Been doing a lot of digging on this issue today. Gardner's piece argues that Trump is rolling back over a century of U.S.-Latin American policy evolution. That's essentially correct but understates how recent and concrete the shift is. The U.S. just executed Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3rd, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning military operation involving 150+ aircraft, and Trump immediately declared the U.S. would "run" Venezuela temporarily while extracting oil profits. He framed this as applying the Monroe Doctrine, which he rebranded the "Donroe Doctrine". Simultaneously, Trump secured a framework agreement with Panama granting U.S. warships priority and free passage through the canal while simultaneously pushing Panama to back away from Chinese investments and port contracts. This represents a dramatic departure not just from the Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s, which renounced military intervention and emphasized non-interference, but also from the Cold War era approach that prioritized anti-communism without openly seizing territory or resources.
Gardner's historical framing is sound. The Good Neighbor Policy explicitly rejected the Roosevelt Corollary and gunboat diplomacy that characterized early 20th-century U.S. interventionism. Yet what's happening now is sharper: Trump isn't just reversing soft power initiatives or using military pressure diplomatically, he's conducted unilateral military strikes on a sovereign state, captured its leader, and claimed operational control of the country and its resources. That represents a rollback not just to the 1890s-1920s era of explicit intervention, but potentially beyond it, since this operation occurred without congressional authorization and has drawn criticism for violating the UN Charter and basic international law.
One clarification Gardner's framing might benefit from: this shift is less about returning to some old doctrine and more about inventing new justifications for unilateral dominion. Trump's "Monroe Doctrine 2.0" explicitly frames Western Hemisphere dominance as a security imperative tied to migration and drugs, not European colonization. That changes the politics of legitimacy in ways that historical precedent doesn't fully capture.
Publicly the oil companies have said they’re not interested in returning to Venezuela. It would take billions of investment and a decade to restore Venezuela oil production to what it was.
They could probably use whatever they’re able to export today and refine it in the USA.
But why cause an even bigger glut of oil and lower oil prices further?
My initial kneejerk feeling on this is that Venezuela is Trump’s litmus test on the world’s resolve. Trump’s history is that he likes to tilt his hand, tell us what he wants to do. Sometimes he follows through, sometimes not. He’s said he wants to annex Greenland for its rare earth metals & Canada for its water. He probably doesn’t really care about Venezuela’s oil ( but he’ll take it ). And if the world political order does nothing about it, he’ll have learned something. Hitler did the very same thing in Europe
They went bad 25 years ago, remember when they sent a Canadian off for a year of torture? And put a 15-year-old in Guantanamo and used him as a mop when he threw up from the torture?
The difference between Venezuela and Iraq is:
Iraq was much, much bigger and much, much worse;
And kept getting worse for many years;
Resulting in ISIS, though nobody asked GW Bush to apologize for Bondi Beach;
And all the “centrists” like David Brooks and Andrew Coyne, who signed off on it, not only kept their jobs, but are still selling “centrism”.
And those who stuck to anti-war positions, like Pat Donahue and Jesse Ventura, were fired even from MSNBC and had to go away and stay gone, no apologies;
And the architects and profiteers got to make millions and billions respectively.
Honestly, I’m having trouble getting excited about Venezuela.
I can get excited about PP auditioning for “Head of the Puppet Government”.
It is not infrastructurally possible for Venezuelan industry to change the price of oil by more than a few dollars, not for about five years of construction.
By which time oil will be falling for much larger reasons.
No oil company is even going to start the process for the same reason that no oil company is going to expand the tar sands or seriously propose a whole new pipeline: the 2030s oil market will be shrinking.
Latin America will not forget this.
Apparently Argentina just folded and are ki$$ing pustular corpulent Drumpfian a$$
Been doing a lot of digging on this issue today. Gardner's piece argues that Trump is rolling back over a century of U.S.-Latin American policy evolution. That's essentially correct but understates how recent and concrete the shift is. The U.S. just executed Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3rd, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning military operation involving 150+ aircraft, and Trump immediately declared the U.S. would "run" Venezuela temporarily while extracting oil profits. He framed this as applying the Monroe Doctrine, which he rebranded the "Donroe Doctrine". Simultaneously, Trump secured a framework agreement with Panama granting U.S. warships priority and free passage through the canal while simultaneously pushing Panama to back away from Chinese investments and port contracts. This represents a dramatic departure not just from the Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s, which renounced military intervention and emphasized non-interference, but also from the Cold War era approach that prioritized anti-communism without openly seizing territory or resources.
Gardner's historical framing is sound. The Good Neighbor Policy explicitly rejected the Roosevelt Corollary and gunboat diplomacy that characterized early 20th-century U.S. interventionism. Yet what's happening now is sharper: Trump isn't just reversing soft power initiatives or using military pressure diplomatically, he's conducted unilateral military strikes on a sovereign state, captured its leader, and claimed operational control of the country and its resources. That represents a rollback not just to the 1890s-1920s era of explicit intervention, but potentially beyond it, since this operation occurred without congressional authorization and has drawn criticism for violating the UN Charter and basic international law.
One clarification Gardner's framing might benefit from: this shift is less about returning to some old doctrine and more about inventing new justifications for unilateral dominion. Trump's "Monroe Doctrine 2.0" explicitly frames Western Hemisphere dominance as a security imperative tied to migration and drugs, not European colonization. That changes the politics of legitimacy in ways that historical precedent doesn't fully capture.
Publicly the oil companies have said they’re not interested in returning to Venezuela. It would take billions of investment and a decade to restore Venezuela oil production to what it was.
They could probably use whatever they’re able to export today and refine it in the USA.
But why cause an even bigger glut of oil and lower oil prices further?
Of course. They also want to be careful not to generate backlash. Softly, softly...
We are a rogue state
Trump’s public and falsely-based denigration of María Corina Machado wins the Nobel Prize for gross pettiness.
My initial kneejerk feeling on this is that Venezuela is Trump’s litmus test on the world’s resolve. Trump’s history is that he likes to tilt his hand, tell us what he wants to do. Sometimes he follows through, sometimes not. He’s said he wants to annex Greenland for its rare earth metals & Canada for its water. He probably doesn’t really care about Venezuela’s oil ( but he’ll take it ). And if the world political order does nothing about it, he’ll have learned something. Hitler did the very same thing in Europe
The fundamental issue is:
For everyone:
What will it each to breach the Banality of Evil and excise the illegitimate Vichy-esque regime from DC ?
T
In the 1940s there was no confusion about what to do with the collaborators of the Vichy-esque regime!
Now they are honoured and promoted and rewarded instead of being strange-fruited !!
They went bad 25 years ago, remember when they sent a Canadian off for a year of torture? And put a 15-year-old in Guantanamo and used him as a mop when he threw up from the torture?
The difference between Venezuela and Iraq is:
Iraq was much, much bigger and much, much worse;
And kept getting worse for many years;
Resulting in ISIS, though nobody asked GW Bush to apologize for Bondi Beach;
And all the “centrists” like David Brooks and Andrew Coyne, who signed off on it, not only kept their jobs, but are still selling “centrism”.
And those who stuck to anti-war positions, like Pat Donahue and Jesse Ventura, were fired even from MSNBC and had to go away and stay gone, no apologies;
And the architects and profiteers got to make millions and billions respectively.
Honestly, I’m having trouble getting excited about Venezuela.
I can get excited about PP auditioning for “Head of the Puppet Government”.
There is not shortage of those who see nothing but RED with ANYthing Trump.
Niall Ferguson is not so inclined to say Trump can't do any good. Here he is on this Venezuelan thing.
https://youtu.be/3hoUzEL5_xA?si=TgkhdJuZKIYT3fKE
It is not infrastructurally possible for Venezuelan industry to change the price of oil by more than a few dollars, not for about five years of construction.
By which time oil will be falling for much larger reasons.
No oil company is even going to start the process for the same reason that no oil company is going to expand the tar sands or seriously propose a whole new pipeline: the 2030s oil market will be shrinking.