{"id":62651,"date":"2026-01-05T13:43:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=62651"},"modified":"2026-01-05T13:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:43:50","slug":"heines-take-on-the-donroe-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2026\/01\/05\/heines-take-on-the-donroe-doctrine\/","title":{"rendered":"Heine’s Take on the “Donroe Doctrine”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amb. Jorge Heine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ishaan Tharoor’s column for the Washington Post titled The year of the \u2018Donroe Doctrine\u2019,<\/em> published December 31, 2026, quoted Ambassador Jorge Heine reflecting on the Monroe Doctrine’s resurgence in contemporary United States’ relations to Latin America. The article argues that President Trump\u2019s second-term Latin America policy, the so-called \u201cDonroe Doctrine\u201d, revives the language of the Monroe Doctrine to justify a more assertive and coercive U.S. role in the hemisphere. Framed as a defense of U.S. primacy and a pushback against China, the approach blends expansionist rhetoric, political interference, and militarized pressure, particularly toward Venezuela, marking a sharp departure from past U.S. strategies centered on democracy promotion or economic integration.<\/p>\n

Heine, a veteran Chilean diplomat, offers a pointed critique of this logic. He highlights the irony that Latin America is being cast as a major security threat despite the fact that it \u201csees the least amount of terrorism in the world.\u201d While he concedes that it is \u201cvery legitimate for the U.S. to say we would like to keep our primacy,\u201d he argues that dominance cannot be sustained through coercion or nostalgia for 19th-century doctrines.<\/p>\n

Instead, Heine stresses that U.S. influence must be earned through competition and investment\u2014by helping build infrastructure, support development, and offer credible economic alternatives. China, now the leading trading partner for much of South America, has done precisely that. Attempting to reverse this reality, Heine warns, is futile. \u201cThe notion that you can hark back to 1823 is totally unrealistic,\u201d Heine says. \u201cThe horse has left the barn. You can\u2019t get China out of Latin America.\u201d In his view, Trump\u2019s crude, security-first approach risks alienating the region and undermining U.S. influence over the long term rather than restoring it.<\/p>\n

The full reflection can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A former research professor at the<\/span> Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies<\/span><\/a>, Jorge Heine is a diplomat, international relations scholar, and lawyer. He is currently a\u00a0<\/span>non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. He has served as an ambassador of Chile to China, India, and South Africa. Heine has written over fifteen books, including<\/span> The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition<\/span><\/i><\/a> (2025), which provides insights on how the Global South can navigate the changing diplomatic landscape amid the U.S.-China rivalry.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ishaan Tharoor’s column for the Washington Post titled The year of the \u2018Donroe Doctrine\u2019, published December 31, 2026, quoted Ambassador Jorge Heine reflecting on the Monroe Doctrine’s resurgence in contemporary United States’ relations to Latin America. The article argues that President Trump\u2019s second-term Latin America policy, the so-called \u201cDonroe Doctrine\u201d, revives the language of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25562,"featured_media":49803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8410],"tags":[12141,11366,13287,12167,11374,1810,10365,12133,9527],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62652,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62651\/revisions\/62652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}