Daily London
US President Donald Trump has long insisted Maduro’s regime is cooperating with “narco-terrorists” to smuggle drugs in the US, and last year built up a mass of US forces in the region.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has recently claimed that Maduro’s removal would prevent foes like Iran and Hezbollah from “operating” in Venezuela.
The incursion that captured Maduro was preceded by months of strikes on what the White House claimed were “drug boats”, the legality of which has been questioned in the US.
Trump has, since Maduro’s kidnapping, taken the opportunity to threaten other neighbours, whether ostensible friends or foes.
The bullish foreign policy stance also comes on the back of mounting disapproval domestically, with Trump’s ratings plummeting, and the continuing focus on the Jeffrey Epstein documents the administration has been ordered to release.
Cuba – a nation heavily reliant on Venezuelan oil – Colombia, Mexico, and Greenland have all been the subject of recent comments by Trump or Rubio.
Trump warned Colombian President Gustavo Petro to “watch his ass” and called him a “sick man”.
He suggested Cuba’s government would fall and again suggested the possibility of US military action in Mexico, while once more floating the possibility of unilaterally annexing Greenland.
Rubio, meanwhile, posted on the White House website a self-compiled list of quotes given in recent interviews that build to suggest the US will continue to exercise its power in the “western hemisphere”.
“We’ve seen how our adversaries all over the world are exploiting and extracting resources from Africa, from every other country. They’re not going to do it in the Western Hemisphere,” he said.
“That is not going to happen under President Trump. Read our national security strategy. He is serious about it.”
It’s a posture that harks back to the fifth US President, James Monroe, who established the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulates that the US will guard against foreign influence in its region.
“This is the Western Hemisphere,” Rubio said in another interview.
“This is where we live – and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States.”
Trump had also referenced the 200-year-old policy, claiming that some in his administration were starting to reference the “Don-roe Doctrine”.
