H.Res. 1056

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1056 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1056

Calling for the annulment of the Monroe Doctrine and the development of 
a ``New Good Neighbor'' policy in order to foster improved relations 
and deeper, more effective cooperation between the United States and 
its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 10, 2026

Ms. Velazquez (for herself, Mrs. Ramirez, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Ms. 
Tlaib, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Clarke of New York, Ms. Lee of 
Pennsylvania, Ms. Norton, Mr. Casar, Mrs. Grijalva, Mr. Garcia of 
Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. Garcia of Texas, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Jackson 
of Illinois, Mr. Pocan, Ms. Omar, and Ms. Simon) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, and in addition to the Committees on Financial Services, and 
Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

RESOLUTION

Calling for the annulment of the Monroe Doctrine and the development of 
a ``New Good Neighbor'' policy in order to foster improved relations 
and deeper, more effective cooperation between the United States and 
its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors.

Whereas, over two centuries ago, President James Monroe announced that the 
United States Government would actively oppose any interference by 
European powers in the affairs of independent Latin American and 
Caribbean countries ``for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling 
in any other manner their destiny'';
Whereas, over time, this policy, referred to as the ``Monroe Doctrine'', came to 
be interpreted by many United States policymakers as a mandate for 
United States interference in the sovereign affairs of Latin American 
and Caribbean countries in order to protect and promote perceived 
powerful economic and political interests in the United States, 
irrespective of genuine external tangible threats to countries in the 
region posed by foreign powers;
Whereas, following a period of western expansion of the United States, resulting 
in the massive, forced displacement and genocide of Native peoples who 
originally inhabited much of North America, United States political and 
business leaders took an increasingly active interest in the acquisition 
of raw materials and in investment opportunities in other parts of the 
Western Hemisphere;
Whereas, after annexing the territory of Texas, the United States invaded Mexico 
militarily in 1846 and, after defeating the Mexican Army and occupying 
Mexico City, acquired 55 percent of Mexico's territory through the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848;
Whereas, in 1856, President Franklin Pierce recognized the dictatorial regime in 
Nicaragua established by United States colonialist William Walker, whose 
regime's measures included the legalization of slavery in Nicaragua;
Whereas, in 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico and Cuba during the 
Spanish-American War and continues to maintain control of Puerto Rico, 
as well as a piece of territory in Guantanamo, Cuba, to this day;
Whereas, from 1898 to 1934, the United States conducted military interventions 
in Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican 
Republic, known as the ``Banana Wars'', in order to advance powerful 
corporate American financial interests, that often came at the expense 
of United States support for dictatorships and flagrant human rights 
violations across the region;
Whereas, in 1904, President Teddy Roosevelt established the Roosevelt Corollary 
to the Monroe Doctrine, whereby the United States could intervene to 
ensure the protection of United States interests and those of foreign 
creditors in the region, and declared that the United States could 
exercise ``international police power'' in ``flagrant cases of such 
wrongdoing and impotence'';
Whereas, in 1909, President William Howard Taft sent United States warships to 
Nicaragua as part of an effort to overthrow the Government of Nicaraguan 
President Jose Santos Zelaya, before launching an invasion of the 
country in 1912, setting off a period of sustained United States-led 
intervention, occupation, and repression that would ultimately give rise 
to the brutal, multigenerational Somoza family dictatorship;
Whereas, in 1915, and against the background of the United States Government's 
longstanding hostility toward the precedent set by Haiti's successful 
revolution in 1804, President Woodrow Wilson led a United States 
invasion and occupation of Haiti that would last until 1934;
Whereas the United States invasion, occupation, and continued interference in 
Haiti, combined with the massive economic impact of the payments that 
the country was forced to make to the former colonial power, France, 
under threat of military aggression, until 1947, impeded the country's 
efforts to build robust democratic institutions and enabled the rise of 
the United States-supported dictatorship of Francois Duvalier and his 
son Jean-Claude Duvalier, which brutally ruled the country from 1957 to 
1986;
Whereas, in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the 
establishment of a ``Good Neighbor'' policy toward the region that 
sought to emphasize nonintervention, noninterference, and shared 
prosperity trade in contrast with the previous policy of using military 
force to advance United States interests;
Whereas, in 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act 
which created the Central Intelligence Agency (hereafter in this 
preamble referred to as the ``CIA'') and authorized the agency to begin 
covert action in the region;
Whereas, in 1953, after democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo 
Arbenz instituted proworker policies that threatened the profit margins 
of United States corporation United Fruit Company, President Dwight D. 
Eisenhower authorized the CIA to begin Operation PBSuccess, a 
multimillion-dollar project involving investing in ``psychological 
warfare and political action'' that led to the coup against President 
Arbenz in 1954;
Whereas, in 1961, the United States covertly financed opposition leaders and 
began seeking military leaders to support the eventual 1964 coup against 
Brazilian President Joao Goulart which resulted in a 21-year military 
dictatorship in Brazil;
Whereas the Organization of American States (hereafter in this preamble referred 
to as the ``OAS''), headquartered in the District of Columbia, and 
funded in large part by the United States Government, remained largely 
silent and inactive with regard to the many egregious abuses perpetrated 
by United States-backed military rightwing dictatorships during the 
decades of the Cold War;
Whereas, in 1962, the United States imposed a full embargo on Cuba, still in 
place today, which has led to tens of billions of dollars in capital 
losses for the island country, and has contributed significantly to the 
immiseration of the Cuban people;
Whereas, following the election of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1970, 
United States President Richard Nixon directed the CIA to spread 
propaganda aimed at preventing Allende from taking power, and later, 
actively worked with and supported Chilean military leaders that carried 
out the 1973 coup of President Allende resulting in a 15-year-long 
military dictatorship in which at least 40,000 people were tortured and 
more than 3,000 killed;
Whereas, from 1975 to 1980, the United States actively supported Operation 
Condor, a coordinated campaign of political repression and state 
terrorism that saw the United States work closely with military 
governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, 
Peru, and Uruguay to help kidnap, torture, and kill people who had left 
their home countries in exile;
Whereas, following a regional debt crisis sparked in part by historic Federal 
Reserve interest rate hikes, the International Monetary Fund (hereafter 
in this preamble referred to as the ``IMF'') vastly expanded its lending 
portfolio in Latin America;
Whereas the IMF, whose largest shareholder is the United States, promoted 
austerity, deregulation, and other structural reforms that resulted in 
stagnant economic growth in much of Latin America in the 1980s and 
1990s, following two decades of strong economic growth;
Whereas, in 1983, under the false pretense that the safety of 600 United States 
medical students in Grenada was under threat, President Ronald Reagan 
authorized the military invasion of the island country, a move condemned 
as a ``flagrant violation of international law'' by the United Nations 
General Assembly;
Whereas, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration--

(1) supported security forces in Guatemala that perpetrated a genocide 
against Mayan Indigenous peoples, according to the Commission of Historical 
Clarification;

(2) supported death squads in El Salvador;

(3) supported rightwing paramilitary militias (Contras) in Nicaragua; 
and

(4) participated in efforts to coverup egregious crimes perpetrated by 
Central American security forces, such as the massacre of 6 Jesuit priests 
and 2 other unarmed civilians by an elite United States-backed battalion in 
El Salvador;

Whereas the United States-backed ``dirty wars'' of Central America triggered a 
major wave of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to 
the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s;
Whereas, in 1989, President George H.W. Bush launched ``Operation Just Cause'', 
a unilateral United States invasion of Panama conducted in violation of 
international law, leading to mass civilian casualties, including in the 
bombing of low-income, civilian population centers such as El Chorillo, 
where casualties are credibly estimated to have been in the hundreds;
Whereas the CIA covertly financed units of the Haitian military, whose officers 
led a violent coup d'etat in 1991 that overthrew the country's first 
democratically elected President, and then continued to support 
individuals involved in death squads that targeted supporters of the 
ousted President;
Whereas, beginning in 2000, the Bush administration blocked development and 
humanitarian assistance to the Haitian Government and provided financial 
support to opposition groups culminating in another coup against the 
elected President in 2004;
Whereas, starting in 2000, the United States provided billions of dollars of 
funding to Plan Colombia, a joint counter narcotics and counter 
insurgency initiative which resulted in thousands of civilian 
casualties, massive human rights abuses perpetrated by military and 
paramilitary forces, and the forced displacement of millions of mostly 
Afro-Colombian and Indigenous civilians, while failing to reduce the 
production and trafficking of cocaine;
Whereas the United States-backed drug war, along with economic displacement 
attributable in part to United States-sponsored free trade agreements, 
resulted in another major wave of migration from Central America and 
Mexico during the first two decades of the 2000s;
Whereas, from 1941 to 2003, United States Navy operations in Vieques, Puerto 
Rico, caused the death of civilians and high rates of lethal illnesses 
to the population;
Whereas, in 2002, the United States Government provided funding and other 
support to political actors that carried out a short-lived coup against 
the democratically elected Government of Venezuela, and subsequently 
expressed support for the coup;
Whereas, following the 2009 coup in Honduras, the United States continued to 
support the country's illegitimate government by providing, between 2009 
and 2016, an estimated $200,000,000 in military and police aid to 
Honduran security forces engaged in violent extrajudicial killings and 
other human rights crimes targeting protesters, activists, land rights 
advocates, and other civilians opposed to the regime;
Whereas, in a 2013 address to the OAS, Secretary of State John Kerry declared 
that the ``Monroe Doctrine era is over . . . The relationship that we 
seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States 
declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other 
American states. It's about all of our countries viewing one another as 
equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and 
adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners 
to advance the values and the interests that we share.'';
Whereas, in 2014, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announce the thawing 
of and eventual normalization of relations between the United States and 
Cuba;
Whereas, beginning in 2015, the Department of Justice played an active role in 
Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato, a sprawling anticorruption probe which 
was used to advance a partisan political agenda in Brazil, resulting in 
the politically motivated conviction and imprisonment, and barring from 
the 2018 Presidential election, of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva;
Whereas credible media reporting has exposed the extensive involvement of 
Department of Justice officials in Lava Jato, including actively 
advising Brazilian prosecutors outside of proper channels and acting in 
violation of Brazilian law and bilateral treaty procedures;
Whereas, in 2017, President Donald Trump threatened to invade Venezuela 
militarily and imposed broad unilateral sanctions against the country 
that have significantly harmed the country's civilian population;
Whereas, in 2019, United States National Security Advisor John Bolton announced, 
``Today we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is 
alive and well.'';
Whereas the migration of Cubans and Venezuelans to the United States has 
increased dramatically in the years following the imposition (and 
reimposition) of broad economic sanctions against these countries;
Whereas, in late 2019, a military coup was staged against the elected Government 
of Bolivia following unfounded claims of electoral fraud made by an OAS 
Electoral Observation Mission, while the subsequent coup government 
received support from the Trump administration and OAS Secretary General 
Luis Almagro;
Whereas President Trump reversed the Obama administration's policy of 
normalization with Cuba, imposed new sanctions, and, as one of his last 
acts in office, put Cuba back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list 
without justification;
Whereas the international community has resoundingly condemned the United States 
embargo on Cuba, most recently during the 2025 United Nations General 
Assembly, with the resolution condemning the embargo passing by 165 
votes in favor, with only 7 against;
Whereas, in 2025, the Trump administration began sanctioning foreign officials 
involved with Cuba's international medical missions, which for decades 
have been deployed around Latin America, Africa, and Europe and have 
been lauded by the World Health Organization and governments around the 
world for providing crucial health care services to underserved 
communities;
Whereas the United States Government has failed to apologize for its past 
support for military coups in the region;
Whereas Investor State Dispute Settlement (hereafter in this preamble referred 
to as the ``ISDS'') provisions found in United States-backed free trade 
agreements allow multinational corporations to sue governments before 
panels of corporate lawyers based on claims that regulatory frameworks, 
including those designed to protect workers and the environment, will 
lead to future losses, and thus far Latin American and Caribbean 
countries have been sued a total of 346 times under ISDS provisions, 
more than any other region of the world;
Whereas a United States-based company has filed an ISDS claim against the State 
of Honduras for nearly $11,000,000,000 in alleged future losses, more 
than a third of the country's yearly economic output, as a result of the 
Honduran Government's announcement that the company can no longer 
continue to operate as a Zona de Empleo y Desarrollo Economico, a 
territorial area largely governed and controlled by private investors 
that has been declared unconstitutional by the country's Supreme Court 
and developed under former President Juan Orlando Hernandez;
Whereas President Trump interfered in Honduras' 2025 election, threatening to 
cut off United States economic support to the country if voters did not 
elect National Party candidate Nasry Asfura, and then issued a full 
pardon of former Honduran president and National Party politician Juan 
Orlando Hernandez who had been convicted in a United States Federal 
court and sentenced to 45 years in prison for charges related to 
narcotics trafficking and weapons;
Whereas the second Trump administration has pursued an aggressive policy of 
individual sanctions targeting officials of countries across the region 
that benefit from Cuban medical missions, which have made a well-
documented positive impact on health care systems facing challenges in 
the region, across the Global South, and around the world;
Whereas President Trump has made multiple threats against Panama regarding 
control of the Panama Canal, including pledging to ``take back'' the 
Panama Canal, in violation of the Torrijos-Carter treaties;
Whereas President Trump signed a January 20, 2025, Executive order designating 
drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and has, according to 
credible media reporting, directed the Pentagon to target cartels 
through military action, in potential violation of the sovereignty of 
Mexico and other countries;
Whereas the Trump administration has enacted a policy of overt interference in 
the judiciary and democratic institutions of Brazil in retaliation 
against the Brazilian Supreme Court's trial of former Brazilian 
President Jair Bolsonaro on multiple charges, including attempting to 
foment a military-backed coup in order to stay in office after losing 
Brazil's 2022 Presidential election;
Whereas the Trump administration has misused authorities under the International 
Emergency Economic Powers Act (Public Law 95-223), section 301 of the 
Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2411), and the Global Magnitsky Human 
Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 10101 et seq.) in a politically 
motivated effort to exert improper influence on judicial proceedings 
held in accordance with Brazilian law and constitutional norms;
Whereas the Trump administration's policy toward Brazil risks producing 
incalculable damage to the alliance between the United States and 
Brazil, the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere;
Whereas the Trump administration has conducted a similar policy of overt 
interference with regard to Colombia's judiciary in an effort to support 
a political ally facing charges of witness tampering and fraud, 
demonstrating an alarming pattern;
Whereas President Trump has established a partnership with the President of El 
Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to wrongfully deport hundreds of people from the 
United States without due process to face notoriously dangerous prison 
conditions in El Salvador;
Whereas these individuals have been, in effect, forcibly disappeared, in a 
manner reminiscent of what has taken place under dictatorships across 
the region, often by regimes supported by the United States Government;
Whereas, in his second term, President Trump has ordered a series of 
unauthorized military strikes in international waters targeting 
Venezuelan nationals and other individuals allegedly involved in 
narcotics trafficking, strikes that have led to over 100 casualties and 
that were conducted in violation of the United States Constitution, 
United States law, and international law, and which risk stoking a wider 
military conflict with Venezuela and other countries;
Whereas, on January 3, 2026, the Trump administration, citing the Monroe 
Doctrine, launched an unauthorized military attack against Venezuela in 
violation of the United States Constitution and international law, 
killing dozens and abducting the President and first lady of the 
country;
Whereas President Trump publicly admitted that these actions were taken with the 
intent of the United States ``running'' Venezuela and taking control of 
its oil reserves;
Whereas President Maduro is being held in a New York prison and awaiting trial 
on counts of ``narco-terrorism'';
Whereas, on January 5, 2026, following the abduction of Maduro and his detention 
by United States judicial authorities, the Department of Justice dropped 
its claim that the Cartel de los Soles is a distinct hierarchical 
organization headed by Nicolas Maduro, although that claim had served to 
justify targeting him and his government;
Whereas, since the beginning of his second term, President Trump has made 
multiple statements referring to potential United States military action 
and annexation, in violation of international law, targeting Cuba, 
Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Canada, and other sovereign countries 
throughout the Americas; and
Whereas the Trump administration's 2025 National Security Strategy establishes a 
``Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine'' that prioritizes ``American 
preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, . . . access to key geographies 
throughout the region'' and the use of United States ``military 
presence'' in the hemisphere for ``establishing or expanding access in 
strategically important locations'': Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives 
that--
(1) in order to send a strong signal to the region that the 
United States Government wishes to turn the page on a long era 
of political and military interference in the region, the 
Department of State should formally confirm that the Monroe 
Doctrine is no longer a part of United States policy toward 
Latin American and the Caribbean;
(2) in place of the Monroe Doctrine, the Federal Government 
should develop a ``New Good Neighbor'' policy, designed to 
foster improved relations and deepen more effective cooperation 
with all the countries of the Western Hemisphere, with measures 
that include--
(A) developing, jointly with the Department of the 
Treasury, the United States Trade Representative, the 
Department of State, and the United States Agency for 
International Development, a new approach to promoting 
development based on a respect for the integrity of 
sovereign economic development plans of the region's 
governments, support for equitable and sustainable 
economic transitions through technology transfers and 
new forms of climate and development financing that 
prioritize grantmaking and concessional lending;
(B) terminating all unilateral economic sanctions 
imposed through Executive orders, and working with 
Congress to terminate all unilateral sanctions, such as 
the Cuba embargo, mandated by law;
(C) working with Congress to amend the 
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Public Law 
95-223) and the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 
1601 et seq.) to ensure robust congressional oversight 
over the imposition of unilateral sanctions through 
Executive orders, as per the original intent of the 
authors of those pieces of legislation;
(D) working with Congress to develop legislation 
that triggers an automatic review of bilateral 
assistance to a government whenever there is an 
extraconstitutional transfer of power, until the United 
States and a majority of regional governments determine 
that the new leadership is legitimate under that 
country's constitution;
(E) establishing a policy of respect and 
recognition of decisions made by sovereign countries 
across the region with regard to matters such as 
membership in international organizations and 
institutions, support for specific regional groupings 
and intergovernmental organizations, and decisions 
regarding diplomatic recognition;
(F) proceeding with the prompt declassification of 
all United States Government archives that relate to 
past coups d'etat, dictatorships, and periods in the 
history of Latin American and Caribbean countries that 
are characterized by a high rate of human rights crimes 
perpetrated by security forces and paramilitary 
organizations that received United States support;
(G) working with Latin American and Caribbean 
governments on a far-reaching reform of the 
Organization of American States to--
(i) ensure accountability surrounding any 
potentially unethical or criminal activities in 
which the Secretary General or other senior 
officials have been involved;
(ii) ensure full transparency surrounding 
the financial and personnel decisions taken by 
the Secretary General;
(iii) establish an ombudsman's office that 
is fully independent from the Secretary 
General;
(iv) ensure that the electoral observation 
division of the Department of Electoral 
Cooperation and Observation of the Organization 
of American States is independent from the 
Office of the Secretary General and is 
appointed by a majority of Organization of 
American States members; and
(v) ensure that the Inter-American 
Commission on Human Rights and its rapporteurs 
are financially independent from the Secretary 
General's Office;
(H) working with Congress to secure major, 
recurrent contributions to the Amazon Fund;
(I) supporting democratic reforms to the 
International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Inter-American 
Development Bank, and other international financial 
institutions to ensure that the developing countries of 
the region are able to play an equitable role in 
shaping the lending and grantmaking policies of those 
institutions;
(J) supporting regular issuances of International 
Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights to help avert 
balance of payments difficulties and to promote greater 
fiscal space for regional governments, thereby allowing 
them to expand investments in health care, education, 
economic development, and in climate adaptation and 
mitigation programs;
(K) advocating for the International Monetary Fund 
and other relevant institutions to undertake a shift 
away from fiscal consolidation, loan conditionality, 
and other regressive policies, and instead embrace an 
agenda focused on--
(i) robust and sustained economic growth;
(ii) expanded access to health care and 
education to all;
(iii) achieving universal social 
protection;
(iv) supporting progressive tax reforms 
that benefit low-income communities, workers, 
women, and historically marginalized 
communities; and
(v) actively supporting the advancement of 
workers' rights, decent work, and 
sustainability; and
(L) supporting the creation of a Loss and Damage 
Trust, under the auspices of the United Nations, to 
support climate action in developing countries, and 
working with Congress to secure major, recurrent 
contributions to this fund;
(3) the United States should work with regional bodies, 
such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, 
the Caribbean Community, the Union of South American Nations, 
the Southern Common Market, and other regional groups, to 
increase cooperation around the major challenges of the present 
time, including the response to climate change, inequality, 
arms trafficking, tax evasion, illicit financial flows 
(particularly those derived from drug trafficking), the 
protection of workers' rights, and promoting the rights of 
Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendent communities; and
(4) the United States should, in every instance, respect 
international law and the sovereignty and territorial integrity 
of countries in the Western Hemisphere and throughout the 
world, and should respect international human rights law, which 
prohibits extrajudicial killings, including in international 
waters.
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