‘This Is Our Hemisphere’: Trump and the Transformation of Intervention in the Americas

This article argues that the second Donald Trump administration is transforming inter-American relations by openly claiming and exercising a right to intervene in the domestic affairs of Latin American and Caribbean states. The article first offers a history of the principle of non-intervention as embedded in the 1948 OAS Charter. This principle shaped the inter-American order in a specific way: it pushed the United States to maintain legal cover for its interventionist conduct and enabled Latin American states to contest it. It then turns to the present and argues that the second Trump administration has repositioned the Americas as a central foreign policy priority and shifted toward overt displays of coercion. The article further shows that this disruption is compounded by the limited and largely silent responses of Latin American and Caribbean states, which depart from earlier patterns of contestation and are variously shaped by fear, strategic calculation, and ideological alignment with US foreign policy. Overall, the article provides insight into the multiple layers, enablers, and effects of US foreign policy and its reception by medium and small powers, with implications that extend beyond the Americas.