Greg Ip

Exactly.

Why invade a country in pursuit of its resources when, for the most part, throughout the Western Hemisphere, they're available to any American investor at the right price?

I think the most important way it's different is that the Donro doctrine, as the name suggests, is very specific to Donald Trump.

Remember how he talked on and on and on during the election campaign about invading Venezuela?

No.

Yeah, no, I don't remember that either.

I thought I was covering that.

What I think that tells you is that there's a lot about Trump's foreign policy that is very idiosyncratic to Trump himself.

I don't know that anybody else in the broader foreign policy sphere or the Republican Party thinks is that important to acquire Greenland.

That kind of started with Trump.

So I think that's how it differs from the Monroe Doctrine, because for better or for worse, the Monroe Doctrine from one president to the next was broadly accepted as the logical expression of America's foreign policy interests.

That was true whether you were James Monroe, whether you were John Tyler, whether you were Willie McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt.

Or Franklin Roosevelt, for that matter.

Or Dwight D. Eisenhower, right, who certainly carried out his fair share of interventions during the 1950s.

So what are the pros?

First of all, to the extent that increased attention from the United States also extends to increased aid, whether economic, military, security, or otherwise, then it could be a very mutually beneficial relationship for all countries in the Western Hemisphere.

To the extent that it enables the United States to secure important resources, whether it's oil or rare earths,

if not necessarily for itself, to at least keep them out of the hands of adversarial countries, that too is a good thing.

So I could think of a number of ways why there is an underlying positive logic for the United States in the Donro doctrine.

But it's also possible to think of lots of ways that the Donro doctrine could go wrong and not end up being beneficial for the United States.