The Donroe Doctrine

Mac: Hey, Mike. How you doing? It’s good to see you today. Yeah, we have a great show planned for our listeners, our watchers today—the people who watch The Matt and Mike Show.

A week ago, I sent you this video I uncovered from Glenn Beck. It was a YouTube Short. I don’t know, what, 8–10 minutes?

Mike: Yeah, Shorts are like one or two minutes.

Mac: Well, it was a clip from a long live show.

Mike: Yeah. His episodes are three hours long, but…

Mac: What he talked about was his impression of what he believed Donald Trump was trying to do with his presidency and for the United States of America—not for his son, Hunter, but in fact for all the people of the United States of America.

Mike: His son, Hunter.

Mac: Referencing the difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. You know, as you mentioned to me, Hunter admitted all the Burisma stuff was—they were just giving him money.

Mike: Yeah.

Mac: And you know, when Trump does these things, he doesn’t do it for Donald J. He doesn’t do it for Eric. He doesn’t do it for his daughters. He doesn’t do it for…

Mike: Always the accusation, though, isn’t it?

Mac: It’s crazy. Yeah, yeah. But you look at what Donald Trump is doing and the accusations they’re hurling at him. Even for something as simple as building a new ballroom—which would make things like state dinners and the annual press event so much better and safer. The last time they had a state dinner, they had to do it out on the lawn and set up tents. Then it rained and got wet, and people were slopping around in mud.

So the ballroom—and it’s being paid for by a private donation, not a dollar of taxpayer money. So I think some of the accusations they hurl at him are pretty stupid.

Basically, as we talked about last week, we discussed the trade problem between the United States and Canada. When Glenn Beck talked about that issue amidst everything Donald Trump is doing, he coined a phrase that I had never heard before: the Don Doctrine, right?

Mike: The Donroe Doctrine.

Mac: Yeah, the Donroe Doctrine.

Mike: It’s actually been around for a while, I guess. Ever since Venezuela, or maybe before.

Mac: Well, I don’t remember hearing it. But the point is that Donald Trump is doing a lot of things that appear to be completely isolated, separated, and unconnected. But when you listen to Glenn Beck tell the story of what he believes Donald Trump is doing, you can see where he draws a thread through all of these things simultaneously—with the idea of making America great again, dare I say, making America strong again, making America completely self-contained in the Western Hemisphere with the commodities, energy, and manufacturing base that we need.

I shared the video with you. Before I go any further, I’d like to ask: what was your impression? What were your thoughts on the Donroe Doctrine?

Mike: Well, I don’t think Glenn Beck is wrong in the sense that once you’re past a certain point, you can look backward and say, “Oh, I see what just happened.”

People on the left like to make fun of Trump about being a genius and all that, while people on the right say, “No, the guy’s sharp and knows what he’s doing; he just doesn’t lay his cards out for everybody to see.” So it’s going to be a matter of opinion.

Regardless of whether it was fully intended to fall out this way, it is the way it’s falling out. You can’t deny the conclusions, but you can’t prove the thought process in Donald Trump’s head one way or the other. You’re making assumptions—that’s what a lot of talking heads do, and maybe we do it ourselves.

Nobody can deny that it’s working out well. You know, Cuba is crumbling; Venezuela—everybody wonders why we didn’t have free and fair elections, but Trump is getting what he wants out of Venezuela, so hey, don’t rock the boat. There may come a time for that in the future.

One thing Glenn Beck said that’s 100% true is that whatever deal we make with Venezuela when it comes to oil, it has to be transparent to the people. Not just numbers called out from the White House, but the people have to feel it.

It’s just like the upcoming elections. We can say things like, “This is going to produce a more secure and prosperous America for your children.” But greedy Americans are often self-centered on the present. “Oh, well, I want to pay $4 a gallon for gas,” when it was costing five-something in 2026 under other presidents and people didn’t whine about it—because Trump is a lightning rod that draws criticism even from former Republicans.

You can argue about the war in Iran and all the other things you’re going to talk about. One of the benefits of having Venezuela on our side—or at least in our hemisphere and in agreement with us—is that we’re not going to be dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

Mac: Yes.

Mike: But oil is a global product, so even what happens over there will still affect the price. Once we start producing more oil out of Venezuela in a decade or so, it’ll bring the overall price down. As you said, Venezuela is talking about getting out of the OPEC thing. Getting rid of OPEC means we won’t have to go begging.

Mac: Benefits there, too. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah, we won’t have to go begging at all. They won’t be setting the price between America and Canada. If we ever agree with them and Venezuela, we make the Middle East look like nothing in oil—probably even if you throw Russia in there.

Mac: And if you look at what’s going on now with the war in Iran, one of the side benefits is that all the oil-producing nations in the Middle East are starting to build their own pipelines to other export locations and ports. They will no longer be dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, which is under Iran. It’s 30 miles wide and runs alongside Iran, so they have a great deal to say about who goes through and who doesn’t.

I thought it was interesting that he called out the Canadians for the trade disagreement we’re having. What Trump doesn’t want Canada to do is send uranium and potash to China. Those are two critical minerals of great importance to the world economy.

Donald Trump’s position is: Listen, Mr. Carney of Canada, the United States of America protects you with our military. People don’t come to Canada to threaten you because you’re our neighbor. But if we’re going to have trade agreements between our nations, we want the uranium and the potash. We don’t want you sending it to China. Let’s figure out a way we can do that because sleeping with the enemy helps our enemy become more powerful. We’re the ones who have to protect and defend you against any threat from China.

Make no mistake, China’s goal is world dominion. They don’t want to be one of the world’s leaders—they want to be the world leader, and we’re the ones stopping them.

So Carney says, “Well, look, if we don’t have a trade agreement, you won’t get our oil from the oil sands, and the United States will suffer because of that.”

And what does Donald Trump do? He cuts a deal with Venezuela. It’s brilliant. It’s not cheap—it’ll be a couple hundred billion dollars of American infrastructure built to create new oil wells and pipelines to get that oil out of the ground to the refineries.

Ten years ago, before the communists took over in Venezuela, they were pumping 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. Now they’re pumping 1 million barrels a day through an infrastructure that is degrading daily. Many wells had to shut down because they couldn’t keep them open, and pipelines have degraded beyond use.

Trump cut a deal with them for roughly a 35% equity stake—not a lease, but an ownership stake in a private company. It’s similar to how British Petroleum was founded before World War I; they got an equity stake and owned the oil, in a way. And we’re going to own a percentage of the oil in Venezuela.

Don’t quote me on these exact numbers, but under U.S. control, we have something like 48 billion barrels of known oil resources. Venezuela has around 90 billion—almost double our known reserves. And we just signed up for ownership of roughly 65 billion barrels of oil in the ground.

It dwarfs our known reserves and will keep America in oil for several hundred years—for the foreseeable future, anyway. When we put gas in our cars, it’s going to come from American-owned oil, even if it physically came from Venezuela.

If you remember all the complaints over the last couple of years about tariffs—”Oh my god, the tariffs are going to make consumer prices more expensive”—what did we actually get from those tariffs?

Mike: Yeah, we got all kinds of manufacturing coming back to the United States because it’s cheaper to manufacture here now and avoid the tariffs.

Mac: Not only did we get trillions of dollars worth of manufacturing infrastructure built in the U.S., but take computer chips: the most powerful chips made today are produced in Taiwan. We got that company to invest a massive amount—I think a trillion dollars—to build plants here in the United States and Mexico. Soon, those chips will be made here.

We will have access to the best computer chips without them being manufactured 90 miles off the coast of China, under threat of a Chinese takeover. We can’t allow our enemy—people don’t want to say “enemy,” but let me tell you, China and Russia are our enemies. They don’t want us to be equals; they want to be superior.

The interesting thread to me—and I’d like your thoughts on this—was when Glenn Beck said Donald Trump recognized that the new world order being pushed by globalists would require the United States to lower its standard of living. It’s impossible to bring everyone else in the world up to our standard. Naturally, under a globalist system, the effect is degrading America’s position, economy, freedoms, and capitalist system.

He even went so far as to blame Bush 1 and Bush 2 for helping lower our standard of living through various decisions, along with presidents before and after them—Obama, Clinton, and Biden.

Whether all of that is entirely true requires more investigation, but my point is this: if you live and work in America, shouldn’t you support a president trying to stop a system from lowering the American standard of living? Doesn’t that make sense?

Mike: Well, yeah, for those of us who understand it. The problem is that education is so lacking in America. Believe it or not, that whole premise was once considered a conspiracy theory—”Oh, it’s the globalists, the globalists.”

I’ve said to my friends who lean extreme on that end: the original idea behind globalism was to bring cheaper manufactured goods to America and make countries interdependent so they’d be less likely to go to war.

Mac: Yeah.

Mike: On the flip side, when NAFTA was introduced, I’ll never forget an economist pointing out that if you remove trade barriers to make things even—with America up here, Mexico down here, and Canada slightly lower—America naturally has to drop. The water seeks its own level. That visual makes sense.

It has gone too far now. Educated Americans who aren’t blinded by college propaganda and economics professors are starting to realize: housing is more expensive, jobs aren’t as good as we’d like, and other countries have government-funded healthcare while America doesn’t. Why? Because we’re carrying the load for everyone else.

We could have afforded a lot more had we never gotten involved in GATT, NAFTA, and all these other agreements. If we had approached it more slowly, we might have seen what was coming before the big crash. We lived through that crash in America.

The younger generation lacks that life experience. We didn’t need college to learn this—we lived it through our paychecks and wallets.

Mac: That’s right.

Mike: They’re our offspring, and they were spoiled by our generation, which was more prosperous because of how things were initially. But then they saw us become less prosperous and thought, “Now we’re all stuck in the same boat, and it’s sinking.” Those are my thoughts.

Mac: You and I served during Operation Desert Storm, so we’re both familiar with the claim people made back in 1991: “This war has nothing to do with Kuwait; we’re just protecting our access to oil.”

Whether that’s completely true or not, there’s no doubt we needed Middle Eastern oil because we didn’t have control over our own access. A good percentage of the reason we went to war was likely to secure that access.

Glenn Beck noted in his commentary that Donald Trump’s actions today—tying these various efforts together to secure our access to minerals, oil, energy, and manufacturing—will result in our 20-year-old sons getting jobs at oil refineries in Louisiana instead of carrying rifles in the Middle East.

When you put that comparison to the test, what do you want your sons and daughters to do? Work in an American manufacturing plant, or carry an M4 in the Middle East? The answer is simple: we don’t want our children fighting wars when prudent management decisions can keep them safe at home.

I’m not an isolationist, though what I’m about to say might sound like it. As Christians, we recognize there are times when you must go to war because it’s the right thing to do—not to endorse killing or anger, but because difficult decisions must be made. If we can structure things so those decisions don’t have to be made, we’re ahead of the game.

What this Donroe Doctrine indicates is Trump saying, much like Monroe did in the 1800s: Stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Stay out of North and South America.

He even tied reinforcing control over the Panama Canal into this broader plan. Tying all these pieces together makes for a plausible strategy. Whether it’s entirely accurate or not, it’s a brilliant framework if that’s the goal.

If the United States is paying attention to its own backyard—North and South America—what does that mean if Taiwan is eventually taken by mainland China? Do we defend it? What happens in South Korea if North Korea crosses the DMZ? Should we even have troops there? What about the Fulda Gap, or potential Russian advancement into Poland or Germany?

I admire the Polish and Hungarians and think we should help them. But look at Germany and other European Union nations—their unfettered immigration policies are tearing down their own societies. Should America be drawn into protecting those nations, or is it in our national interest to ensure North and South America are protected from those who wish us harm?

I don’t claim to have the absolute answer, but it’s a thought exercise people should investigate for themselves.

Mike: That’s the hard thing—people don’t have time to research, especially if they’re raising families and working. You and I are retired, so we can spend all day noodling on artificial intelligence and YouTube.

Mac: Well, Mike, that’s the standard excuse. Anyone can use AI anytime, ask a few questions, and get educated in a minute.

Mike: Yeah, though sometimes the answers are too long. I often have to tell AI to shorten things down because people today don’t read long-form articles. But they do want quick answers.

What you’re saying about American interests is true. You asked about Kuwait, Taiwan, North Korea, and South Korea. Did America have a vested interest in Middle Eastern oil? Yeah, I think so. Notice we don’t get involved in similar skirmishes in Africa. People might call that racist, but it’s because we don’t have a direct economic interest there. We might have a moral interest, but that’s not always enough to shed blood over.

Mac: Beyond that, should we enforce our attitudes and opinions on people with entirely different worldviews?

Mike: When you have the spare time, treasury, and resources, maybe.

Mac: One of the biggest mistakes Americans make is assuming the rest of the world is just like us and wants the same things. America is unique because of its founding documents. We have a distinct view of equality, capitalism, and the Bill of Rights—which protects us from our own government. No other nation has that exact setup. Just because we grew up with these values doesn’t mean we can force the rest of the world to adopt them.

Mike: True, but most people globally just want to live peacefully. Nobody wants to suffer, starve, die, or have their ideas squashed like in China or North Korea. There’s a moral aspect to it.

When you’re starving, you aren’t thinking about quantum physics. But if you’re fortunate enough to be super wealthy like America, you feel an impulse to address obvious immorality.

We belong to that Facebook group, Christians and Atheists, where morality comes up often. If I see something immoral in the street—someone harming a woman or a child—I’m going to step in and try to stop it, even if it’s outside my direct business. You can’t just consume everything for yourself; from a Christian perspective, that’s not what God wants us to do. Many atheists hold a similar practical morality regarding protecting others.

We shouldn’t be the world’s policeman, but if you have the immediate means to stop something awful, there’s a sense of moral obligation.

Mac: Having served in the Middle East, I saw how women were treated. It’s terrible. You’ll never convince me that mindset will change quickly—viewing women as property is ingrained from age three. You can’t easily undo 30 years of cultural indoctrination overnight.

Mike: In Saudi Arabia, they’re letting women drive now, so there is incremental movement. It’s not what we’d expect or want long-term, but who knows where things will be in a hundred years?

Mac: To simplify what Glenn Beck was describing with the Donroe Doctrine: it’s the Monroe Doctrine on steroids. Foreign powers stay out of North and South America; we’ll manage this hemisphere.

To me, that implies at some point the U.S. military may need to address the drug cartels in Mexico directly. We can’t have cartels effectively controlling a neighboring government. Similar issues exist across parts of South America.

In medieval Europe during the 1200s, landowners built castles so that the local population—the people producing the food, livestock, and goods—had a safe place to gather during times of war. They built high walls, fortified them with weapons, and surrounded them with moats so attackers had to cross water before reaching the walls.

The Donroe Doctrine looks like building castle walls around North and South America, with the oceans acting as natural moats. What Trump is effectively saying is: We’re going to do what’s best for America and our immediate neighbors to be self-sufficient and self-contained.

We don’t want Canada selling uranium to China so they can build more nuclear weapons—even if the stated claim is peaceful nuclear power generation.

Nations need to look at these situations and ask: What is truly in our best interest? As we discussed regarding the Canadian trade dispute, there are forces pushing for a globalist agenda through organizations like the World Economic Forum…