In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular, Greenland, the ice-capped arctic island and autonomous territory of Denmark, has become a focal point of US global strategy.
Trump has been clear on his claims of US ownership of Venezuelan oil reserves, and has not minced words when it comes to his designs to control Cuba, Colombia and Greenland. His strategy is proving to be driven by resource control, the containment of adversarial forces and rebalancing of regional power. This is a logic that appeals to the safeguarding of national security, but in reality comes closer to economic nationalism and military expansionist aims.
The NSS details how the US would seek to restore its pre-eminence in the western hemisphere, and deny competitors the “ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets” in the region. Presumably, this points to China and Russia.
Trump’s designation of Greenland within his strategic framework is noteworthy. Beyond voicing his wish to buy the island, Trump has made public that he sees Greenland as indispensable to US national security. This is likely thanks to its prime location along arctic shipping routes and for military radar, and its rich endowments of rare earth minerals. China has long controlled global supply chains of rare earths, so Trump’s vision of Greenland as being at the heart of strategic resource competition has seen the territory emerge from the rim of the arctic circle as a global focus point for critical minerals.
These shifts are indicative of US ambitions to rebuild “Fortress America,” not just through US Navy and Coast Guard redeployments for illegal immigration and drug smuggling crackdowns, but also through shoring up preferential access of US companies to resources and infrastructure throughout the western hemisphere. This is a wholesale geopolitical remodeling of everything from markets and resources to communication and energy.
Although packaged as a national security issue, it amounts to a serious blow to regional sovereignty and the international order. The strategy aims to position the US as the preferred partner of countries in the hemisphere by gradually forcing them to sever ties with China through economic, military and technological leverage. From the control of ports and communications infrastructure to interference in the trajectories and diplomatic choices of political parties, this is more than plain economic warfare, but clashes of entire value systems and modes of governance. Trump has been clear: US aid is no longer to be offered unconditionally, but to facilitate the undermining of adversarial external forces.
Against this backdrop, the contesting of Greenland is not just a spat over resources, but a real provocation of Denmark’s sovereignty as a NATO member. It signals to Europe that it can expect “America first” to override any pre-existing multilateral consensus. For Taiwan, Trump’s advocacy of a national security model that centers assets and revival of geopolitical power plays suggests that competition between the US and China over strategic control of the Indo-Pacific region is likely to intensify. Any regions or resources deemed to be of strategic value could become flashpoints.
With Trump’s statements on the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that it “was very important, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it anymore,” he reminds us that the US is no longer interested in just being the world’s police; it has re-emerged as a superpower poised to take resources by force. Greenland might just be the beginning. While the western hemisphere has already become an arena for Trumpism, the chill of the geopolitical storm brewing is starting to be felt worldwide.
Liao Ming-hui is an assistant researcher at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
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