Castro forthwith imposed on them enormous fines which amounted practically to a confiscation of their rights.
While the United States and Great Britain were expostulating over this behavior of the despot, France broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela because of Castro's refusal either to pay or to submit to arbitration certain claims which had originated in previous revolutions.
Germany, aggrieved in similar fashion, contemplated a seizure of the customs until its demands for redress were satisfied.

And then came Italy with like causes of complaint.

As if these complications were not sufficient, Venezuela came to blows with Colombia.
As the foreign pressure on Castro steadily increased, Luis Maria Drago, the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, formulated in 1902 the doctrine with which his name has been associated.

It stated in substance that force should never be employed between nations for the collection of contractual debts.

Encouraged by this apparent token of support from a sister republic, Castro defied his array of foreign adversaries more vigorously than ever, declaring that he might find it needful to invade the United States, by way of New Orleans, to teach it the lesson it deserved! But when he attempted, in the following year, to close the ports of Venezuela as a means of bringing his native antagonists to terms, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy seized his warships, blockaded the coast, and bombarded some of his forts.