For most of its existence, the United States’s foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere has adhered to the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823, President James Monroe presented three principles that would define the way America interacted with its neighbors to the south. First, the U.S. would not oppose preexisting European colonies in the Americas, but the rest of the hemisphere was not open for colonization. Second, any actions by foreign powers to create any colonies in the Western Hemisphere would be considered hostile toward the U.S. Third, the U.S. would refrain from interfering in European affairs.

Essentially, the policy was, “Leave our half of the world alone, and we’ll leave yours.”

America’s dedication to this policy was tested soon after the turn of the century. Venezuela’s ports were blockaded by European forces in 1902 when the nation failed to repay its European creditors. To ensure this aggression did not lead to further European involvement in the region, and to safeguard America’s dominance in the hemisphere, President Theodore Roosevelt magnified the Monroe Doctrine through his Roosevelt Corollary. This extension to the long-time American policy not only discouraged foreign involvement in the Western Hemisphere, but also provided rationale for the U.S. to use force to protect its interests in the region. In 1904, President Roosevelt stated, “[I]n the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”

Over the next 100 years, the U.S. continued to oppose foreign involvement in the Western Hemisphere. However, a radical change occurred during the Obama administration. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” Two years later, just before the seventh Summit of the Americas, held in Panama City, Panama, President Barack Obama told Latin American leaders that “the days in which our agenda in this hemisphere presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past.”

The days of the Monroe Doctrine are over. But what exactly was the president referring to when he accused his own country of meddling? One such instance of “meddling” was when the U.S., under President Ronald Reagan, invaded the small Caribbean nation of Grenada in 1983. The invasion ousted the corrupt Communist regime that grabbed power through a coup in 1979, and it reinstated the previous democratic government. The Communist government that was toppled had been supported by Communist Cuba and the Soviet Union—two nations actively working against the U.S.

To this day, Grenadians still celebrate the day of the invasion as their Thanksgiving Day. They are grateful to America for “meddling” and ousting communism in their country!

But with Mr. Obama’s announcement that the U.S., essentially, would no longer take an active role in protecting its interests in Latin America, foreign powers were invited into America’s backyard.

Due to America’s geography—a large ocean on each side and a friendly country to the north—the nation has been nearly impervious to foreign attack. The one region throughout America’s history that distant hostile powers have attempted to use as a means to attack the U.S. is Latin America. Germany tried to use Mexico during World War ii, and Russia used Cuba during the Cold War. Logically, the best way to keep America safe from attacks is to keep foreign powers and their influence out of Latin and South America. That is why the Monroe Doctrine was so important.

President Donald Trump has taken a much more conservative approach to America’s hemispheric foreign policy. He has vowed to tackle the immigration problems that the nation faces at its southern border, and he has taken many steps to achieve that goal, but he has not addressed an issue that poses a much greater threat! While illegal immigration is definitely an issue that must be curtailed—especially due to the dangerous criminals and potential terrorists that could easily cross our southern border—this is not the only problem that America faces in the hemisphere. A much deeper, much more sinister threat lies south of the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico.

And it is the same type of threat that the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary were originally designed to stymie.

The Monroe Doctrine was adopted during a time when European monarchies wished to establish and maintain colonies in South America. Fast-forward to today, and we no longer have imperial powers establishing literal colonies in Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and elsewhere, but that does not mean that Latin America is free from anti-American, European influence. Far from it. Latin America is tied to Europe in more ways than one.

First, South America and Europe are connected by their religion. As we point out in our free booklet He Was Right, “The headquarters of the Catholic Church is in Europe. Yet it is not Europe but Latin America—incorporating Mexico, the Central American isthmus and the continent of South America—that constitutes the most catholicized landmass in the world. The region’s largest country, Brazil, has more Roman Catholics than any nation on the planet, and Mexico is a close second. No continent is more aligned with the Vatican than Latin America.”

Due to its colonial history, most of Latin America also shares a common language: Spanish. Brazilians speak mainly Portuguese, which is a similar language. Spain, especially during the age of colonialism, was one of the most staunchly Catholic nations in Europe. It cannot be overstated how this solidarity of language and religion helps to unify South America with Europe and the Vatican.

Additionally, in recent times, the Catholic Church has sought to draw Latin America even closer. The late Pope John Paul ii made his first overseas trip to Latin America, and Pope Emeritus Benedict xvi made his to Brazil, in an effort to restore traditional Catholic policies to a continent whose religious leaders had become liberal. Now, with Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has its first-ever pope who hails directly from South America, specifically Argentina.

Economics is another factor that ties South America to Europe. Since before World War i, Germany in particular has sought strong trade relations in South America. We state in He Was Right:

In the decades since then, the Vatican has helped many German and other European corporations tap into Latin America’s most lucrative industrial and agricultural markets. German corporate giants such as ThyssenKrupp, Siemens, Bayer, Volkswagen, I. G. Farben and Deutsche Bank are now household names south of the Rio Grande, across Panama, in the Andean nations, and clear down to southern Argentina and Chile.

Since Germany’s unification in 1990, and Berlin’s subsequent climb to the ruling seat of the European Union, all levels of EU trade and investment in the Latin region have dramatically increased.

Even now, Europe and South America are working to strengthen their economic ties. Since the late 1990s, the European Union has been trying to negotiate a free trade deal with mercosur—the fourth-largest trading bloc in the world, which consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Once concluded, this deal would cover a market of almost 800 million people between the two continents.

President Trump has pushed away many former trade partners in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe is looking to take advantage. Yes, Europe is once again moving into the Western Hemisphere, but instead of asserting its dominance through military might and colonization, it is taking control economically. Late educator Herbert W. Armstrong predicted this decades in advance!

Mr. Armstrong founded the Plain Truth magazine. Its May 1962 issue stated, “[T]he United States is going to be left out in the cold as two gigantic trade blocs, Europe and Latin America, mesh together and begin calling the shots in world commerce.”

It is easy to see how important Latin America would be in a trade war against the United States. In his Trumpet article “Latin America: Front Line of Trade War,” Richard Palmer wrote:

Dominance of the Caribbean basin is integral to America’s safety and essential to its ability to project power globally. If a rival power were able to establish a significant presence in the Caribbean, it could threaten the American heartland. The Caribbean is also key to United States’ trade. The majority of all U.S. waterborne foreign trade travels to or from U.S. ports on the Gulf of Mexico. When you include goods traveling through the region from other ports, no other part of the world is more essential to America’s trade.

This is why America’s abandonment of the principles in the Monroe Doctrine will be so detrimental to its future! As the U.S. allows foreign powers to create economic “colonies” out of the weaker South American and Caribbean states, its own interests in the region are severely undermined. Couple this with what the Trumpet has been proclaiming for years, and you begin to see the full picture.

Isaiah 23 prophesies of a coming trade war against the United States, and in this conflict, Europe and Asia will temporarily ally against America. In the Trumpet article “The Great ‘Mart of Nations,’” we explain how this prophecy will play out:

Isaiah’s prophecy is marching toward fulfillment. It links with parallel prophecies in Ezekiel and Revelation to clearly depict the interdependent relationship developing between Germany and China. And it reveals the startling outcome.

Chapters 22 and 23 of Isaiah identify these two great markets in a few different ways. In Isaiah 23:1, China is called by its ancient name, Chittim. The same verse calls the German-dominated European Union by the term used to describe a major economic power extant at the time the prophecy was written: ancient Tyre.

In this prophecy, the great northern trading power of today (of which Tyre is used as a type) is shown in relationship to China, the sea (verses 2, 4, 11), oceans (“great waters,” verse 3) and ships (verses 1 and 14) and mentioned in relation to seaborne merchant traffic (verse 8)—all within the context of a great international market.

Isaiah 23:13 mentions “the Chaldeans” and “the Assyrian.” Prophetically, these terms refer to a great end-time European power, a union of church and state, led by Germany, whose biblical identity is Assyria, or Asshur.

An associated prophecy in Ezekiel 27:1-6 again uses maritime terms in association with merchants enacting trade via the sea between Tyrus (called “the king of the north” in Daniel 11) and the Ashurites (Germany) in association with Chittim (China). The theme continues in relation to the main subject, Tyrus, a type of the prophesied king of the north, in verses 8-9, 12 and 22-25.

Nations mentioned in verse 21 are in the context of trade with Tyrus. Still others, especially Greece (Javan), now a virtual vassal state of the German-led EU, and Russia (Meshech and Tubal), hugely exposed to EU debt and greatly dependent on German exports, are also mentioned in verses 13 and 15. Japan and Southeast Asia (Togarmah) are also brought into the equation in verse 14.

This all bespeaks a massive trading power having open access to sea-gates for global trade and a powerful linkage with China at the prophesied “latter days” (Daniel 10:14).

Taken in context, the prophecies of Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 27 align perfectly with those of Revelation 13:16-17 and Revelation 18. These all point specifically to the current interdependence of the world’s two major trading blocs: the German-dominated EU and China.

Look at how this prophecy is being fulfilled today. The facts are astonishing. From 2005 to 2015, total EU exports to China climbed from $59 billion up to $193 billion. During the same period, EU imports from China more than doubled, soaring from $182 billion to $395 billion. And Germany accounted for 45 percent of Europe’s exports to China and 28 percent of EU imports from China. In 2014, China opened its first European chamber of commerce in Berlin, in hopes of further promoting economic relations and investment in Europe. In 2015, Germany’s trade with China totaled $177 billion. If current trends persist, China will become the biggest single destination for German exports by 2020.

That is some incredible detail wrapped up in the Scriptures!

Deuteronomy 28 lists some of the curses bound to come upon America for its disobedience to God’s laws. As part of these curses, it says, “The Lord shall bring a nation [Germany] against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old nor shew favor to the young …. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates until thy high and fenced wall come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates …” (verses 49-50, 52).

As Latin America increases its trade with—and its economic dependence on—Europe, it will be a vitally important player in Europe and Asia’s economic attack on America. It will “besiege” America in its “gates.” Latin America is geographically placed in perfect position to disrupt the United States’ most important sea-gate—the Gulf of Mexico!

This is an urgent trend that must not go unnoticed. It is leading toward America’s economic collapse.

Watch for this trend to continue as Europe and Latin America strengthen their relationship.