By Tom Fowdy
Nicholas Maduro is now in American custody.
In a very clean and decisive operation, American forces swept into Caracas on the early hours of Saturday morning, bombed key military facilities, and captured the Venezuelan President, swiftly transferring him to New York.
I had been warning for weeks that an American regime change operation against Caracas was coming. In a previous article, I noted that Donald Trump had fixated on a narrative of depicting Maduro as a cartel leader to appeal to his base's nationalist sentiments, playing on the American drugs discourse, the broader dislike of Latin American immigration, and deliberately avoiding the classic NeoConservative language of bringing "freedom and democracy" to the South American country.
By doing so, Trump has secured a massive domestic political win for himself, while also being unapologetically open that the real reason the US wants to reassert its influence over the country is to control its oil reserves. Herein is the wider strategy: The United States has recalibrated its foreign policy and national security strategy towards securing undisputed dominance over the Western Hemisphere in what is described as a "new Monroe Doctrine", a reference to President James Monroe's assertion in the 19th century that the US would intervene to stop European powers establishing a presence in the Americas.
Thus, rather than fighting on all fronts for American hegemony across the entire globe, as what Biden did, the second Trump administration has focused on "spheres of influence" and as such seeks unilateral hegemony over Central and South America. One year into his Presidency, we are now starting to see what that looks like: First, hostile regimes to the US are being terminated, true to American foreign policy tradition. Nicholas Maduro has been removed from office, and there is little doubt that Cuba is next.
Secondly, the US is hammering smaller states on their engagement with China and Russia. Honduras, who had recently flipped from Taiwan to China, is now reportedly set to flip recognition back. Panama was forced to withdraw from the Belt and Road Initiative and boot out Chinese companies from the Canal, which is the most strategic waterway in the Americas as a trans-oceanic route. Likewise, gaining control of strategic economic resources is high on the agenda, which includes Venezuela's oil, and Greenland's strategic minerals, repeatedly translating into calls to annex the territory.
The broader goal of the administration is to transform the hemisphere into a domain of American power so that it has more leverage to compete and reassert its interests globally, which is seen as preferential than pursuing military expansionism in Asia, Europe, and being simultaneously on the brink of war with China and Russia (another Biden legacy). The Trump administration has implicitly rejected Cold War confrontation and believes that acquiring economic leverage to try and constrain China, as opposed to containing, is the most suitable approach. Although things can change quickly with a new NeoConservative President, China is not treated as an "enemy" anymore, but a competitor.
As a part of this strategy, Trump has been more willing to undertake "tradeoffs" with the rival powers in their own respective geographical spheres, in exchange for them respecting US interests in various ways. First, Trump has significantly de-escalated the Taiwan issue. While he still sells them arms, marketed as promoting US jobs and manufacturing, the US administration was muted when Beijing undertaken massive military exercises against the island in retaliation for the sale. When Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stoked up nationalist tensions over Taiwan saying Tokyo would "intervene," the United States surprised her by offering her very little support. Likewise, in Europe, Trump has been willing to give Russia the Donbass region of Ukraine in exchange for ending the war, a prospect Kyiv, the EU, and Britain, find horrifying.
In summary, Trump 2.0 has overturned the concept of a shared, multilateral "rules-based order" and is establishing a transactional system based on spheres of influence and economic leverage. This is not a value-driven system, but one based on a pure Trumpian interpretation of the national interest in terms of American jobs, manufacturing, and security. Thus, to ensure the US has the best negotiating hand, he has drawn a red line over the Americas, which is not just a shared region, but now a non-negotiable extension of the national interest. The swift capture of Nicholas Maduro is the clearest sign yet that he is not messing around, yet competing countries may feel oddly optimistic that they can forge deals with him to respect their own interests accordingly.
X has been awash with bad takes about how the fall of Maduro is somehow a disaster for China and Russia, but beyond heavily sanctioned oil, what exactly did he offer? The country has been an economic basket case for over a decade. If anything, Moscow and Beijing likely privately see his fall as a price worth paying in lieu of Biden's Non-negotiable conflict on all fronts policy. Trump has frozen the NeoConservative age, at least for now.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | One rule for themselves, another for Jimmy Lai
Opinion | The problematic politicisation of the Tai Po fire tragedy
Opinion | The era of detente has begun, ending the anti-China epoch of 2019-2024
Opinion | Would Trump oppose 'Taiwan independence' for a trade deal
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