America for Americans: analysis, interpretation and meaning of the phrase

"America for Americans" is a phrase that expresses what is now known as Monroe Doctrine, which defines the foreign policy of the United States in the American hemisphere.

Originally, this phrase is part of a speech read by James Monroe, president of the United States between 1817 and 1825, before the Congress of the State of the Union, on December 2, 1823.

The speech, written by John Quincy Adams, did not propose a doctrine but rather sought to establish a position before the possible interest in reviving European colonialism in America, at a time when United States independence was still very young.

With the passage of time, the expression "America for the Americans" went from being a slogan to a doctrine that justified US intervention in the countries of the United States. hemisphere, as expressed by the intervention in the Panama Canal and the war in Cuba, or its position on European interventions during contemporary history Latin American. How did that transformation happen?

America for Americans: origin and justification of the phrase

The specter of a possible British counterattack to regain North America revealed the Americans, for at the beginning of the nineteenth century Britain still dominated some colonies of Canada.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Napoleonic wars kept the British and Irish occupied, the United States decided to declare a war in 1812 against its Canadian colonies. After a three-year conflict, the war proved unsuccessful for the United States, which had to tolerate its uncomfortable neighbor along the northern border.

But the conflict awakened in the American imagination the ideal of the so-called "manifest destiny", that is, the assumption that the United States would be destined to expand and defend freedom from the Atlantic to the Peaceful.

That same year, in 1815, the Napoleonic wars in Europe ended. The monarchies of Russia, Austria and Prussia formed the so-called Holy Alliance, whose purpose was to restore the monarchical order in countries that had suffered the influence of French liberalism and secularism.

In 1823, the Holy Alliance successfully intervened in Spain and reestablished the monarchy of Ferdinand VII, which could have sparked interest in restoring its colonies in Latin America.

Once again, the Americans felt threatened, this time from the southern border. It was there that the speech that James Monroe delivered before the Congress of the State of the Union took place, as part of his annual management report and exposition of new policies.

When James Monroe launched his sentence before Congress, it was nothing more than a slogan, since the United States still had neither economic nor military resources for a real confrontation. Europe was aware of this, so it did not give greater importance to the declaration and maintained its presence in America, either in its active colonies or through trade agreements.

From the phrase to the Monroe doctrine

The speech containing the phrase "America for the Americans" revolved around three fundamental principles, which gradually became a doctrine. These points are:

1. The inadmissible nature of any European attempt to recolonize the American territory.
2. The categorical rejection of the monarchical system of organization. It is established in the discourse, therefore, that the identity of the hemisphere necessarily involves embracing the republican system and invoking the principle of freedom.
3. The commitment of non-intervention in European affairs by the United States, as a guarantee of convenience.

The Latin American reception

A phrase like "America for the Americans" should have, of course, an important symbolism in the Latin American context. As rhetoric, the phrase was received with acceptance, but not without suspicion, since Latin America did not have the concrete support of its northern neighbor in the independence struggle.

The discussion of the Monroe doctrine was a point on the agenda of the Congress of Panama called by Simón Bolívar in 1826. The purpose of the congress was to reach agreements that would benefit all the independent countries of the hemisphere, which happened to invoke the principles of the Monroe doctrine in the face of an eventual attempt to recolonization.

However, the congress did not generate common agreements and, soon after, Greater Colombia and the United Provinces of Central America were divided into different nations. To the chagrin of the Americans, the division benefited Great Britain, which ended up establishing trade agreements with different Spanish-American governments.

Towards a semantic slip ...

It will really be from 1845 on that Monroe's speech acquires the character of a doctrine and becomes a justification for the expansionist vocation of the United States under the argument of manifest Destiny.

In his speech of December 2, 1845, President James Polk invoked the principles expounded by Monroe in 1823, interested in controlling the territories of California, Texas and Oregon, which ended up being annexed to the Union after a war with Mexico.

It was clear that the United States aspired to become a power. In this way, it was extending its economic interests to Central America, where Great Britain also invested its economic efforts. Aware that the British had better weapons for a confrontation, the United States chose to negotiate its zones of influence.

The sum of these and other events shows a turn in the foreign policy of the United States with regard to Latin America.

"America for Americans"

He dictates a Spanish saying that "who does not do what he says, ends up saying what he does". This seems to have happened with the Monroe doctrine, since its application has been made effective only in the defense of the interests of the United States and not in the defense of the sovereignty of nations Latin American.

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the policies of the new American president, Theodore Roosevelt. Inspired by the South African saying: "He speaks softly and carries a big club, so you will go far", Roosevelt implemented the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America in a very particular way.

Roosevelt understood that he could keep Latin America aligned in his favor through a diplomatic but threatening policy: yes any nation in Latin America did not respect the American "ideals" of independence, freedom and democracy, would be the object of an intervention military. That was called Roosevelt corollary, Roosevelt doctrine or policy of Big Club. The question would be: who sets the criteria for such malleable concepts?

When Roosevelt intervened in favor of Venezuela in 1902, frustrating the blockade that Great Britain, Italy and Germany perpetrated against the government of Cipriano Castro, he sent a clear message to the European coalition, but also to all America. And this was just one of the many episodes that can be mentioned in the history of the region.

To the extent that the US expanded its hegemony over the hemisphere, the phrase "America for the Americans" was acquiring a new meaning in the popular imagination: "America for Americans". Hence, Latin America came to be seen as the "backyard"of the United States, especially in the context of the Cold War.

Capitalism: a new point on the agenda of the manifest Destiny

The politics of the backyard became more acute in the 20th century with the meddling of communism, a kind of horse ideological Trojan that threatened the known order throughout the world, without offering a clear perspective of future.

By then, the United States had already become a thriving industrialized nation, fully capitalist and liberal in its economic policy.

Communism had advanced in the Western world since the triumph of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and it challenged not only the system productive, but to democracy as a civil order and, evidently, to the interests of the United States on the region.

Communist ideas were, without a doubt, very contagious and had awakened all kinds of charismatic leaderships in America, especially in Latin America.

The specter of communism made the United States turn all its energy to safeguarding the capitalist model. The fight against communism became a pivotal point in the national and international political agenda of that nation, expanding the scope of the manifest Destiny.

Throughout the 20th century there have been many US interventions, some more controversial than others and all subject to great debate. Among them, we can mention:

• Guatemala, in 1954;
• Cuba, in 1961;
• Brazil, in 1964;
• Dominican Republic, 1965;
• Chile, in 1973;
• Nicaragua, between 1981 and 1984;
• Granada, in 1983;
• Panama, 1989.

summarizing

In the world of ideas, concepts and values ​​are like water: restless, elusive, shapeless, adapted circumstantially to the molds that retain it, until they break the jugs, follow their course and open trenches in rocks that we believed unbreakable.

What began as a rhetorical phrase, invoking a principle embraced by the entire generation of independentistas in America, has been transformed into a complex and murky concept.

It will be necessary to ask, in depth, what John Quincy Admas was thinking when he wrote that phrase, or what Monroe believed when he put it on his lips. After all, don't Americans call themselves americans (Americans in Spanish)?

It will be necessary to wonder if, from its origin, the phrase no longer suffered from the rigidity typical of the nationalist discourses of the century XIX, which sought to categorize the highly complex network of social relations, exchanges, transfers, talks.

It will be necessary to wonder if the idea of ​​"America for the Americans" was not already destined to its symbolic death or to its mutation, every time that it was not the result of a Pan-American debate, but the expression of the fear of losing the dominions achieved and the dreams of glory.

It remains to be wondered if, in the end, the Monroe doctrine will not have become an expression of the Machiavellian principle "the end justifies the means."