Monday Open Thread: Trump Has His Long-Awaited War
That escalated quickly.
Roughly less than two weeks after the Trump Administration amped up its aggression in the Caribbean by seizing a second Venezuelan oil tanker, they went full imperialist this past weekend by abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and shipping him to New York City on a four-count indictment that will charge him with allegedly leading a 25-year narco-terrorism conspiracy. This is the latest in the administration's ongoing conflict with Venezuela, which previously included the unsanctioned killing of over 100 alleged narcoterrorists through targeted strikes in the Caribbean. This has been a theme for the second Trump Administration, which has blamed Venezuela for the flow of illegal drugs into the United States and has stated that those drugs are being trafficked by two Venezuelan-based gangs. The Administration terminated TPS protections for over 400,000 Venezuelan refugees last year and sent over 250 to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, claiming they were among the worst of the worst. However, an unaired segment from CBS News revealed that only 8 individuals were classified as "dangerous," and the vast majority were refugees seeking asylum in the United States. What we've seen has been an 11-month GOP misinformation campaign that did everything possible to try to justify this past Saturday's strike.
And it failed miserably.
Because we know that Donald Trump is too stupid to play along. His announcement Saturday gave away the game and revealed that Maduro's removal will allow the U.S. to "run" Venezuela and fix the oil infrastructure. Last time I checked, oil had nothing to do with narco-terrorism. But of course, we knew that it was never about the drugs. If it were, then Trump would never have pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of conspiring to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Or instead, Trump and his administration would have gone after Colombia, a country much more involved in the sale and transportation of illegal narcotics than Venezuela. But Venezuela has what Colombia does not: massive oil reserves. And with those reserves comes the opportunity for Trump to bring in American oil companies to do the rebuilding.
The problem is that this was apparently news to the oil companies themselves. Currently, Chevron is the only American oil company operating in the country, and others have yet to weigh on on their alleged involvement in the rebuilding. Like everything this administration does, this seems to be yet another quarter-baked idea with more questions than answers. The simplest among them is what "running" Venezuela now means. While Trump officials have been extremely hesitant to state that it would involve boots on the ground, they clearly lack a strategy about what comes next. Does the U.S. work closely with Maduro's VP, now acting-president? What makes her any different than Maduro? What happens if there is inevitable resistance from Venezuelan oil companies? Is there a red line for when American ground troops would be needed? What is the endgame of all this?
This is not Panama 1990, redux. This is worse. This is Trump, Pete Kegseth, and Stephen Miller giving into their worst instincts. This is Little Marco Rubio finally getting a chance to wear his big boy pants and vow that Cuba may very well be next. This is classic wagging the dog to distract the American public from Trump's disastrous end of 2025, which included the end of his administration's National Guard deployments in Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles, the undoing of tariffs for furniture and Italian pasta, and the continued pressure to release the full Epstein Files. While George H.W. Bush was far from a brilliant man, he knew that the U.S. would be in no position to remain in Panama after the military intervention ended. Yet, here we have a Trump Administration, willingly ignorant of history, that has already admitted they don't have a damn clue what it means to "run" Venezuela in Maduro's absence. The chances of this escalating into the latest American imperial quagmire are extremely high, especially with the GOP's complete and utter fealty to the current administration. There are no good Republicans left willing to openly defy their orange overlord, and Democrats remain out of power until this time next year. In the interim, we have to endure Donald the Dove celebrating his FIFA Peace Prize the only way he knows how: by starting a war in our hemisphere.
Later today, we'll see the kangaroo court arranged for Nicolas Maduro. We'll continue to see international outcry over the unilateral United States military intervention. Our allies, what few we have left, will now be completely uneasy dealing with what is clearly a dangerous and deranged presidential administration. Russia is now a wildcard as Putin is (finally) realizing that Donald Trump has outlived his usefulness. China sees this Venezuelan seizure as a direct challenge to its growing sphere of influence in the region. Without any adults left in the room, we are left at the whims of a mentally and physically deteriorating narcissist who is giving into his worst instincts. Never before has the United States had such a dangerous and deranged individual and his sycophants at the helm of government. Never again can we make such a disastrous mistake.
This is your Monday Trump-Administration-At-War open thread.