NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

And I'm Darium Woods. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social this week,

what looked like a Photoshoposhopped Wikipedia page.

This described him as the acting president of Venezuela.

This was maybe an unsurprising post from a president who not just loves being online, but is

also throwing American muscle around. The administration's actions are a deliberate callback to a

foreign policy from 200 years ago. It's called the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is about

which world powers get to exert influence in the Western Hemisphere. Different presidents have put

their own spin on it, and now it's Trump's turn.

It's being called the Don Row Doctrine.

Today on the show, we look at how the Trump administration is putting the Don Roe

doctrine into practice, especially when it comes to the president's desire for oil.

You know, when you add the word doctrine to anything, it sounds very serious and official.

Oh, for sure. A doctrine is like an official statement of the policy or principles. The origins of

the Monroe Doctrine, though, were actually kind of casual. That's according to historian Jay Sexton.

He's a professor at the University of Missouri, and he wrote a whole book on this.

The original Monroe Doctrine is not law. It's not statute. It's not international law.

It's just like what one president wrote in a message to Congress. So the year's 1823, we've got

the fifth president, James Monroe. He's delivering an annual message to Congress.

And at one point, he mentions the United States European rivals.

Yeah, these would have been countries like Britain and France.

Monroe said any efforts by those countries to exert influence in the Western Hemisphere

...