Tom Wakely for Congress

December 18th, 2025

 

My wife and I recently returned from a trip to Veracruz, Mexico. Our time was spent visiting with friends and family who live there. One of my friends, Adalberto, whom I have known for close to twenty years, is a retired Mexican naval officer. As we sat at an outdoor table adjacent to the city’s zócalo, waiting for our wives to join us, our conversation turned to politics as it usually did after a couple of beers. He said he, along with most of his country, was deeply concerned about Trump’s recent security doctrine. I said it seemed to me that the Trump Administration was reviving the Monroe Doctrine. He said he agreed, and that was what was causing such great concern in Mexico.

 

The significance of the doctrine, a key passage in President James Monroe's 1823 annual message to Congress, was that it had become a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy over the decades.  It justified our government’s interventionism in the affairs of countries in Central and South America. In the 20^th century, President Theodore Roosevelt invoked it to explain his “big stick” foreign policy and to justify U.S. intervention in Latin America. Which in turn, led to military actions in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti. President Woodrow Wilson expanded the doctrine by linking it to his "Missionary Diplomacy" foreign policy, which asserted that the U.S. had a moral duty to promote democracy in Latin America. Which in turn, led to military actions in Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. President Kennedy invoked it to justify the U.S. naval quarantine against Soviet missile buildup in Cuba. President Reagan relied on the doctrine to justify U.S. military and CIA actions in Central America during the Cold War. And today, Trump is reviving this policy to justify his administration’s ‘gunboat diplomacy’, pressuring Venezuela, among other countries, to bend to his demands.

 

The recent passage of the $900.6 billion 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which I opposed, and which Rep. Gabe Vasquez voted to approve, gives the Trump Administration all the money and tools necessary to continue his version of the Monroe Doctrine. Its focus on increased military spending and ‘peace through strength’ is like a broken bottle buried in the sand on a beach, a disaster waiting to happen. The bill does nothing to prevent war and police actions; rather, it will drive conflict throughout Latin America. While there are specific provisions within the bill I support as they relate to veterans’ quality of life and healthcare, those provisions should not be tied to a bloated military budget or offset by cuts to other critical domestic programs.