One of President Trump’s first executive orders since returning to the presidency in January was the designation of certain drug cartels as “terrorist” organizations. In doing this, Trump signaled a renewed war on drugs with the possibility of the United States military acting unilaterally throughout Latin America.
As with much of Trump’s foreign policy, it was not immediately clear how literally one should take his threats to strike cartels and deploy special forces south of the U.S.-Mexico border. After all, the United States already has partnerships with repressive forces from Mexico to Colombia, which it established through an earlier war on drugs in the 1970s. Could these threats of military action in Latin America be nothing more than a bargaining tactic meant to secure more economic and geopolitical advantages for U.S. imperialism in Latin America?
If Trump’s recent military aggression toward Venezuela is any indication, the administration’s threats to launch a new war on drugs at the expense of any vestige of regional sovereignty should be taken very seriously.
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Following the deadly U.S. attack on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2 — justified under dubious claims that the boat was trafficking drugs with the backing of Venezuela’s government — the Trump administration has consistently said that it is prepared to carry out more such strikes. In an interview with Fox News on September 3, Pete Hegseth said, “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not been.” Since that interview aired, Hegseth’s official title was changed from Secretary of Defense to Secretary of War. In a video about the rebrand of his department, Hegseth promises “We’re gonna go on offense, not just defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”
The escalation is not just rhetorical. The United States has deployed 10 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico for further military action in the region, and on September 6, U.S. sailors and marines carried out amphibious landing exercises in Puerto Rico, leading many people to speculate that the administration may be preparing for a regime change operation in Venezuela. Some foreign policy analysts have noted that the current level of U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean is not nearly enough to carry out a full-scale invasion of Venezuela. However a report in CNN based on anonymous sources suggests that the administration is seriously considering military strikes within the country. Part of the calculation, according to the report, is that such strikes may be enough to squeeze Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro into conceding power.
It may be too soon to predict how exactly the escalations against Venezuela will play out. But what should be clear is that the Trump administration is committed to establishing a new Monroe Doctrine of hegemonic dominance over Latin America. This policy will be built up through a new war on drugs which is deeply intertwined with the war on immigrants that continues to escalate within the United States. Venezuela is currently in the eye of the storm, but there are greater implications for the entire region.
Venezuela is just the easiest target due to the longstanding bipartisan support for U.S. aggression against the country. This bipartisan hostility was shown clearly in Trump’s first term when Democrats supported a coup attempt which ultimately failed. While Maduro has opened the way for U.S. imperialism to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, decades of tensions with Venezuela have left U.S. soft power and economic exploitation in the country far more limited than most anywhere else in Latin America. As a result, the Trump administration has less to lose in testing out interventionist action toward Venezuela. Similar actions would come with much greater costs to U.S. capital if tried in Mexico for example, which is far more subordinated to and compliant with U.S. imperialism
The United States has lost significant ground to its main capitalist rival, China, in terms of influence via soft power and access to markets in Latin America. As a result, many countries in the region have been hedging between the two powers, and more overtly challenging U.S. dictates for the region. This is seen in Brazil’s challenge to Trump’s tariffs to try to shape the country’s political affairs and in criticismfroma variety of Latin American leaders over Trump’s extreme anti-immigrant policies. These leaders have still conceded to U.S. imperialism far more than they’ve resisted, due in large part to the region’s economic subornation to the United States which Trump is now weaponizing with tariffs.
Nonetheless, the erosion of U.S. hegemony in the region compared to past decades is prompting Trump’s more aggressive approach. While Trump has mainly relied on economic aggression, the attacks on Venezuela show that military threats remain part of the imperialist toolkit. Whether or not Trump actually carries out intervention in Venezuela, the threats signal to every single government in Latin America and the Caribbean that the United States sees the entire region as fair game to pursue whatever acts of aggression and violations of sovereignty that it can get away with.
In response to the September 2 attack, a chorus of experts on U.S. foreign policy and international law have raised concerns about what kind of precedent the action sets. Even under the broad authority the U.S. executive branch has in carrying out military actions abroad, summary execution of alleged drug traffickers is a clear violation of the U.S. War Powers Act and international law.
Still, Trump and his cabinet have boasted that they can and will continue to flagrantly defy international norms. International law has always been applied selectively in the interests of U.S. imperialism, but presidents at least used to pretend that international norms should guide U.S. foreign policy. September 2 will certainly not be the last reminder that this administration is done playing by the old rules. If the Trump administration has its way, a new policy of “Peace Through Strength” will be written through violent intervention against the people of Latin America and the Caribbean.
