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President Donald Trump has adopted an interventionist posture to justify toppling dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela and has signaled he’ll take the same approach with other Latin American countries next as his administration seeks to assert dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Interventionism is a foreign policy approach by which one country intervenes in another state’s affairs. The U.S. has engaged in several interventions abroad, including launching an invasion of Iraq in 2003 that led to the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.
While Trump has blasted previous administrations for actions in the Middle East and vowed he would bring an end to “endless wars” while ushering in an “America First” agenda prioritizing U.S. interests, Trump signed off on conducting a “large scale strike” against Venezuela and capturing Maduro Saturday, prompting concern, primarily from Democrats, about starting another lengthy conflict.
The strikes in Venezuela come on the heels of several other major military operations from the Trump administration, including strikes in Nigeria on Christmas Day against Islamic State militants in response to attacks against Christians in the region, strikes in Syria in December against Islamic State operatives after an ambush against U.S. troops there, and strikes in June against the Iranian nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
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But unlike the strikes in the Middle East, the operations in Venezuela require additional U.S. involvement. Trump said Sunday that the U.S. will run Caracas, Venezuela, until a safe transition can occur, thrusting the U.S. into the most significant military intervention of Trump’s presidencies as he wages a campaign to “reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Trump has never been an advocate of regime change, but that is what he has on his hands now. Unlike the Fordow strikes, where Trump acted and then said, ‘The fight is over,’ he will not have that luxury here in Venezuela,” retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, now a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said in a statement Saturday.
Most Republicans have backed Trump’s actions in Venezuela, although some from the more anti-interventionist camp of the GOP have voiced skepticism, including outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who said in a social media post Saturday, “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.”
Meanwhile, Democrats have issued caution that the U.S. may be entangling itself in another complicated conflict. For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claimed that the U.S. is on the path to another “endless war.”
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“The American people are worried that this is creating an endless war,” Schumer said in an interview with ABC News Sunday. “The very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against over and over and over again was no more endless wars. And, right now, we’re headed right into one with no barriers, with no discussion.”
Trump announced Saturday that U.S. special forces conducted a strike against Caracas, Venezuela, and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The two were taken to New York and appeared in a Manhattan federal court on Monday on drug charges. Both pleaded not guilty.
In addition to running Venezuela, Trump said the U.S. was “ready to stage a second and much larger attack” if needed in Caracas. Likewise, he signaled Sunday that other Latin American countries could also face regime change, singling out Cuba and issuing a word of caution to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro.
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“Cuba only survives because of Venezuela,” Trump said.
“Colombia is very sick too — run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and sending it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.
Trump’s words and actions come as he’s revived the Monroe Doctrine, rebranded as the “Don-roe Doctrine,” that originally sought to limit European influence in Latin America and to protect U.S. influence in the region.
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The Monroe Doctrine, first introduced in 1823 by President James Monroe, specifically cautioned European nations against further colonization in Central and South America. Later, it was used to justify U.S. actions in the region as an “international police power” under former President Theodore Roosevelt, according to the National Archives.
“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal. But we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a lot,” Trump said Saturday. “They now call it the ‘Don-roe Doctrine.’ … We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital Tuesday it’s too early to tell if Trump’s future approach to the Western Hemisphere will include more interventionist activity.
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However, she said the “expansive” definition of what America’s core interests are “opens the administration up to risk of strategic drift away from the “America First” framework, diminishes the principle of prioritization and allows greater tolerance for an interventionist approach.”
So far, Trump has claimed his actions in Venezuela are complementary to his “America First” priorities because he wants the U.S. to have “good neighbors.”
Retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) 2022 General and Admirals Program participant and a member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project, said Trump’s actions in Venezuela are on the same page as the president’s “America First” agenda.
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That means holding other nations who mistreat their people accountable for their own benefit and for the benefit of the American people, he said.
“They’re clearly aligned. This is exactly what he’s talked about. … This is an accountability for them,” Harward said.
For those concerned about the U.S. military’s actions in Venezuela, Vice President JD Vance has attempted to soothe their fears. Vance leans toward the non-interventionist wing of the Trump administration and historically has backed a foreign policy doctrine that supports minimal interference with other nations’ affairs.
“I understand the anxiety over the use of military force, but are we just supposed to allow a communist to steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing?” Vance said in a social media post Sunday. “Great powers don’t act like that.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the U.S. did not require approval from Congress to conduct the strike since it wasn’t an “invasion” and claimed actions in Caracas, Venezuela, were part of a “law enforcement function to capture a drug trafficker.”
The Trump administration repeatedly stated that it did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state and insisted he was the leader of a drug cartel.
But lawmakers, especially Democrats, have called into question the legality of the operation in Venezuela, which was conducted without Congress’ approval.
“This has been a profound constitutional failure,” the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement Saturday. “Congress — not the President — has the sole power to authorize war. Pursuing regime change without the consent of the American people is a reckless overreach and an abuse of power.
“The question now is not whether Maduro deserved removal — it is what precedent the United States has just set, and what comes next.”
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