The Americas “do not belong” to any power, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday after US counterpart Donald Trump invoked Washington’s “dominance” of the hemisphere after seizing Venezuela’s leader in a military raid. Trump described the weekend US military operation against leftist Nicolas Maduro as an update of the Monroe Doctrine: the 1823 declaration by fifth US president James Monroe that Latin America was closed to other powers, which at the time meant Europe. Sheinbaum hit back Monday, saying: “The Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power. The American continent belongs to the peoples of each of the countries that comprise it.”

Source: Dhaka Tribune January 05, 2026 16:41 UTC