US President Donald Trump’s rise to power – twice – was built on the idea he is different from “politics as usual”. The Trump style is certainly one-of-a-kind and unpredictable.
Few, for example, would have guessed that if re-elected, Mr Trump’s first-year priorities would include the sudden demolition of the White House East Wing to create a ballroom. But in one respect, Mr Trump sits precisely in the long traditional history of US leaders.
Like all US presidents since the 19th century, he is fixated with American security to the south, from “building a wall” against migrants from Mexico to now threatening Venezuela and its Caribbean coast with enormous military force and regime change.
The Caribbean and Latin American countries are sometimes called “Uncle Sam’s backyard”, and Uncle Sam now appears anxious to clean up that backyard. There have been deadly US military attacks on small boats from Venezuela alleged to contain drug smugglers.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that the most recent attack was on a vessel operated by what the US considers a terrorist organisation. That organisation was not named but three people were killed in the US strike. According to Mr Hegseth, as many as 64 alleged smugglers or terrorists have been killed in similar recent operations. While precise details are sparse, Mr Hegseth spoke of “narco-terrorists bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home” and insisted they would be treated “exactly how we treated Al Qaeda”.
Critics say that the most problematic imported drug – fentanyl – actually comes through laboratories in Mexico. Either way, the decision to send an aircraft carrier to the region has increased speculation that the real strategic mission is regime change to remove the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The well-informed US magazine Foreign Affairs reports that “over the course of two months, President Donald Trump’s administration has deployed 10,000 US troops to the region, amassed at least eight US Navy surface vessels and a submarine around South America’s northern coast, directed B-52 and B-1 bombers to fly near the Venezuelan coastline, and ordered the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group – which the US Navy calls the ‘most capable, adaptable and lethal combat platform in the world’ – to US Southern Command’s area of responsibility”.
The show of firepower in the Caribbean is a change of emphasis from Mr Trump’s previous focus on trying to bring an end to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. It also puts Mr Trump in a long and extremely troubled American tradition in Latin America.
The most stunning example was then-president John F Kennedy’s decision to face down Russian attempts to put missiles in communist Cuba and for the Central Intelligence Agency to back attempts to overthrow Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro in the 1960s. The result was the Bay of Pigs invasion which turned into a fiasco.
Even so, since the 1960s, under very different presidents, American administrations have invaded Grenada and Panama, tried to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and built on a long history going back to what were described as the “Banana Wars” against various countries from 1898 onwards, including the armed occupations of Haiti for 20 years from 1915 and the Dominican Republic, occupied for eight years from 1916.
Whatever Mr Trump intends to do with the 10,000 US troops plus air and sea power in the Caribbean, there is alarm in Washington that the lessons of history may be repeated if “regime change” in Venezuela becomes official US policy. It would upend the idea of “America First” and Mr Trump’s self-image as a peacemaker.
Nevertheless, reports from Washington suggest that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has for now at least won an internal political battle in the White House. One faction wanted a deal with Mr Maduro on Venezuela’s enormous oil resources. The other faction, led by Mr Rubio, has pushed for the US to use limited force to destabilise the Maduro government.
Washington’s hope appears to be that Mr Maduro’s opponents in Venezuela – presumably including some in the military – might attempt a coup. Mr Trump seems willing to go along with this strategy for now, although relying on a section of patriotic Venezuelan military officers to act in US interests may be the triumph of hope over repeated experiences in Latin America.
I spent some time as a reporter in the region. In Nicaragua, I discussed with Sandinista politicians attempts to overthrow their left-wing regime by the US backing of “Contra” guerrillas. One prominent Sandinista quoted to me the words of a historic Latin American freedom fighter, Simon Bolivar. He was the Venezuelan leader who inspired Latin America's independence from the Spanish Empire. In 1829, Bolivar said that ”the United States appear to be destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty”.
Mr Trump could, however, respond that the corruption and cruelty of the Maduro government is itself plaguing oil-rich Venezuela with misery as a result of corruption. Nonetheless, the big question remains: is the new Trump Caribbean strategy a show of force, the threat of force, or ultimately the use of force?
Perhaps Mr Trump himself does not yet know for sure.
