For months, Americans have heard about Project 2025, the sweeping, ultra-right policy agenda crafted by the Heritage Foundation and dozens of aligned organizations. Many view it narrowly: a domestic power grab, a roadmap for dismantling civil service protections, rolling back environmental and civil rights regulations, and concentrating executive power.
But what we have not discussed nearly enough is this: Project 2025 also contains a foreign-policy worldview built around hard-edged nationalism, isolationist militarism, and a 19th-century vision of regional “spheres of influence.” And recent Trump administration actions in the Americas, economic, diplomatic, and military, are following that script with alarming precision.
This is not accidental. This is not improvisation. This is the Monroe Doctrine rewritten for the MAGA era, where democratic values are secondary to raw strategic control, where U.S. interests are defined not by alliances or human rights but by loyalty and leverage, and where authoritarian-leaning governments are rewarded if they align with Washington’s power play.
I outline below what is happening and why it should alarm every American who believes in democracy at home and abroad.
Project 2025’s Foreign Policy Vision: A Neo-Imperial Hemisphere
While most reporting has focused on domestic policies, Project 2025 includes a clear foreign-policy doctrine:
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Reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere
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Abandon multilateral diplomacy in favor of bilateral pressure and transactional deals
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Prioritize resource extraction, security cooperation, and migration control over democratic norms
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Tolerate authoritarian regimes as long as they fall within the U.S. “sphere”
This worldview is straight out of Cold War and pre–World War II geopolitics, where great powers carve the world into zones, and smaller nations are expected to “know their place.”
Project 2025 explicitly rejects the post-WWII order of rules-based alliances in favor of a hierarchical, America-first regional system, one where the U.S. claims uncontested authority from the Arctic to Patagonia.
And if you look closely, the Trump administration has already begun implementing it.
Rewarding Friendly Autocrats, Punishing Democratic Critics
Brazil and Argentina: The MAGA-aligned axis
Both countries are currently governed by far-right leaders who echo Trump in style, rhetoric, and policy.
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Trump officials have moved quickly to deepen military and intelligence cooperation.
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They have signaled preferential trade deals that bypass traditional U.S.–Latin America frameworks.
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Right-wing leaders who openly attack the press and dismantle social protections are being embraced as “strategic partners.”
This mirrors Project 2025’s message: ideology over democracy. If you’re aligned with Washington’s new bloc, you’re elevated. If not, you’re isolated.
Mexico: Carrot-and-stick coercion
Mexico is being pressured aggressively on immigration and fentanyl policy, not through collective agreements but through unilateral demands backed by threats of tariffs, sanctions, and troop deployments.
Project 2025 is explicit here: treat Mexico as a security dependency, not a sovereign partner.
Central America: Building a Controlled Migration Buffer Zone
Project 2025 proposes a hard-border regional strategy that uses foreign aid, sanctions, and security forces to force Central American governments into alignment.
Under Trump, we are now witnessing:
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Renewed pressure on Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to serve as externalized border-control states
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Quiet negotiations with Bukele’s El Salvador revolving around policing, surveillance, and mass detention
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U.S. support for militarized “migration corridors”
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Cuts to development and anti-corruption programs that strengthen civil society
This is a colonial migration-control system, outsourcing border enforcement to foreign governments while keeping them politically dependent.
It fulfills a core Project 2025 directive: externalize the border to create a Central American cordon sanitaire around the U.S.
The Caribbean: Economic Leverage as a Political Weapon
In the Caribbean, the administration has increasingly tied disaster aid, trade preferences, and debt restructuring to political alignment.
Countries that support Trump’s regional goals or criticize China’s presence receive preferential treatment. Those that maintain non-aligned or progressive positions see:
This is classic “sphere of influence” behavior: economic punishment as geopolitical discipline.
Venezuela and Cuba: Selective Hardline Measures, Not About Democracy
Project 2025 promotes regime-change pressure on left-wing Latin American governments, not because of authoritarianism, but because they fall outside the “approved” U.S. sphere.
The Trump administration’s inconsistent approach is revealing:
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Venezuela is squeezed heavily, but far-right autocrats elsewhere are ignored.
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Cuba is hit with sweeping sanctions, while corruption and democratic backsliding in aligned states are overlooked.
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The administration has begun floating Gulf-style resource deals in exchange for “recognition.”
This is not democracy promotion. This is the punishment of ideological opposition in the service of hemisphere structuring.
Why This Matters: It Weakens Democracy in Both Americas
Project 2025’s hemispheric strategy is dangerous for three reasons:
1. It encourages a global return to great-power blocs
While China builds influence in South America through investment and Russia through security agreements, the Trump administration is responding not with diplomacy but with imperial-era bloc building.
2. It rewards anti-democratic leaders as long as they are MAGA-aligned
This creates a hemisphere where corruption, censorship, and strongman politics are normalized.
3. It undermines America’s standing while empowering authoritarian powers
When the U.S. abandons democratic norms in its own region, it loses the moral authority to challenge abuses elsewhere.
The Bottom Line: Project 2025 Is Already Being Implemented Abroad
Americans worried about Project 2025 often focus on domestic authoritarianism, and rightly so. But the movement behind it is not confined to our borders.
Its architects envision a hemispheric power structure where smaller nations orbit Washington, not as partners, but as subordinates.
The Trump administration’s actions in the Americas are not random, chaotic, or purely reactive. They reflect a coherent ideological project: a restoration of U.S. regional dominance through coercion, transactional alliances, and authoritarian-friendly diplomacy.
This is the foreign-policy version of the domestic political revolution they seek and it is already underway.
