Hal Brands
US presidents have long pledged to prioritize the Western Hemisphere — to put the Americas First, so to speak. Donald Trump is doing it today. The world waits to see if Trump will strike Venezuela, as the Pentagon masses planes and warships in the Caribbean. But coercing Nicolás Maduro’s autocratic, anti-US regime is merely part of a larger campaign to reassert America’s hemispheric hegemony. That campaign is rooted in history and sound strategic logic. It is also fraught with unanswered questions and serious risks.
“The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” Secretary of State John Kerry announced in 2013. Not so fast, Trump has long rejoined. During Trump’s first term, his administration promised to resurrect that two-century old doctrine. It sought, unsuccessfully, to rid the region of Maduro. Trump launched his second term with an inaugural address that seemed like it was stolen from the 19th century. He has pushed a forceful agenda of hemispheric primacy ever since.
The administration pressured Panama to quit China’s Belt and Road Initiative and limit Beijing’s sway over ports along the Panama Canal. Trump extended an economic lifeline to Argentina, aiming to strengthen its pro-US, pro-market government and distance Buenos Aires from Beijing.
The White House forged a deportation alliance with El Salvador. It used threats of military intervention to prod Mexico to get tougher on drug trafficking and illegal migration. Trump threatened governments, in Brazil and Venezuela, that defied US power; he used punitive tariffs as cudgels against Mexico and Canada. He even renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, a symbolic assertion of US dominance in the region to its south.
The centerpiece of this offensive is the showdown with Venezuela. Trump has ramped up lethal strikes against suspected drug traffickers. But the armada he has assembled — soon to be augmented by an aircraft carrier — is vastly more than anything needed for a counternarcotics campaign.
Trump is building to a coercive crescendo meant to send Maduro fleeing, or perhaps an air campaign meant to forcibly fracture his regime. The hope seems to be that taking down the Venezuelan government will set the hemispheric dominoes toppling: It will increase pressure on Cuba and Nicaragua, two other autocracies backed by Russia and China, and motivate other countries to get tough on narco-traffickers, fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment