The Trump Administration arrests Nicolás Maduro
Thirty-six years to the date after the United States last seized a foreign leader for alleged drug trafficking, the Trump administration ordered Nicolás Maduro’s arrest in Venezuelan territory. During “Operation Absolute Resolve,” a roughly two-hour mission that followed months of extensive surveillance and preparation, over 150 American aircraft and other forces entered Caracas and took custody of President Maduro as he attempted to enter a safe room. In the aftermath, officials met questions about international law with justifications that often paralleled previous imperialist doctrines deriving from a time of much more aggressive foreign policy. The operation’s ostensible goals of regaining control of the Western Hemisphere, neutralizing other world powers, combating drug trafficking, and even some trade protectionism might imply a return to historical trends, while perhaps excluding an important “Trump corollary” of corruption and an unhidden goal of pillaging a state for its resources.
Among the justifications for the military action employed by President Trump is the Monroe Doctrine, though many debate how purely the operation adhered to its principles, as compared to other factors. President James Monroe articulated the Monroe Doctrine during the 7th annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823. Monroe warned the European powers against interfering with the affairs of the Western Hemisphere—the United States would no longer tolerate colonization by other global powers in the Americas. Over time, leaders invoked the doctrine to justify intervention throughout the region, with places such as Venezuela, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic seeing coups and decades of political instability as a result. After the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Trump referenced the Monroe Doctrine, remarking that some now call it the “Don-roe Doctrine.” His statement reflected an effort to restore American dominance in the Western Hemisphere and to confer two centuries of military precedent onto his own efforts.
The 1989 extraction of Manuel Noriega serves as a comparable example of such military action, though benefiting from several circumstances and strategies not afforded to Venezuela or mirrored by the Trump administration. Both examples included the backdrop of an economic interest, perhaps more subtle in the case of Noriega, the canal in Panama, and the vast oil fields in Venezuela. Noriega’s imprisonment and forty-year sentencing for drug charges produced the Bush Policy, which, in effect, endorsed military action that promoted democracy and combated international lawlessness. The policy and the operations that its creators then justified diverge from traditional international law. The United Nations condemned Noriega’s arrest in a 75-20 vote. Still, despite the international community’s view of the 1989 operation, Panama saw positive results: the advent of democracy and a decrease in trafficking included. Some pundits believe, however, that the results of Venezuela’s recent operation may not resemble those of Panama. Firstly, in Panama, the Bush administration quickly replaced the government with a popular opposition. Trump dismissed a similar replacement of Maduro by opposition leaders such as Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado, risking a power vacuum, and seems less interested in an operation marked by the brevity of Panama, stating his intention to “run” the country. Successful military intervention, the “boots on the ground” of which Trump claims to not be afraid, also may be more difficult—Venezuela is seven times the size of Panama in population and twelve times in land area, with significant jungle and mountainous terrain further threatening a potential military presence.
Though previous examples of American interventionism contained elements of corruption and motivations linked to resources, few leaders declared their intention to quasi-imperialize as openly as President Trump. Venezuela contains the largest proven oil reserves in the world, though they vastly underachieve their potential. Previous to the intervention, their outputs reflected just one percent of the world’s total, with three million barrels produced daily compared to the thirteen million in the United States. Increasing this total, leading to sales in the United States and lowering energy prices, a priority for Trump, may be the true goal of the operation. He even proposed that “very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.” Additionally, Venezuela owes oil companies, including ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, over eleven billion dollars from cases that argued the illegality of their forced exit from the country following oil nationalization, making their lobbying (and good graces) a potential motivation as well. Others believe that the potential for personal enrichment influenced Trump’s decision. According to a sociology and international affairs professor at Princeton, “Trump is by far the most visibly corrupt president the U.S. has known.” Forbes found the value of his corruption to be three billion dollars. In this case, the sources of corruption could be the Nobel Prize he received or even promises made on the campaign trail. John Addison, a senior executive at Vitol (an oil distributor), donated seven million dollars to Trump’s campaign, including six million to MAGA Incorporated. Vitol, in turn, received the first Venezuelan oil (winning the bidding worth two hundred and fifty million dollars) and was the only company represented by two executives at Trump’s recent meeting with American oil giants.
The future of American imperialism, though still evolving, seems to incorporate several doctrines, including the Bush Policy and Monroe Doctrine, justifying intervention without direct provocation. Moral corruption, stemming from eagerness to lower oil prices or even personal enrichment, also seems to be increasing in its relevance. These factors, combined into the true Trump Doctrine (which does not closely follow Monroe as he might argue), extend beyond Venezuela, with the administration considering other countries not for the benefits of their allyship but for their resources and for the potential personal gain one might extract from pursuing them.
