The Trump management has justified the hot seize of Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro as a legislation enforcement operation to dismantle a “narco‑state”. It additionally claimed it might spoil Venezuela’s ties to China, Russia and Iran, and put the arena’s biggest recognized oil reserves again underneath US‑pleasant regulate.
This combination of counter‑narcotics, nice energy competition and effort safety had already been increased to a central precedence by way of the management in its nationwide safety technique. Revealed in past due 2025, the file introduced a pledge to “reassert and enforce American preeminence in the western hemisphere” and deny “strategically vital assets” to rival powers.
Donald Trump has referred to this hemispheric venture because the “Donroe doctrine”, casting it as a revival of the Monroe doctrine coverage of the nineteenth century during which america sought to prevent Ecu powers from meddling within the Americas. He appears to be in search of to tighten america grip on Latin The united states by way of rewarding dependable governments and punishing defiant ones.
If Venezuela is the primary check case of the Donroe doctrine, a number of different Latin American international locations now sit down squarely in Washington’s crosshairs. Probably the most fast goal is Cuba, which america has hostile since 1959 when communist progressive Fidel Castro overthrew a US-backed regime there.
Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have overtly hinted that Cuba may well be Washington’s subsequent goal. They’ve described Cuba as “ready to fall” after the lack of Venezuelan oil and feature boasted that there is not any want for direct intervention as a result of financial cave in will end the process.
Cuba is enduring its worst disaster since 1959. Blackouts now continuously last as long as 20 hours, actual wages are collapsing and more or less 1 million Cubans have fled the rustic since 2021. That is all going down as Venezuelan crude oil is being redirected underneath US regulate.
For over 20 years, Venezuela has equipped Cuba with gas and financing in change for medical doctors, lecturers and safety workforce – 32 of whom had been killed in america seize of Maduro, in keeping with the Cuban executive. Strangling Cuba’s last lifelines might be sufficient to topple the federal government there with out US forces wanting to fireside a unmarried shot.
It’s imaginable that Mexico can even quickly come underneath fireplace. Mexico has quietly change into Cuba’s primary oil provider, delivery more or less 12,000 barrels in step with day in 2025 to account for approximately 44% of the island’s crude imports. That is not going to delight the Trump management, which has lately renewed its threats to “do something” about Mexican drug cartels.
The raid in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, took six months of meticulous making plans and required an odd quantity of assets. So it’s unrealistic to be expecting identical raids on different Latin American international locations. Alternatively, focused army moves can’t be excluded.
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is attempting to build protecting buffers. She has mixed condemnation of the raid on Caracas with intense cooperation with america on migration and safety. This features a deal for Mexico’s military to intercept suspected drug-running boats close to its sea coast sooner than US forces do.
However as a part of a method that pushes US dominance of Latin The united states, Trump has already floated classifying Mexico’s cartels as terrorist organisations and the fentanyl they site visitors around the border as a weapon of mass destruction. Those are felony framings that may be used to justify moves on Mexican soil within the title of counter-narcotics within the close to long run.
Claudia Sheinbaum speaks all the way through a press convention in Mexico Town in December 2025.
Mario Guzman / EPA
Trump’s different objectives
Colombia, traditionally Washington’s closest army best friend in South The united states, has flipped from “pillar” to imaginable goal. The rustic’s president, Gustavo Petro, has been one of the most loudest critics of the Venezuela raid. He referred to as it an “abhorrent violation” of Latin American sovereignty dedicated by way of “enslavers”, including that it constituted a “spectacle of death” related to Nazi Germany’s 1937 carpet bombing of Guernica in Spain.
Trump, who imposed sanctions on Petro and his circle of relatives in October, replied by way of labelling the Colombian president a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”. He then mused {that a} Venezuela‑taste operation in Colombia “sounds good to me” sooner than a abruptly organized telephone name and White Area invitation dialled again the fast danger.
How lengthy the conciliation between the 2 males lasts is still noticed. Colombia has entered a heated presidential marketing campaign season during which Trump’s remarks are already being learn as an try to tilt the race, a lot as his interventions formed contemporary contests in Argentina and Honduras.
Additional down the hierarchy, Nicaragua’s executive can even have watched occasions spread in Venezuela with terror. Lengthy handled in Washington as a part of a trilogy of dictatorships with Cuba and Venezuela, Nicaragua options in US indictments towards Maduro as a transit level for cocaine flights. Nicaragua was once additionally lately designated by way of america as a key drug‑transit nation.
The strangely wary commentary at the Venezuela raid by way of Nicaraguan presidential couple Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, in addition to the speedy reinforcement of the presidential compound within the capital Managua, counsel a regime that is aware of it may well be subsequent in line must Trump make a selection to increase his “narco‑terrorism” narrative.
Trump seems to be turning longstanding US considerations – medication, migration and interference by way of different main powers – into a versatile toolbox for coercion in Latin The united states. International locations that defy Washington or host its opponents possibility being framed as safety threats, stripped of financial lifelines and, perhaps, focused militarily.
Those who stay their heads down might keep away from fast punishment. However this comes at the cost of treating hemispheric dominance as a reality of existence somewhat than a doctrine to be resisted.
