Trump’s imperial ambitions

Trump’s imperial ambitions

Julian Borger writes:

Trump’s belief in his own global omnipotence, and his desire to grab the territory and natural resources of other countries has been held in check until now by his fear of entanglement in foreign wars. He claimed (falsely) to have ended eight wars, and his greatest ambition in 2025 seemed to be winning the Nobel peace prize. Less than a month ago he was brandishing a hastily confected substitute, the Fifa peace prize. That act of self-abasement by world football’s governing body looks even more absurd now than it did when Trump grabbed the gold medal and put it around his own neck.

Trump’s apprehension over foreign wars seems to be waning. He was clearly thrilled by the drama of the Maduro operation, and the efficiency of the American soldiers who carried it out, declaring on Saturday he was “not afraid” of deploying ground forces in Venezuela to pursue his interests. For an ageing president, growing more petulant, irascible and incoherent with every day in office – facing diminishing popularity and desperate to distract attention from the Epstein child-trafficking scandal – a tightening embrace of military power is an ominous development.

On Saturday morning, Trump seemed giddy with military success. “A lot of good planning and a lot of great, great troops and great people,” Trump told the New York Times. “It was a brilliant operation, actually.”

The attack on Venezuela suggests the allure of foreign lands, oil and minerals is now glimmering brighter than the Nobel prize. [Continue reading…]

On December 20, the Wall Street Journal reported:

[Chevron CEO Mike] Wirth and Trump are known to be tight. The oil executive is an eloquent speaker whose TV appearances entertain the president, and the men chat about Venezuela and other topics.

Wirth was among the first to embrace “the Gulf of America,” Trump’s new moniker for the Gulf of Mexico. His company, which has donated to inaugural committees of both parties, gave $2 million to Trump’s, twice as much as Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum.

Trump and Wirth appear to agree that opportunity abounds in Venezuela.

“It will only get bigger,” Trump said on Truth Social of the U.S. naval armada parked in the Caribbean, “until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they have previously stole from us.” [Continue reading…]

Politico reports:

A central concern for U.S. industry executives is whether the administration can guarantee the safety of the employees and equipment that companies would need to send to Venezuela, how the companies would be paid, whether oil prices will rise enough to make Venezuelan crude profitable and the status of Venezuela’s membership in the OPEC oil exporters cartel. U.S. benchmark oil prices were at $57 a barrel, the lowest since the end of the pandemic, as of the market’s close on Friday.

The White House did not immediately reply to questions about its plan for the oil industry, but Trump said during Saturday’s appearance at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that he expected oil companies to put up the initial investments.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.”

However, the administration’s outreach to U.S. oil company executives remains “at its best in the infancy stage,” said one industry executive familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to describe conversations with the president’s team.

“In preparation for regime change, there had been engagement. But it’s been sporadic and relatively flatly received by the industry,” this person said. “It feels very much a shoot-ready-aim exercise.” [Continue reading…]

In an editorial, the New York Times says:

The nominal rationale for the administration’s military adventurism is to destroy “narco-terrorists.” Governments throughout history have labeled the leaders of rival nations as terrorists, seeking to justify military incursions as policing operations. The claim is particularly ludicrous in this case, given that Venezuela is not a meaningful producer of fentanyl or the other drugs that have dominated the recent epidemic of overdoses in the United States, and the cocaine that it does produce flows mostly to Europe. While Mr. Trump has been attacking Venezuelan boats, he also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, who ran a sprawling drug operation when he was president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022.

A more plausible explanation for the attacks on Venezuela may instead be found in Mr. Trump’s recently released National Security Strategy. It claimed the right to dominate Latin America: “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere.” In what the document called the “Trump Corollary,” the administration vowed to redeploy forces from around the world to the region, stop traffickers on the high seas, use lethal force against migrants and drug runners and potentially base more U.S. troops around the region.

Venezuela has apparently become the first country subject to this latter-day imperialism, and it represents a dangerous and illegal approach to America’s place in the world. By proceeding without any semblance of international legitimacy, valid legal authority or domestic endorsement, Mr. Trump risks providing justification for authoritarians in China, Russia and elsewhere who want to dominate their own neighbors. More immediately, he threatens to replicate the American hubris that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. [Continue reading…]

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