On a rainy December afternoon in Doral, Florida—a city that’s become a vibrant hub for Venezuelan immigrants—Maria Alejandra Barroso knelt in prayer at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. Her prayer, as she told NBC News, was simple: that President Donald Trump would succeed in ousting Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, and that it would happen peacefully. “Every day I pray for it to be peaceful and for innocent people to not get hurt,” Barroso said. For her, the hope of returning to a free Venezuela outweighs even the looming threat of deportation under Trump’s hardline immigration policies. “I’m not here because I want to be. It was necessary. I have friends in prison just for thinking differently,” she explained. “We want democracy and peace. I completely trust the actions of President Trump.”
Her sentiment is echoed throughout Doral, where conversations in restaurants and churches swirl around Trump’s escalating pressure campaign against Maduro and the crackdown on immigration. Since taking office again in 2025, Trump has revived what many are calling a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, a nearly 200-year-old policy asserting U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere. According to a detailed analysis by Latin American Post and DW, this new iteration has reshaped migration, trade, and security across Latin America, often with a familiar imperial undertone.
The numbers tell a story of deep interconnection—and tension. Of the roughly 340 million people living in the United States, more than 50 million are foreign-born. About 25 million hail from Latin America and the Caribbean, with Mexicans comprising the largest single community at over 11 million, followed by 1.7 million Cubans and 1.5 million Salvadorans. Migration from Latin America has surged since the 1960s, with a particularly sharp spike from Venezuela and Colombia after 2020, according to Pew Research Center projections cited by DW. Yet, while Latin Americans make up about half of all U.S. migrants, they account for over 90% of deportations—a pattern that predates Trump but has intensified under his administration.
In 2025, Trump’s administration revoked temporary protections for approximately 600,000 Venezuelans living and working in the U.S., leaving many—like Barroso—facing the possibility of removal. For some, the fear is palpable. Rosangel Patiño, an employee at the popular Venezuelan restaurant El Arepazo, told NBC News that business has slowed because “people are afraid to go out amid Trump’s immigration crackdown.”
But the administration’s impact isn’t limited to immigration policy. Trump has expanded U.S. military deployments in the region, conducted airstrikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and labeled 14 Latin American cartels and gangs as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) in 2025 alone—a dramatic increase from the eight regional groups previously designated, all of which were left-wing guerrillas. As DW reports, this shift from framing cartels as criminal organizations to labeling them as terrorists “switches the narrative from crime to terrorism,” according to scholars Tricia Bacon and Daniel Byman. This new narrative, they warn, risks diplomatic fallout with governments the U.S. still needs as partners, even as it provides political cover for military actions.
The pressure campaign against Maduro has been especially visible. In recent months, the U.S. military has moved thousands of troops and a carrier strike group to the Caribbean Sea, conducted strikes on alleged drug boats, and seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast. In a December interview with Politico, Trump declared that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and refused to rule out a U.S. ground invasion. Many Venezuelans in South Florida are glued to social media and flight-tracking apps, scanning for any sign that change might be coming to their homeland. Alejandro Márquez, a U.S. citizen who emigrated from Venezuela in 2013, told NBC News, “I’m focused on reconstructing Venezuela on the side of security.”
Yet not all Venezuelans are convinced that Trump’s approach will work. Rafael Landa, who arrived in the U.S. five years ago, expressed skepticism: “I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as people think. I’m not getting my hopes up.” Still, as Eduardo Gamarra, a professor at Florida International University, explained, “Venezuelans in Florida want Maduro gone. They want the situation in Venezuela resolved. But a lot of them are concerned about what it means for them in terms of their situation with immigration.”
The administration’s tough stance has also played out in high-profile legal battles. On December 11, 2025, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant, was released from a Pennsylvania detention facility after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the Trump administration had no legal basis to expel him and had misled the court about his removal options. Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March 2025 along with hundreds of alleged gang members, returned to the U.S. in June but was arrested again on human smuggling charges. He denies any gang affiliation and described enduring severe beatings and psychological torture while imprisoned in El Salvador. Judge Xinis criticized the Justice Department for holding him without legal authority and for “affirmatively mislead[ing]” the court about Costa Rica’s willingness to accept him. The Justice Department, for its part, vowed to “fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” with officials describing the ruling as “naked judicial activism.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s economic policies have rattled the region’s markets. In August 2025, he imposed steep tariffs on Brazilian imports—raising them by 50%—after Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court moved against former president Jair Bolsonaro. Mexico has scrambled to avoid a threatened 25% tariff, and new charges on copper and steel loom over other Latin American economies. The U.S. also tied a $20 billion loan to the success of Argentina’s far-right coalition in October 2025 elections, a move that some credit with helping the bloc secure the largest share of votes. At the same time, the U.S. dispatched its largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, threatening Venezuela’s Maduro and refusing to rule out invasion.
Yet, as DW points out, the U.S. no longer dominates Latin American trade as it once did. In 2000, about half of the region’s imports came from the U.S.; by 2024, that share had dropped to 29%. Exports to the U.S. have also slipped, from 49% to 45%. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva responded to the new tariffs in July 2025 with defiance: “We’ll have to seek other partners to buy our products… If the United States doesn’t want to buy, we will find someone who wants to.”
As the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine unfolds, its impact is measured not just in policy papers or diplomatic cables, but in the daily calculations of families from Mexico City to Buenos Aires and Miami to Caracas. For some, it’s a chance to reclaim lost homelands; for others, it’s a new chapter of uncertainty. The decisions made in Washington echo far beyond its walls—into homes, businesses, and hearts across two continents.
