The State Department published a video on its official X account this Tuesday, celebrating two centuries of the Monroe Doctrine and concluding with the warning that "American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never again be questioned".
The audiovisual material, just over five minutes long, quotes President Donald Trump, while tracing the evolution of the doctrine from its proclamation in 1823 to the present.
Furthermore, it presents the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026 —through the Operation Absolute Resolve— as the most recent example of its practical application under the current Administration.
The video draws a direct line between the original decree of President James Monroe before Congress —which declared that the American continents could not be subjects of future European colonization— and Washington's military and diplomatic actions in the 21st century.
Cuba is mentioned at two key moments in the narrative: the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the U.S. expelled Spain from the island and emerged as the dominant power in the Caribbean, and the Missile Crisis of 1962, when President Kennedy invoked the doctrine to demand the withdrawal of Soviet missiles in a standoff that lasted 13 days.
The publication is part of a broader strategy that the Trump administration has called "Doctrina Donroe" —a blend of Donald and Monroe— the first practical application of which was the detention of Maduro in Caracas.
The Secretary of War Pete Hegseth formalized this doctrine at a hemispheric summit in Miami in March 2026 and reiterated it from the Guantanamo Naval Base on June 10, where he stated that "what happens with the future of Cuba is in the hands of the President of the United States".
The pressure on Havana has intensified in recent weeks. On August 6, Washington announced sanctions against five entities and eight Cuban officials linked to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, including Tecnoimport, Duna S.A. and the Yuri Gagarin Military Industrial Company.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio summarized the strategy with a powerful phrase last Friday: “Every time they find a way out, we close it”.
The Cuban regime has responded with rhetoric of sovereignty. The representative of Havana at the UN, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, stated in June that the future of Cuba "belongs solely and exclusively to the Cuban people and government" and that thinking otherwise is "completely and absolutely mistaken."
Trump's National Security Strategy 2025 explicitly states that the U.S. "will enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore its preeminence in the Western Hemisphere," making Cuba—along with Venezuela and Nicaragua—one of the central focuses of this maximum pressure policy.
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