Roosevelt Corollary

American  

noun

U.S. History.

1. a corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that the U.S. might intervene in the affairs of an American republic threatened with seizure or intervention by a European country.

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Usage

What was the Roosevelt Corollary? The Roosevelt Corollary was a United States foreign policy established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. It stated that the U. S. would intervene in Latin American countries where European powers sought to collect debts or whose governments were thought to be unstable. A corollary, in the general sense, is a natural consequence or result. In this context, it indicates that the Roosevelt Corollary was an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, a U. S. policy established in 1823 stating that the United States opposed any European interference in the Western Hemisphere. The Roosevelt Corollary was conceived as a means to protect U. S. interests and preserve stability in Latin America by preventing European countries from interfering there. However, it came to be used as a justification for the U. S. to intervene in Latin American internal affairs and expand its influence in the region.

Etymology

Origin of Roosevelt Corollary

After Theodore Roosevelt

Example Sentences

This, as Mr. Ferguson notes, echoes Theodore Roosevelt’s so-called Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, first set forth in 1904.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 8, 2025

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, that Roosevelt Corollary would be used to justify U.S. occupations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua.

From Salon • Jan. 28, 2021

The so-called Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 adds that if other nations in the Western Hemisphere default...

From The Wall Street Journal • Aug. 6, 2018

The Roosevelt Corollary was based on the original Monroe Doctrine of the early nineteenth century, which warned European nations of the consequences of their interference in the Caribbean.

From Textbooks • Dec. 30, 2014

But so, too, as the Latin American states discovered to their dismay, was the Roosevelt Corollary to that doctrine, which the President proclaimed in 1904.

From Time Magazine Archive