomacy and intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trump’s flirtation with a self-styled “Donroe Doctrine” signals that his administration is eager to turn back the clock to the turn of the 20th century.

On Jan. 3, U.S. forces struck Venezuela and seized President Nicolás Maduro, flying him and his wife to New York for prosecution on drug-trafficking allegations and other charges. U.S. President Donald Trump quipped that the operation felt lifted from a blockbuster. Its aftermath, however, is more likely to deliver a painful history lesson than a Hollywood ending.

The raid shattered international law and steamrolled the United Nations Charter, which bars the use of force against other states unless authorized by the U.N. Security Council. Yet it fits squarely within a long U.S. tradition of coercive diplomacy and intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trump’s flirtation with a self-styled “Donroe Doctrine” signals that his administration is eager to turn back the clock to the turn of the 20th century.

Maduro’s abduction revived memories of past U.S. interventions. Observers were quick to point to Cold War parallels—such as the CIA backing for the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973—as well as the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, when the United States invaded the much smaller nation; captured its ruler, Gen. Manuel Noriega; and later tried him on drug charges.

But despite some similarities, Trump’s underlying vision more closely resembles the early-20th-century policies of then-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. As such, Trump’s policies will face the same dilemmas—leaders who resist U.S. demands, public opposition in the United States and Latin America, and costly cycles of intervention and retrenchment. The architects of the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine will soon confront frustrations that echo those that Washington faced a century ago.

An undated political cartoon depicts Roosevelt walking through the Caribbean Sea, carrying a big stick, and leading a fleet of war ships.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Republican officials had already begun to invoke the Monroe Doctrine during the first Trump administration and 2024 presidential primaries.

Former President James Monroe first articulated the doctrine in 1823, framing the Western Hemisphere as a distinct, U.S.-dominated political sphere that was closed to European machinations at a moment when the United States was still consolidating and much of Latin America stood on the cusp of shaking off European colonial rule. In the decades that followed, Monroe’s words gained new meanings through corollaries and interpretations added by successive administrations.

Roosevelt’s own corollary to the doctrine emerged from........

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