President Trump’s bold decision to arrest Nicolás Maduro from his Caracas compound and take him to New York court On drug and weapons charges>> To be prosecuted on drugs and weapons charges The beginning of a new geopolitical strategy: America and America alone will dominate the Western Hemisphere.
For the Trump administration, this is Washington’s core interest, a vision recently laid out in its national-security strategy. In the wake of Maduro’s arrest, Trump has warned Colombia’s leftist president that he could be next, said the Cuban regime will soon fall on its own, and again raised the idea that the U.S. must capture greenland,
“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never again be questioned,” Trump told reporters on Monday. A few hours later, the State Department, using its X account, posted a photo of Trump with the caption: “This is our hemisphere,” echoing Trump’s sharp statements In an unusually blunt tone for the country’s diplomatic agency.
Call it a return to the “Big Stick” school of hemispheric relations, a return to US President Theodore Roosevelt.
This policy is prompting some Latin American governments to toe the US line. But this could result in opposition from Latin Americans who do not want to see a return to US interference in the region. It could also anger longtime American allies. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said any US action on Greenland would mark the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization security alliance, a comment quickly supported by the UK government.
In 1904, frustrated by increasing instability in Latin America, Roosevelt said he would revise the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which set out to assert American superiority over the hemisphere and protect it from European interference. Roosevelt went a step further: the US also reserved the right to intervene in the internal affairs of the region to ensure that countries behaved responsibly and remained aligned with US interests – “an international police power”.
This policy led to years of occupation of Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, which introduced American customs such as baseball, but also spread a wave of anti-American sentiment in many Latin American countries, which opposed the intervention. It was replaced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy in the early 1930s, but its influence remained.
Trump’s policy has since been dubbed by his allies “The Donroe Principle.” The targets are not Europeans, but any non-hemispheric actors, especially China and Russia. It also adopts Roosevelt’s arguments about America’s right to defend its interests.
As if to underline the point, military action was taken against Maduro a few hours after a Chinese delegation They were met at the Miraflores Presidential Palace under the leadership of Qiu Xiaoqi, the country’s special representative on Latin American affairs.
“China is deeply shocked and strongly condemns the US’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said in an unusually strong tone.
The new US policy marks a dramatic shift after decades of largely benign neglect of its own hemisphere – the main focus was the drug war and economic cooperation – while Washington’s diplomatic and military power was concentrated in faraway places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. During that time, China built a larger presence in the region, becoming a top trading partner for countries like Brazil and a strategic ally for Venezuela – it helped finance the regime by buying its oil as Russia sold Caracas arms.
Under Trump’s second term, Latin America has suddenly shifted from strategic backwater to center stage.
The shift toward the Western Hemisphere has led to increased demand for Latin American expertise in Washington, from lobbying firms to intelligence agencies that had focused on the Middle East over the past two decades. U.S. Southern Command, long a neglected division of the U.S. Armed Forces based in Miami, has suddenly found itself on the front lines with more resources and an expanded mission.
Steve Bannon, an influential Trump ally and former White House adviser, said, “If you’re going to secure the hemisphere, you’ve got to secure Latin America.”
Trump has also filled his administration’s top positions with Latin American expertise, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, who has been the chief architect of his approach to the region.
In some cases, Trump has directly intervened in elections in the region in an effort to prop up politicians he views as ideological allies. He Former President of Honduras pardoned According to people involved in the effort, Juan Orlando Hernández sought to boost his conservative party and undermine the country’s leftist president ahead of last year’s presidential election. In Argentina, Trump apparently announced a massive bailout thanks to the victory of Argentine President Javier Mili in the midterm elections: “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”
He also began his second term by repeatedly suggesting that he wanted to admit Canada as the 51st state of the United States.
Ryan Berg, director of the Americas at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said the “America First” strategy makes strategic sense for Washington as the United States and China gear up for a long-term confrontation.
“Both countries are looking at a more contiguous neighborhood, seeking out their own alliances, and being more aggressive than we are accustomed to,” he said.
Trump officials have resorted to a post-9/11 strategy, recasting U.S. dominance in Latin America as the country’s top national security concern. He has designated nearly a dozen Latin American drug cartels and criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations, opening the door to new counterterrorism authorities. Branding Latin American drug smugglers ,Al Qaeda in the Western Hemisphere,” U.S. officials have rallied domestic support for this more robust foreign policy.
For countries in the region, the new policy will trigger a struggle to adjust. Pro-US and Trump supporters, leaders like Argentina’s Miley and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele have performed well. The region’s two dictators – Cuba’s Miguel Diaz-Canel and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega – will face increasing pressure from Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
In the first few months of his second term, Trump focused on Venezuela and Colombia, which he saw as sources of immigrants and drugs into the US.
After the move against Maduro, Trump has said that the Petro government could be next because Colombia is “producing a lot of drugs.” This country is the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Trump told reporters that the move against Colombia “looks good to me.”
Petro, a 65-year-old former leftist guerrilla who has talked about US designs on the region his entire adult life, warned the US against any moves on Colombia and, in a rambling message on Twitter, described the US operation against Maduro as “bloody urination on the sacred sovereignty of all Latin America”.
Mexico is also under increasing pressure to curb its powerful drug cartels, while the Trump administration has pressured Panama to stem the expansion of Chinese influence and has not ruled out using military force to reclaim the Panama Canal. Panama and the United States have agreed to strengthen bilateral security cooperation.
However, for now the focus remains on Venezuela. The Trump administration has said that this will happen “Run” Venezuela Pending democratic change, Venezuela should recover assets and interests seized from U.S. companies and rebuild the oil industry there.
For the US, the potential benefit is clear: increase in oil supplyLess drugs and migrants heading north, and dislodging China, Russia and Iran from their coastlines in the region. Cuba, Venezuela’s biggest ally, has also become weak.
But there are big dangers in this too. A more assertive US is likely to increase pressure across the region, as local people do not want a return to unbridled US imperialism.
“This puts the region at risk,” said Michael Shifter, a scholar at the Washington policy group Inter-American Dialogue. “It creates tension in a region that has seen a high number of military interventions. It’s a return to an era that many thought had passed.”
Most countries and peoples in the region oppose Maduro; But they will not want uncontrolled American hegemony, driven by self-interests and without any broader agenda like democracy.
is an important variable Will this establish democracyIf it ends with Venezuela’s transition to democratic rule, it could provide moral cover for what looks like a takeover of Venezuela’s oil resources, If this does not happen, other countries will become more wary of America
There are limits to American power in a changing world.
Trump last year announced 50% tariffs on Brazil, the Latin American giant, after prosecutors charged former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump right-wing ally, and sanctioned judicial officials. America wanted to keep Bolsonaro out of jail.
It didn’t work.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said, “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions and it will not take orders from anyone.” The Supreme Court sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison on charges of plotting a coup.
trump immediately accepted defeatBolsonaro was dropped almost as fast as they embraced him.
“I told President Trump: ‘The power of words is more valuable than the power of weapons. They also cost less,'” da Silva said in December.
Write to David Luhnow here david.luhnow@wsj.comon juan forero juan.forero@wsj.com And on Vera Bergengruen vera.bergengruen@wsj.com
