Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum. Photo: Collected

MEXICO CITY, Jan 5, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - The Americas "do not belong" to any power, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday after US counterpart Donald Trump invoked Washington's "dominance" of the hemisphere after seizing Venezuela's leader in a military raid.

Trump described the weekend US military operation against leftist Nicolas Maduro as an update of the Monroe Doctrine: the 1823 declaration by fifth US president James Monroe that Latin America was closed to other powers, which at the time meant Europe.

Sheinbaum hit back Monday, saying: "The Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power. The American continent belongs to the peoples of each of the countries that comprise it."