The United States in Venezuela and Beyond

About a month ago, I was worried about an awful lot of saber-rattling that was going on in the Trump administration. That rattling became a reality with the invasion of Venezuela and more threats issued against other countries, first against Colombia, then Mexico, Cuba, and the dreamiest of all dreamworlds, the annexation of Greenland, which is still under the protective flag of Denmark.

Panama was the subject of some saber-rattling as well, so the threat against them appears to not be as serious. However (somewhat presciently), I said the following:

Panama has momentarily escaped Trump’s threats, primarily by promising to rethink the contract it has with CK Hutchison to run the canal. The president is worried that the Hong Kong-based company (and its subsidiary, Panama Ports Company) is giving too much power to China in a region where “rightfully” the US must dominate, as set forth in documents like the Monroe Doctrine and backed up by Teddy Roosevelt’s “Big stick” diplomacy. For the time being, Panama is working on a back-up plan in case a new contract with CK Hutchison falls through. Trump is still looming in the background, but things are stable, at least for the time being.

Nicolás Maduro has likely worn out his welcome as president of Venezuela. The US and some other states recognized Juan Guaidó as president, that failed, then Edmundo González probably won the most recent presidential election but Maduro was sworn in as president this year anyway. Lacking access to opinion polls, it seems that few people actually like Maduro because the continuation of policies introduced by Hugo Chávez has been carried out without much forethought, plunging Venezuela’s economy into a tailspin.

That said, if the US continues to threaten Venezuela, that is likely to bring people in the country together against Trump, more than it unites people against Maduro, as disliked as he may be. Decades ago, scholars like Benedict Anderson and Tom Nairn argued that nationality, nationalism, and one’s sense of belonging to a nation run much deeper in identity than anyone could imagine. It’s more important to defend Venezuela than it is to get rid of a president whose time has come and gone.

Yeah, all of that. You see, it’s not the Monroe Doctrine anymore, but the Donroe Doctrine, according to the president.

Columbia seems to be in the sights of the Trump administration, again under the auspices of dealing with the drug trade in Columbia even though the cartelization of cocaine trafficking was a much bigger deal back in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the current anti-drug obsession was supposed to be about illicit synthetic opioids coming into the United States (with fentanyl topping the list) and the flood of methamphetamines similarly getting cooked in other countries, then being sold in the US. None of that seems to matter anymore because the US is supposedly awash in coke right now. Time is of the essence, or so the government wants to argue.

There is also the precarious situation that Greenland finds itself at the moment. Vice President JD Vance and his spouse Usha visited Greenland not long ago, then White House “advisor” and blogger Katie Miller posted a map of Greenland in stars and stripes with the one word comment, “SOON.” Perhaps it was a joke of some kind, but the prime minister of Denmark warned that a military takeover of the island by an ally would signal the end of the NATO alliance. That’s a fairly big deal, and Vladimir Putin must certainly must be holding his thumb (in Eastern Europe, it’s like crossing one’s fingers) for that to happen.

Does the Trump administration recognize the dangers of saying that Greenland is “needed” by the US? Seems as though they are blind to that possibility, as they are to grabbing Venezuela and then claiming that the US will control the crude oil flowing out of that country. What happened to stopping the so-called “narco-terrorism” of the Maduro government? Oh, now it’s about oil.

Of course, the drug thing might all be just a cover story anyway. That was revealed when the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, got pardoned by Trump, even though a trial found him guilty of helping to traffic 400 tons (metric tons—1000 kg each) of coke to the US, and his sentence was to serve 45 years in prison. But he said some nice things about Trump, so ignore what he was actually convicted of, right?

People of Venezuela were not big fans of Maduro. Gustavo Petro is probably on firmer ground with his constituents in Colombia. Forced to defend their country or not, people will resist American aggression. If the US wants to build better relations with other countries and their leaders other than Vladimir Putin, this is not the way to do it. The Monroe Doctrine affirmed US imperialistic ambitions in the 1820s. The Donroe Doctrine reinforces a more menacing foreign policy posture in 2026.

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