Trump’s aims in Venezuela: Drugs and oil, or projecting power?
With his dramatic weekend actions in Venezuela, President Donald Trump has begun to implement his vision for Latin America and the Western Hemisphere, foreshadowed in his recently announced national security strategy.
In it, released last month, the Trump administration said the United States would “affirm and implement a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” — a 21st century addition to the 19th century vision for hemispheric relations.
The corollary proclaims a more aggressive stance toward perceived threats to national security in the region and a willingness to take military and other coercive measures to pursue U.S. interests.
Why we wrote this
What is behind the arrest of Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro? The Trump administration’s hemispheric strategy recalls the Roosevelt Corollary to the 1904 Monroe Doctrine, which asserts the United States’ right to intervene in Latin America in cases of “chronic wrongdoing.”
Saturday’s actions – the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas to face federal drug trafficking charges in the United States, and the deadly bombings of military installations and some civilian buildings across the country – were marked with the “Trump corollary.”
So did the president’s repeated references to Venezuela’s oil wealth and his claims that U.S. oil companies would return to revive the country’s oil production and recoup what he said was owed to the United States.
For the administration, the “Trump Corollary” is a dusting off and updating of Monroe’s 1904 Roosevelt Corollary, which affirms the right of the United States to intervene in Latin America in cases of “chronic wrongdoing.”
Yet for some analysts, the developments of recent weeks are less about drugs and oil – although these factors are not negligible – than a reaffirmation of American power.
“What has become clear over the past month with the new national security strategy and Trump’s affirmation of the corollary — the boat strikes and other military actions in the Caribbean, and now the actions inside Venezuela on Saturday — is that this is all about power and the Trump administration is reaffirming that might makes right,” says Britta Crandall, a political scientist specializing in Latin American studies at Davidson College in North Carolina.
“This escalation and emerging vision for the region is driven by a worldview defined far less in terms of strategic alliances built over decades,” she adds, “than by the exercise of power in pursuit of American national interests.”
The world will have its first opportunity to respond collectively to US actions when the United Nations Security Council meets in an emergency session on Monday. Also on Monday, Mr. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are expected to be arraigned in federal court in Manhattan, New York.
Mr. Trump and other administration officials have taken the position that they had preempted Mr. Maduro by proclaiming American hegemony in the region.
“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’re way past it,” Mr. Trump said in a speech to the press on Saturday. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never again be questioned. »
Claims that in the future “America’s interests will come first” in the hemisphere were emphasized by administration officials on Sunday news programs.
Regarding Venezuela’s oil wealth and U.S. plans to take control of it to affect Venezuelan politics, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on ABC News’ “This Week”: “We hope this will have positive results for the Venezuelan people.” But, he added, “ultimately, and most importantly, [it would be] in the national interest of the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told “Fox News Sunday” that the United States would insist on leadership in Venezuela that would be “a partner that understands that we are going to protect America.” She said the United States “will not allow you to continue to subvert American influence and our need to have a free country…to work with.”
Saturday’s military intervention sent shock waves across Latin America and even the entire hemisphere.
“This action highlights that the United States is very blatantly looking to the global south for resources and certain key minerals,” says Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “The United States will expect the same ‘forced obedience’ from the region, and particularly from smaller countries, that it has imposed on tariffs.”
In terms of individual countries, Cuba (and its communist regime) could be the first to feel a real impact from intervention in Venezuela, some analysts say, suggesting that financially advantageous arrangements between the two countries, including state-to-state payments, are unlikely to last.
“Considering the number of Cubans working in Venezuela who are an important source of hard currency for the island, it seems likely that this will hit hard and fast,” says Dr. Freeman.
Cuba has gradually reduced its dependence on Venezuelan oil over the past decade as production has declined. But a hit to revenues could further harm Cuba’s already strained services, particularly electricity generation.
“If power outages start to hit the capital,” says Dr. Freeman, “it could lead to huge protests and political instability.”
Others say Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia, led by left-wing anti-Trump President Gustavo Petro, may also have cause for concern.
“Leaders in the Western Hemisphere are looking at the world differently today and realizing that the norms by which we lived have been eroded and changed,” says Dr. Crandall. “But I think Petro should be at the top of the list of people concerned,” especially after Mr. Trump warned him on Saturday to watch himself, she said.
In his remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Mr. Trump repeated unfounded claims that Mr. Petro “owns factories where he makes cocaine.” He also cited the fact that Colombian cocaine is shipped to U.S. markets.
Beyond the hemisphere, analysts say the two main world leaders to watch for their response to the Venezuela intervention will be China’s Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The great powers, and in particular China and Russia, will probably draw two very different lessons about the United States from all of this,” said Michael Desch, professor of international affairs at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
“The first lesson is that America’s big stick is back and so they’re going to have to take into account America’s perception of external evildoers in the region,” he said. “But the alternative is that they see the United States applying a spheres of influence approach in its relations with its near region,” he adds, “and they take this opportunity as an opportunity to apply something similar” in their own spheres.
“Does this pave the way for a “Xi-roe” doctrine that China would apply to Taiwan and elsewhere in the region? he jokes. Or, as others have speculated, does Mr. Maduro’s arrest encourage Mr. Putin to consider rushing to kyiv to kidnap Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
For many foreign policy analysts, Mr. Trump’s surprising declaration on Saturday that the United States will “run” Venezuela raises the question of whether Mr. Trump, who took office avoiding “forever wars,” is tempted to try his hand at nation-building.
After setbacks and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, could Mr. Trump be tempted to demonstrate his prowess in nation building 3.0?
Mr. Rubio appeared to walk back on Sunday from his boss’s promise to “lead” Venezuela. But Mr. Trump’s advantage if he chooses this path is that Venezuela has a solid foundation of political and economic institutions to build on, despite the deterioration under Mr. Maduro and his mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
“Venezuela is not Afghanistan,” says Dr. Crandall.
Others suggest that Mr. Trump will likely lose interest in “ruling” Venezuela, especially as he realizes that the country’s dazzling oil reserves won’t be tapped to generate billions in revenue anytime soon.
Dr. Desch, citing the president’s “record” in Gaza and elsewhere, says: “I suspect that before long the president will declare victory in Venezuela and move on.” »
