In December 2025, the Trump administration released the second-term National Security Strategy, and this document marks the most significant post-Cold War reorientation of U.S. strategic focus. One of the most prominent features of this strategy is its rare and extensive emphasis on placing the Western Hemisphere at the forefront of U.S. global strategy. Through what has been termed the "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine", the document advocates for a comprehensive restoration of U.S. dominance over the Americas, asserting that the hemisphere’s political, economic, security, and supply chain frameworks must be reshaped around American interests. In contrast to the past thirty years of U.S. intervention across Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, this strategy does not call for further expansion. Instead, it represents a shift toward shrinking external burdens, concentrating resources back to the Americas, and reshaping the global geopolitical structure from the local periphery, with the core aim of achieving "American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”.
This strategic shift is not merely abstract rhetoric but aligns with the recent trend of Latin American countries rapidly gravitating toward the United States. In November 2025, the U.S. quickly reached trade framework agreements with Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, and El Salvador, four countries spanning Central and South America, all are Spanish-speaking nations and form a geographically connected circle with the U.S. These countries are either dollarized or partially dollarized, highly dependent on the U.S. economy, and hold significant strategic positions and natural resource value. The agreements reached are not just typical trade facilitation arrangements. They encompass a broad range of provisions, including reciprocal tariffs, comprehensive market access, synchronized digital and services trade, alignment on intellectual property and labor standards, coordinated environmental and mineral governance, harmonized economic security policies, and state-owned enterprise reforms. This high level of institutional integration and exclusivity directly supports the U.S. National Security Strategy's objective of "enlisting and expanding" its influence in the Western Hemisphere.
These agreements, combined with the active alignment of Latin American countries with the U.S. over the past two years, are further solidifying the trend. This includes the integration of energy systems with the U.S., deepening dollarization of critical mineral transactions, the exclusion of Chinese competitors from digital infrastructure, and a growing trend toward aligning with the U.S. financial system. These developments indicate that the U.S. is using trade frameworks as an institutional starting point to push the Western Hemisphere into a new geopolitical landscape characterized by an accelerated Americanization. This shift is realigning the economic rules, industrial chains, and security cooperation of Latin American countries, all of which are being re-anchored within a U.S.-led framework. It can be said that the U.S. strategy for the Western Hemisphere has not only taken shape but is being institutionalized and systematized, laying the foundation for a broader, more exclusive structure in the future.
Firstly, the fundamental logic behind the fully developed U.S. Western Hemisphere strategy has been evolving from traditional Monroe Doctrine to its systematic reconstruction.
The U.S. is advancing a Western Hemisphere strategy that is not merely a revival of the traditional Monroe Doctrine, but rather a comprehensive restructuring focused on systems, supply chains, security, resources, and political influence. Its goal is not only to prevent external intervention but to create a U.S.-led regional order of production. The strategic document explicitly states that any external power, beyond the Western Hemisphere, involved in ports, energy, mining, digital infrastructure, and critical assets, will be considered a direct threat to U.S. national security. This definition not only legitimizes U.S. intervention but also fundamentally integrates the Americas into the U.S.-dominating geopolitical system, using an exclusionary approach to resist any competitors.
The advancement of this strategy is primarily reflected in three aspects. Based on a trade framework, it institutionalizes and binds Latin American countries to the U.S. system. Provisions in the agreement related to tariff reductions, regulatory alignment, service trade integration, standard harmonization, intellectual property protection, and labor and environmental coordination transform these countries from mere trade partners into members of the U.S.-system belt. The unified structure of the agreement suggests that more Latin American countries may adopt this framework in the future, creating a de facto Americas Economic Common Rules Zone.
At the same time, the U.S. has incorporated critical resources and supply chains into its Western Hemisphere strategy. Argentina's abundant lithium and shale gas reserves, Ecuador's copper and gold mines, Guatemala's oil reserves, and El Salvador's logistical hub position make the Americas a vital rear base for U.S. reindustrialization and critical mineral security. By eliminating certain tariffs and committing to trade facilitation and investment rule coordination, the U.S. makes it easier for these resources to flow to the U.S., while limiting the economic influence of other major powers. In this context, resources are no longer merely commodities but integral parts of the U.S. national security framework.
Additionally, the U.S. deepens its political influence over regional countries through economic security and domestic governance clauses. The agreement requires these nations to align with the U.S. on matters such as export controls, investment security, tax transparency, and state-owned enterprise reform, thereby steering their governance structures and policies toward U.S. norms. This form of internal political reshaping is more covert and enduring than military intervention, and it systematically excludes external powers through a rule-based framework, constituting a new form of institutional Monroe Doctrine.
All in all, the U.S. has reshaped the Americas into a U.S.-centric unipolar structure, with comprehensive alignment across institutions, resources, supply chains, regulation, and security. Its exclusivity is reflected in how rules, standards, and security cooperation compress the involvement of other major powers. The Western Hemisphere is no longer just a geopolitical backdrop for the U.S.; it is becoming the power center for the U.S.' strategic resurgence.
Second, the mechanism driving the advancement of the U.S.’ Western Hemisphere strategy is a systematic process ranging from the spread of agreements to the locking in of supply chains.
The U.S.’ ability to push forward the quadrilateral agreement in a short period of time was no coincidence. Instead, it was actually built upon a well-established regional advancement mechanism.
First of all, the dependence of dollarized or semi-dollarized countries on the U.S. financial system makes them more inclined to accept U.S.-proposed institutional alignment when facing economic volatility, inflationary pressure, or political instability. In these countries, the dollar functions not only as a currency but also as a tool of governance, granting the U.S. near-absolute influence.
At the same time, the U.S. uses supply chain restructuring as a key instrument, integrating these countries into the U.S. manufacturing system and strategic reserve network through the reallocation of critical minerals and energy resources. Once resources such as lithium, copper, gold, and oil are embedded in long-term supply contracts and regulatory coordination frameworks, pathway lock-in is achieved, enabling it to secure sustained advantages in its technological and industrial systems for decades to come.
Furthermore, under the pretext of modern governance provisions, the U.S. advances the export of rules. Provisions on intellectual property, labor standards, environmental regulations, digital taxation, and related areas not only shape market rules but also serve as institutional barriers designed to exclude Chinese firms from expanding in infrastructure, mining, power generation, telecommunications, and digital services. As more countries adopt U.S. standards, non-U.S. systems will be progressively excluded from regional markets.
Finally, the U.S. strengthens the framework through security policy coordination. Cooperation on economic security, export controls, and investment screening embedded in these agreements carries a strong China-oriented focus, encouraging countries in the Americas to adopt more cautious or even exclusionary policy positions toward China in both geopolitical and supply chain domains. These practices enable the U.S. to achieve regional security lock-in at a relatively low cost, without relying on the kind of military deployments that were previously required.
This advancement mechanism allows the U.S. to move from trade into institutions, from institutions into supply chains, and from supply chains into geopolitics, thereby constructing a layered, tightly bound Western Hemisphere system. Its defining features are not a loose network, but systematic advancement, structural binding, and long-term lock-in.
As China’s political and economic influence in Latin America has steadily expanded over the past decade, the U.S.’ Western Hemisphere strategy inevitably carries significant China-related implications. The completion of this strategy would substantially compress China’s geopolitical and economic space in Latin America. As it stands, China’s positioning in key resource sectors such as lithium, copper, oil, and gold will face far stricter political scrutiny. Its entry barriers for investment in infrastructure, energy, power generation, telecommunications, digital industries, and manufacturing will rise markedly, and its supply chain cooperation with Latin American countries will be compelled to adjust under the constraints of U.S.-led rule systems. Moreover, as countries in the Americas align more closely with the U.S. on export controls, investment security, and data governance, China’s strategic depth in the region will be significantly reduced, turning the Americas into a highly China-sensitive region and intensifying global competitive pressures.
Final analysis conclusion:
The Western Hemisphere strategy currently being constructed by the U.S. is a systematic upgrade of the Monroe Doctrine, a regional power reconfiguration centered on rules, resources, and supply chain politics. Its comprehensiveness lies in the tight binding of economic institutions, security cooperation, supply chain arrangements, and political governance. At the same time, its exclusivity lies in the use of laws, standards, and resource control to exclude external actors from the Americas. As more countries in the region are incorporated into this framework, the U.S. will effectively establish a single-center system in the Western Hemisphere, transforming the Americas from a strategic rear area into a pivotal hub of its global strategy. For China, this means that the window of strategic opportunity in the Americas is rapidly narrowing, and that U.S.-China competition is accelerating toward global expansion at the institutional and supply chain levels.
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Zhou Chao is a Research Fellow for Geopolitical Strategy programme at ANBOUND, an independent think tank.
