Uh huh. From what I understand, nothing in the western hemisphere is considered “overseas” anymore, so I’m sure he thinks he was technically right.
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I wish a reporter would ask Trump to explain the history of the Monroe Doctrine to the American people. I’m fairly sure he hadn’t heard of it until a couple of weeks ago and would say something like, “it means I can do whatever I want.” (And then he’d drift off to something about windmills and the ballroom and the stolen election.)
And sadly, he’s not actually wrong. The Monroe Doctrine is bullshit. It was promulgated in 1827 as a response to European powers trying to claim more land in the Western hemisphere and has subsequently been used to excuse American interventionism in Latin America and elsewhere. It’s a relic of the 19th century and has no place in the current world order.
I thought this pithy analysis was pretty good:
Its invocation in the twenty-first century reflects not strategic wisdom but rather the intellectual bankruptcy of a foreign policy establishment unable to imagine alternatives to interventionism. The doctrine’s promise to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere has morphed into a presumptuous claim that Washington should manage all regional affairs—a mission impossible that serves neither American interests nor regional stability.
We’ve been messing around in Latin America since the 1800s. It’s almost always been a huge problem for the people who live there and bought the U.S. nothing but trouble. I find it hard to be believe that this clown car of a presidency will be the one to finally make it all work out for everyone. All Trump cares about is money, power and vengeance and the rest of them either want to punish half the people or all of the people in the region. That doesn’t offer much hope for a good outcome.
Here’s how the Trump administration sees it:
update —
Trump said he was ready to let Bobby Jr “go wild” on science and health and he’s doing it:
Federal health officials on Monday announced dramatic revisions to the slate of vaccines recommended for American children, reducing the number of diseases prevented by routine shots to 11 from 17. Jim O’Neill, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has updated the agency’s immunization schedule to reflect the changes, effective immediately, officials said at a news briefing.
The announcement is a seismic shift in federal vaccine policy, and perhaps the most significant change yet in public health practice by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, who has long sought to reduce the number of shots American children receive.
The states, not the federal government, have the authority to mandate vaccinations. But recommendations from the C.D.C. greatly influence state regulations. Mr. Kennedy and his appointees have made other changes to the childhood vaccination schedule, but those have had smaller impact.
The new schedule circumvents the detailed and methodical evidence-based process that has underpinned vaccine recommendations in the nation for decades. Until now, a federal panel of independent advisers typically reviewed scientific data for each new vaccine, and when and how it should be administered to children.
Public health experts expressed outrage at the sweeping revisions, saying federal officials did not present evidence to support the changes or incorporate input from vaccine experts. “The abrupt change to the entire U.S. childhood vaccine schedule is alarming, unnecessary and will endanger the health of children in the United States,” said Dr. Helen Chu, a physician and immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and a former member of the federal vaccine advisory committee.
Dr. Chu also took issue with the health officials’ claim that the move would increase trust in vaccines and boost immunization rates. It will do the opposite, she warned. “Already, parents are worried about what they are hearing in the news about safety of vaccines, and this will increase confusion and decrease vaccine uptake,” Dr. Chu said.
This makes me want to cry. There’s no reason to do this. It’s the result of snake oil wellness weirdos and right wing conspiracy theorists taking over our government. Until now we had an excellent record of stopping childhood illnesses that used to sicken and kill many children in this country. For all of our ills as a society this was something we actually did right.
I don’t think anything symbolizes how far down the rabbit hole we’ve fallen. Putting Bobby and his freak show in charge of the nation’s health agencies would be like making Laura Loomer a Pentagon correspondent.
Oh wait… we did that too.
Sen. Mark Kelly:
Over twenty-five years in the U.S. Navy, thirty-nine combat missions, and four missions to space, I risked my life for this country and to defend our Constitution – including the First Amendment rights of every American to speak out. I never expected that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would attack me for doing exactly that.
My rank and retirement are things that I earned through my service and sacrifice for this country. I got shot at. I missed holidays and birthdays. I commanded a space shuttle mission while my wife Gabby recovered from a gunshot wound to the head– all while proudly wearing the American flag on my shoulder. Generations of servicemembers have made these same patriotic sacrifices for this country, earning the respect, appreciation, and rank they deserve.
Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that. If Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in our country’s history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn’t get it.
I will fight this with everything I’ve got — not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.
Everyone understands that this is as much payback for demoting that MAGA freak Ronnie Jackson for his drunken behavior and sexual harassment when he was serving as the White House doctor as it is against quelling dissent, right? They restored his rank the minute Trump got back in office.
Kelly is in John McCain’s former seat, another storied military hero from Arizona, the home of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. MAGA’s treatment of both McCain and Kelly perfectly illustrates just how phony their flag waving patriotism really is. But since half the country is suffering from a debilitating case of arrested development I guess this whole thing in a big “LOL” to them.
It’s pathetic.
The Washington Post reports that their poll shows a split, 40 approve, 42 disapprove, with the usual partisan divide.
This is interesting:
Looking forward, The Post poll finds more Americans oppose than support the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country, with a significant 30 percent saying they are unsure. Trump has said the United States will “run the country” for an unspecified period.
Normally there would be more Republicans in favor but they’ve been trained in phony MAGA speak about “forever wars” so they don’t yet know what to say.
An overwhelming majority of Americans say the Venezuelan people should decide the leadership of the country, while only 6 percent say the U.S. should do so.
There’s bipartisan agreement on this question, with upward of 9 in 10 Republicans, Democrats and independents saying Venezuelans should choose their leaders.
Trump will just mouth some BS to appease the Republicans but I don’t know if his oily nation building will go over with anyone else. These splendid little wars are going to be costly, possibly in blood as well as treasure and I’m not sure how much he can fake that.
It’s too early to know exactly how this is really going over. People have been on holiday and are just getting back to work. We’ll have to check back in a couple of weeks. But I suspect this isn’t going to boost his popularity. This war is unnecessary and confounding to most Americans who see the country as being mired in domestic problems. But we’ll have to see.
I can’t say I’m surprised to see the Republican support despite all the pretenses about isolationism. They love war. It’s one of the reasons they’re Republicans.
Update: For any of the 90% who think the Venezuelan people should decide their future, don’t get your hopes for that happening any time soon. Trump has his own priorities:
One hemispheric hegemon
Okay, I missed it. Somewhere Donald Trump, the former professional wrestling owner, crossed over from theatrical bluster and fake punches to the real thing. The thuggish ICE raids and federal troops in the streets of Los Angeles last year should have been a strong clue. Now Trump the Somnolent has attacked Venezuela, deposed and captured its awful leader, and claims the U.S. is running the country.
“Under what legal authority?” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked SecState Marco Rubio. Rubio filibustered and would not answer.
In another Sunday appearance, Rubio appeared to threaten Cuba.
Don’t forget Trump’s interest in Greenland seen in this tidbit from The Atlantic:
Trump told [Michael] Scherer that Greenland had not been on his mind when he’d been ousting Maduro—but he then proceeded to offer real-time foreign-policy musings on that very topic, in one of his characteristic verbal weaves. “You know, I wasn’t referring to Greenland at that time, but we do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump said. “And we need it for defense. You know, it’s surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships. We need Greenland.” (Katie Miller, the wife of the top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, posted an image on social media on Saturday of Greenland covered by an American flag, with the caption: “SOON.” And Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, urged Washington yesterday to end its threats, which she said make “absolutely no sense.”)
The U.S. annexing Greenland makes “absolutely no sense” except to a man who’s obsessed with size and doesn’t understand the Mercator projection. Trump wants to make the U.S. a hemispheric hegemon. Trump has gone to Jack D. Ripper land and Republicans controlling Congress lack the balls stop him and his gang of vandals.
The U.S. already has “wide access to Greenland” for military purposes via NATO, Frederiksen noted. The New York Times adds:
A number of Denmark’s European neighbors, as well as the European Union, repeated their longstanding support for the country’s territorial integrity.
“We would recall that Greenland is an ally to the U.S. and is also covered by the NATO alliance, and that is a big, big difference” from the situation in Venezuela, Paula Pinho, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said at a news conference on Monday.
“No one decides for Greenland and Denmark but Greenland and Denmark themselves,” President Alexander Stubb of Finland wrote on social media.
But Trump “has always been drunk on fantasies of power. His entire rhetorical repertoire consists of frantic boasts and foolish words,” observes The Bulwark. His boasts that U.S. oil companies will rush into Venezuela and reap huge profits smacks of Cloud Cuckoo Land:
“We’re going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said during a press conference Saturday.
Trump lacked the WWE pyrotechnics, but the over-the-top bluster is the same.
The companies will pay for investments in Venezuela themselves, Trump claimed. They’ll be reimbursed. Wait, who, us? snarks The Bulwark.
“I don’t see anything that gives me the sense that this is a ripe opportunity,” Landon Derentz, an energy analyst at the Atlantic Council tells Politico.
Over my career, I was involved in major chemical plant engineer/design/construct work (though not oil refining). The lead times for assessment, design, procurement, contracting and construction will far exceed Trump’s term.
No U.S. oil executive will be committing billions to replacing decrepit refining infrastructure overseas based on Trumpish bullshitting. He was going to end the Ukraine war overnight, too, as you recall.
Trump will be long dead before any investment pays off. I’d stall until that happens and then see what comes next. There are so many IFs in the Politico piece, I can’t see an upside to rushing in to validate Trump’s boasting. The oil titans are not that stupid.
But Trump is. It is up to us to stop him, The Bulwark urges:
Trump is our president. He’s acting in our name. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to undo all the dangerous mistakes he’s already made. And we won’t be able to stop him from continuing to indulge in frantic boasts. But an awful lot depends on whether we can limit the damage that he seeks to bring about over the next three years, and whether we can at least hold out hope of a responsible road ahead.
The danger that “Trump’s vanity and grandiosity will lead him to try to seize Greenland is real.” The Danes think so too.
The Donroe Doctrine
What was immediately a joke is no longer. The Atlantic lays out what the U.S. attack on Venezuela means for U.S. foreign policy, at least for those on Donald Trump’s “naughty” list (gift link):
In Marco Rubio’s telling, the stunning events in Venezuela on Saturday illustrate an essential truth—possibly the essential truth—about Donald Trump’s presidency: Global leaders cross him at their peril. “I don’t understand yet how they haven’t figured this out,” Trump’s secretary of state told reporters at Mar-a-Lago just hours after the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
World leaders could be forgiven for not understanding the simplicity of the Trump Doctrine, especially those who assume that the world’s dominant superpower still possesses complicated mechanisms for the manufacture of foreign-policy strategies. The country that gave the world the Truman Doctrine and the Reagan Doctrine as well as Trump’s apparent favorite, the Monroe Doctrine, now embraces the plainest and most ostentatiously bellicose of national-security policies: Fuck around and find out. Trump’s own Pentagon chief, the self-styled (until Congress approves the title change) secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, said as much when he told the nation that Maduro “effed around, and he found out.”
That’s when Hegseth wasn’t snapping towels with the boys in a Pentagon shower room.
If the Fuck Around and Find Out Doctrine doesn’t sound like a concept for a stable and predictable foreign policy—one purpose of Washington’s doctrine-articulation complex—then maybe you can sympathize with those who Rubio says are still struggling to get it. Some experts reject the idea that something this crude even earns the right to be called a doctrine. As John Bolton, currently a Trump nemesis but once one of his first-term national-security advisers, told us, “There is no Trump Doctrine: No matter what he does, there is no grand conceptual framework; it’s whatever suits him at the moment.” Kori Schake, the director of foreign- and defense-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned us that “we shouldn’t ennoble Trump policy by saying there’s a doctrine.”
Many on the left are still attempting to understand the U.S. action against Venezuela in rational, geopolitical terms. A lengthy post at Renegade Resources posits: The Venezuelan Oil Narative [sic] is PURE THEATRE. Our true goal is to eliminate threats in Venezuela posed by Chinese, Iranian, and Russian activities in our hemisphere.
Tracy Shuchart argues:
The Pentagon approved this operation because Venezuela presented a convergence of strategic threats from all three major US adversaries that exceeded the threshold for military action, with each adversary establishing operational presence that created compounding strategic vulnerabilities.
Read the detailed analysis for why this makes sense: strategic minerals exploited by China, Iranian drone manufacturing, and Russian weapons and training.
This convergence transformed Venezuela from a problematic narco-state into a strategic threat that exceeded the Pentagon’s tolerance threshold. Critical minerals are the foundation of modern weapons systems in the same way that oil access was foundation of 20th century military operations. Chinese monopolization of processing creates supply chain vulnerability that sanctions and market mechanisms cannot resolve, equivalent to hostile control of Persian Gulf chokepoints. Chinese operational control at extraction sites in the Western Hemisphere represents strategic encirclement. Iranian drone manufacturing 1,200 miles from Miami represents unacceptable adversary power projection. Russian military integration provides intelligence capabilities and force projection platform.
The Renegade Resources post is a sobering read and news to me. Not my area. I do not preclude the possibility that someone from Hegseth’s office came across Pentagon planning for addressing these strategic threats. Perhaps they took it to Hegseth who eagerly said, “Hey, let’s do that” and presented the idea to Trump.
Except. Trump 2.0 has lobotomized any government that could pull off any vaguely Mission Impossible strategery. I see no one in Trump’s inner circle (or left in the Pentagon) who possesses that depth of strategic understanding in the Renegade Resources post. As for Trump, his understanding of the world arrested its development in the late 1970s or early ’80s. Trump is the very image of a man who thinks with his dick. So is Hegseth.
So I’m still skeptical that we aren’t intelligent people pursuing our rationalist need to impose logic on Trumpish chaos. And perhaps to find it where it doesn’t exist.
Trump’s natural instinct is to pitch Venezuela as a rich source of oil, whatever strategic objectives may have been born deep in the Pentagon before he regained office. “Trump talks about oil because voters understand oil and the narrative has been established since Iraq,” writes Shuchart. The oil narrative may be theater, but it’s also the kind of simple bedtime story Trump reads to himself, and the only way he’s capable of understanding it. Others in his orbit, like Rubio (he’d like to topple the government in Cuba), have their own agendas that don’t involve oil.
Trump 2.0 is grifter’s all the way down, led at the top by Trump’s avarice, grievances, and his feral instinct for self-preservation. And by Miller’s raging xenophobia. And Trump is still desperate to join an international autocrats club that wouldn’t have an idiot like him as a member. Maybe a little muscular showing out will get him past the membership committee.
I do love this “Daily Wire” host’s inane disclaimer that he’s “as non-interventionist as anyone can possibly be.” And “International law is fake and gay” is a side splitter. What a comedian.
My only question is why these American heroes have such a small vision. It’s not the 1800s. so why are we restrained to just the Western Hemisphere? We have the most nuclear weapons and the biggest military. Why not take whatever we want on the whole planet? Who are these foreigners to tell us no?
I say that as a reflexive non-interventionist, of course.
They’re so darned proud of their memeing.
If people actually watched the press conference yesterday what they saw was downright terrifying. As James Fallows wrote:
Trump himself looked and sounded very bad. He slurred and slumped more than usual. His eyes fluttered many times toward seeming shut. He had trouble working his way through big words in the written script. His off-script riffs were from a very small span of his standard repertoire. (“We’re a respected country again, like never before,” etc.) Yes, he had probably been up all night. But even for him, he looked bad.
When answering one of the many policy questions that Trump shunted to him, Marco Rubio found himself saying, “It’s a country run by incompetent, senile men.” He was talking about Cuba. But even as the words came from his mouth, with Trump standing with drooping eyes behind him (as shown above), you could see Rubio wishing he had phrased the point a different way.
It was one of his worst performances and his incoherent rambling has caused a tremendous amount of confusion.
I guess this is a Rubio operation but we’ve had reports that it’s really a Stephen Miller op and Hegseth and Vance are also hovering around trying to get in on the action. There are as many different goals as there are Trump toadies manipulating the tired old man.
It’s a recipe for disaster.