The Americas “do not belong” to any power, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday after US counterpart Donald Trump invoked Washington’s “dominance” of the hemisphere after seizing Venezuela’s leader in a military raid.

Trump described the weekend US military operation against leftist Nicolas Maduro as an update of the Monroe Doctrine: the 1823 declaration by fifth US president James Monroe that Latin America was closed to other powers, which at the time meant Europe.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document,” Trump told a news conference, slapping his name on the policy principle.

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” added Trump.

Sheinbaum hit back Monday, saying: “The Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power. The American continent belongs to the peoples of each of the countries that comprise it.”

US military forces early Saturday launched strikes on the Venezuelan capital Caracas and seized Maduro and his wife, flying them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.

Since then, Trump has also made threats against other leftist governments in the region, including Cuba, Colombia and Mexico, the last of which he warned specifically to do more to crack down on drug trafficking.

AFP