Trump Keeps America's War Tradition Alive

The administration's recent military actions are a continuation of America’s interventionist legacy.

ON the heels of a covert military operation — sanctioned by the Trump administration — which has landed Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro on United States soil to face charges for narco-terrorism and drug trafficking (according to official narratives peddled by the administration), the drums for more endless wars grow raucously.

At the helm: a boisterous, “America First” president, whose New Year’s resolution was, ironically, “peace on Earth,” and an administration comprised of an assortment of war-mongering officials salivating for the slightest taste of pillage, plunder, and profit.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump’s key campaign platform, to make America great again, included a vow to “prevent World War III, [and] restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East.” His plans to ensure economic relief also included a commitment to “end global chaos and restore Peace through Strength.” That was more than a year ago. Now, his administration’s actions, in its first year, seem to be directly undermining those very commitments.

While official narratives for Maduro’s sudden seizure from power asserts that the unprecedented action by Trump’s administration was “tied to a 2020 indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice” linked to narco-terrorism, Trump, at every turn, has made it beyond clear that the primary reason for U.S.’s intervention in Venezuela is for one thing, and one thing only: OIL!

During a January 3rd press conference, following the special forces operation that delivered Maduro to the U.S., Trump issued the following statement:

“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping, and what could have taken place. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so.”

A day later, aboard the Air Force One, Trump reassured the press — instantly deflating the euphemistic narco-terror narrative, adopted by Republican senator Lindsey Graham, to describe the mission of the operation:

“…And the oil companies are going to go in and rebuild their system. They’re going to spend billions of dollars. And they’re going to take the oil out of the ground, and we’re taking back what they stole.”

That the Trump administration is somewhat transparent about its brazen actions is remarkable, especially compared to former administrations which were more adept at managing their corrupt actions through painstakingly curated narratives. This degree of transparency — not to be misconstrued with Trump’s claim that his administration is the “most transparent in history” — may be a symptom of a president, and an administration, who no longer believes in diplomacy, international laws, the constitutional procedure, or even the pretense needed to sway public opinion to justify the administration’s actions. It’s a bold declaration of authority over any guiding rules and regulations on the world stage. And that may very well be the precursor required to launch the U.S. into more unsustainable wars, across multiple fronts — a recipe for disaster.

By successfully removing the Venezuelan president from office, Trump has since felt emboldened to threaten the interim President of Venezuela Delcy Rodriguez of a worse outcome — “she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro” — should her government not fall in line with the demands of the United States. In the same span of time, the president has additionally made a series of hostile threats to a host of countries including Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Greenland, and Iran, foreshadowing a U.S. intervention and/or regime change in those regions; an effort the president claims will strengthen U.S. allies in the Western Hemisphere.

Evidently, it’s only a matter of time before these unauthorized military actions, threats, and unprecedented events balloon into an inevitable crisis that is too late to walk back from. As the world watches on from the sidelines, the question is why Trump and his administration have suddenly resorted to ratcheting up tensions globally and provoking more wars than is necessary?

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