Unlike the past actions, which have largely involved missiles and aircraft that reduce the exposure of American forces to harm, Trump’s Venezuela strike – and his commitments to the future of that nation – are notably different.
That twist on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” – or Maga – slogan may be tough for some of Trump’s supporters to swallow.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump loyalist who broke with the president after accusing him of abandoning his political base, was quick to condemn the president’s actions on X.
“Americans’ disgust with our own government’s never ending military aggression and support of foreign wars is justified because we are forced to pay for it and both parties, Republicans and Democrats, always keep the Washington military machine funded and going,” she wrote. “This is what many in Maga thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”
Another prominent Trump critic, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, contrasted the legal justification for Maduro’s arrest – on weapons and cocaine trafficking charges – with Trump’s explanation that the operation was to reclaim confiscated US oil and stop fentanyl production.
Most Republican lawmakers rallied behind the president, with House Speaker Mike Johnson describing the military action against a “criminal regime” as “decisive and justified”.
During his press conference, the president said the Venezuelan operation advanced his “America First” priorities because it ensured US regional security and provided a steady source of oil.
He dusted off the Monroe Doctrine – an early 19th Century American foreign policy that asserted the Western Hemisphere should be free from influence by European powers – and rebranded it the “Donroe Doctrine”.
The action in Venezuela, Trump said, shows that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Trump’s decision to capture Maduro will raise larger concerns of global politics, however, and American relations with the world’s other major military powers. Continue reading…
