Mexico must overcome the inertia of decades of unilateral alignment with the interests of the US and understand that the nation's future depends, more than ever, on its ability to circumvent the encirclement that the empire seeks to impose on us, along with the other countries of the region.

This article by Eduardo Nava Hernández originally appeared at Rebelión on January 10, 2026. The views expressed in this article are the authors’* own and do not necessarily reflect those ofMexico Solidarity Mediaor theMexico Solidarity Project.*

The proclamation by the US president of a revived Monroe Doctrine (or, to satisfy his egomania, the Donroe Doctrine) was perversely put into action with the assault on Fort Tiuna in Caracas, the bombing of various Venezuelan military and civilian installations, the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and the murder of the Venezuelan and Cuban guards protecting them. From then on, the discourse emanating from Washington purports to herald an era of imperial domination through the unlimited use of force and, as Stephen Miller—advisor to Donald Trump and one of those tasked, along with Marco Rubio and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth, with “managing” the Venezuelan transition—has stated, a world in which international law and the sovereignty of states have no relevance.

The unrestricted use of force is the first premise of the new order envisioned by Trump. More than a rehash of the Monroe Doctrine, it is a revival of Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick doctrine, representing the United States’ purported “right” to intervene militarily in other countries to preserve its strategic interests. The second premise would be the division of the world into spheres of influence, virtually spheres of dominance, assigned to the great powers, where the entire so-called “Western Hemisphere”—that is, the Americas—would be a living space— Lebensraum in the Nazi German version—for expansion to ensure Americans receive the resources they need, to the exclusion of other powers.

A new order that, for those other emerging powers, China and Russia, is unacceptable and leads to increased tensions across the globe; but it is a fact that its design is already impacting the nations of the Americas and poses a threat to the entire continent. It is clear that the governments of Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guyana, and the soon-to-be-inducted government of Chile are already operating under this logic of subordination to imperialism, while Venezuela has become a politically unstable territory in resistance, and direct threats loom over Cuba, Colombia, and, as has been predicted, Mexico.

To exert pressure, Washington’s argument hinges on drug trafficking, just as it was the activity and ideology of communism in our countries and terrorism in the past. Organized crime gangs are now being labeled narco-terrorists; and in Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico, this is being used as leverage to force a shift in their governments, compelling them to submit to Washington, gaining access to their oil and mineral resources, and excluding other countries from these resources. In the case of Mexico, Trump is also trying to force it to suspend fuel supplies to Cuba, thus further strangling its economy; but he continues to threaten to attack Mexican cartels directly on our soil.

There is no doubt that these forms of pressure will continue and intensify. Donald Trump and his team have demonstrated time and again that they will not hesitate to use any means to bring all the governments of the Latin American region, and other parts of the world, under their control. This is nothing less than a return to the crudest and most aggressive forms of imperialism, historically known, but which we were supposed to never see again in this century. And for Mexico, this implies, from now on, a period of great complexity in bilateral and geopolitical relations in general. Added to this is the pressure from the country’s business and right-wing opposition, which, in complete agreement with Washington, demands that Venezuela be left to its fate and that solidarity with Cuba be abandoned in accordance with the will of the aggressor empire. All of this is happening as the trade and financial agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, USMCA, enters its review phase.

A long-term vision for Mexico implies strengthening diplomatic, commercial, and political ties with diverse regions of the world, to bolster autonomy and break the logic of exclusive confinement that Trumpism seeks to impose on the countries of the region.

The attacks have been multifaceted and brutal, especially during the last year: tariffs on Mexican exports; the mass and violent expulsion of migrant workers to the United States; forcing Mexico to become a repository for migrants from other countries in the Americas and other regions of the world; threats to carry out operations on our territory (“something has to be done about Mexico”) against drug manufacturing and trafficking organizations, especially fentanyl; the integration of the Mexican armed forces into the strategy of the U.S. Northern Command through joint exercise programs; and pressure to impose tariffs on Chinese exports to our country. The stance of the Morena governments since Donald Trump’s first term has been to pragmatically comply with the despot’s demands, ever since Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to close the southern and northern borders to the Central American caravans, detain them in concentration camps (with tragedies like the one in Ciudad Juárez), and receive deportees from other countries. President Claudia Sheinbaum, among other things, has handed over about fifty Mexican prisoners without extradition trials for crimes committed in Mexico to be imprisoned in US prisons.

The aggressiveness of Trump’s policies should compel us to re-examine the logic that has led, in recent times, to the trade-off of principles for immediate interests.

The current situation compels the Sheinbaum administration to adopt a smart and firm policy. The document issued on January 4th jointly with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, and Uruguay, and the positions presented at the UN Security Council by Mexican representative Héctor Vasconcelos and at the OAS by Alejandro Encinas, have been positive developments that reaffirm the principles of Mexico’s established foreign policy. The suspension of the Senate committee meeting, which was to discuss the approval of allowing U.S. military personnel to enter Mexican territory for training exercises with the Mexican Navy, was also a positive sign.

The principles of non-intervention, self-determination of states, and peaceful settlement of disputes are, of course, the indispensable foundation for the development of an autonomous policy in the international arena. They imply discarding the pragmatism that has dominated Mexican diplomacy in recent decades, based merely on strengthening economic ties with our northern neighbor through trade agreements, and on security and counter-narcotics issues, which has in fact subordinated Mexico more than ever before to the demands of the United States. In other words, the aggressiveness of Trump’s policies should compel us to re-examine the logic that has led, in recent times, to the trade-off of principles for immediate interests.

Mexico must urgently disassociate itself from any form of military alliance with the interventionist power and withdraw its armed forces from joint operations, under penalty of appearing to collaborate in the violation of nations’ right to self-determination, in this case, that of Venezuela. It cannot accept, as it has thus far, that China is a nation hostile to our national interests; it is not. On the contrary, a long-term vision implies strengthening diplomatic, commercial, and political ties with diverse regions of the world, which is the way to bolster autonomy and break the logic of exclusive confinement that Trumpism seeks to impose on the countries of the region.

We need a more active diplomacy in international forums, however corrupted and weakened they may be, because these are the arenas where we can make our proclaimed principles of foreign policy heard and where we can forge multilateral alliances to isolate Trump’s neo-fascism, by putting forward proposals grounded in international law, which must be revived as a bulwark against US political and territorial expansionism. Trump has opened many fronts of aggression simultaneously, so multilateral responses are necessary. And, above all, trade agreements must not dictate international policy, lest we relinquish sovereignty in foreign policy.

Mexico must overcome the inertia of decades of unilateral alignment with the interests of the United States and understand that the nation’s future depends, more than ever in the current circumstances, on its ability to circumvent the encirclement that the empire seeks to impose on us, along with the other countries of the region. A rapprochement with Brazil, the other subregional power, is key at this moment to counteract the influences emanating from the north that are poisoning the atmosphere of international coexistence. This also applies to Canada, a country also threatened by regional convergence in North America and by the trade and financial agreement we share with the United States. Our country’s silence regarding the massacre in Gaza has been repugnant and ominous; it must not continue in the case of aggressions against our closest neighbors in the region.

Although it may not seem so, the Mexican government’s weakness lies primarily within its own borders. The polarizing rhetoric of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, continued by Claudia Sheinbaum, which confronts and verbally discredits the opposition and capital—even though the government actually serves the latter, confronting and attacking the middle class, as well—and the construction of its hegemony solely on the basis of clientelism through social programs and propaganda, while simultaneously weakening popular organization, is insufficient to confront a right wing that, while diminished, is more than willing to join imperialist initiatives and rely on them to vie for power. However high the popularity of the rulers may be, electoral clientelism—as we have seen recently even in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Honduras, where progressivism had a more solid foundation—proves fragile in the face of the combined onslaught of the empire and its internal lackey groups.

The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela has not collapsed, and it will surely survive, because its social base is much stronger, stemming from communes and popular social organizations, than what we see in Mexico. Building this network of organizations that will give life to an effective popular alternative is the task of the left, not the current regime.

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