Venezuela for dummies

How does Trump’s Venezuelan action fit in with his Make America Great Again and America First philosophies? Is this just more opportunistic chaos or is there method in his “madness”.

After listening to Trump’s occasionally rambling press conferenceimmediately after “Operation Absolute Resolve” I have a pretty good idea – the rambles often tell you more than the prepared script.

MAGA has never been isolationist in Trump’s mind, just parsimonious in the use of external force. This is spelled out in the 2025 United States National Security Strategy. That parsimony sees the US as the preeminent world hegemon but supported by a web of allies, who contribute much more of their own resources to defence than they have been.

Treasure will be spent judiciously. It will not be spent to evangelise liberty, it will be spent to purchase security.

The “Trump Corollary” - a conscious reference to the “Roosevelt Corollary” of 1904 which innovates on the Munro Doctrine - locates the Americas as the US’s primary sphere of influence.

Underlying MAGA is a sense that the US has been in an undeclared war at home and abroad since at least Barack Obama. Trump made this plain in his address to the 800 generals at the Quantico marine base in September last year.

This position draws a thread between kinetic actions in Ukraine and the Middle East (and the threat of them in the South China Sea) and weak borders, street demonstrations, crime, drugs, as well as states and courts which refuse to enforce laws they don’t like.

Despite his apparently chaotic style Trump is actually the law and order president – a familiar role for the right to play – and on the broken windows principle, he’s starting close to home, with the smaller things, while at the same time still engaging with the larger issues.

Trump was elected on closing the borders. He’s done that. He was elected on the basis of fixing the drug problem. Death from drug overdose is down, partly due to a shift in the type of drugs being used, but they are still historically high, and they affect working age males the most.

Apart from general despair at senseless death, if you are going to retool America, this is the demographic you need the most.

Trump was also elected on the basis of fixing Biden’s inflation. One of the biggest price effects was caused by the price of oil. Again he’s had some arguable success with gasoline peaking at $5.00 per gallon in 2022 under Biden and falling to less to $3.00 per gallon now.

But he wants the price of oil much lower, particularly as the Democrats are leveraging cost of living as an issue against him.