Since taking office, Trump has failed to deliver results on the main issue plaguing most U.S. voters: the economy. His campaign promises to curb inflation and improve wages have gone nowhere.

Trying to recover from the fiasco of last week’s press conference — broadcast as if it were a national event, in which he feigned ignorance about these problems and claimed the economy was booming — Trump is now focusing more heavily on what he considers two of his successes. The first is the mass expulsion of migrants, part of a promised attempt  to reach one million deportations as quickly as possible. The second is the attacks on Venezuelan vessels and the Maduro regime under the pretext of ending drug trafficking and the influx of fentanyl (which has become an epidemic among the U.S. working class).

However, these two policies also face criticism. First, the unchecked raids by ICE’s paramilitary forces have sparked a wave of solidarity that has included neighborhood organizations confronting immigration police in the streets, boycotts, and even direct sabotage of ICE vehicles. Second, Trump’s “gunboat diplomacy,” and his attacks on Venezuela (not to mention the possibility of a larger war) are highly unpopular, even among Republicans, who are divided between the MAGA and non-MAGA base, including several prominent figures of the MAGA  movement who oppose US interventionist policies.

This has not deterred Trump from pursuing his threats. On the contrary, the more cornered he has become domestically by issues such as the economy, the “civil war” among his MAGA base, and the lurid details of the Epstein case, the more he has sought to create chaos in the international sphere to appear stronger. This includes an openly-interventionist policy regarding what he considers his backyard, now extended to Greenland, which would encompass the entire hemisphere from the far north to Tierra del Fuego.

This was made explicit in the recent National Security Strategy document, which includes containment of China, aggression towards Europe, and total control of the Americas…

The attacks against Venezuelan vessels, which have already claimed more than 100 lives and which have escalated in recent weeks with the announcement of the closure of Venezuelan airspace (which, under any other circumstances, would immediately be considered an act of war), are now compounded by the outright theft of oil tankers carrying Venezuelan fuel. Trump did not hesitate to declare that the seized oil and ships would henceforth belong to the United States.

Now that Trump has gone even further and declared that Venezuela has stolen oil and land from the United States (without demonstration or explanation), it appears clear that the initial discourse of a crusade against drug trafficking was a charade aimed at seizing not only oil, but also all of Venezuela’s resources.

After this admission, all that remains is for Trump to be openly honest in his threats: U.S. attempts to control the continent aim not only to expel China from a region in which it has made inroads over the past few decades but also to plunder the continent’s natural resources through military dominance.

Indeed the list of recent instances of interference in Latin American domestic politics is long. These include: threats against Mexico and Colombia, the imposition of tariffs in Brazil when Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction was announced, the political rescue of Argentinian President Javier Milei before the last elections, the release of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, and support for Nobóa in Ecuador before the referendum on the return of foreign military bases, which he lost.

You might be interested in: Latin America in the Trump Era

But the threats and imperialist rapacity are not limited to South America. This week, Trump reiterated his claims, first declared during his inauguration, that Greenland should be part of the United States. The island’s minerals and rare earth elements are an asset the United States needs in its competition with China. That is why, last Monday, Trump reaffirmed that the United States “needed” Greenland for reasons of “national security.” He did this just one day after appointing Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as “special envoy” to the island. This declaration provoked the anger of Denmark, which exercises colonial control over the island, and also drew rejection from European governments, opening a new chapter of tensions between the European Union and the United States.

But Greenland does not only possess minerals; it has something perhaps even more valuable: a strategic position in the Arctic that allows it to control a navigation and surveillance zone, which China and Russia have strengthened while the United States has seen its naval power decline.

It is this naval decline that Trump attempted to conceal on Monday by pompously announcing the construction of new “Trump-class” warships. This “golden fleet…will help maintain American military supremacy, revitalize the shipbuilding industry, and inspire fear in America’s enemies around the world,” Trump declared, accompanied by AI-generated images of the supposed new ships.

Meanwhile, in the real world, China has already surpassed U.S. naval capacity, with 350 ships compared to the U.S. Navy’s 296. Furthermore, the elimination of shipyards in the United States and the deterioration of the country’s industrial base have caused damage that cannot be repaired overnight, let alone with artificial intelligence. Last year, China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeded U.S. capacity by an astounding 232 times. According to a report leaked by the U.S. Navy, Chinese shipyards can produce approximately 23,250,000 tons, while American shipyards barely reach 100,000 tons.

These figures demonstrate the decline of US hegemony, but this should not be mistaken for weakness. Trump is constantly striving to cross red lines and implement interventionist and meddling policies that must be denounced and opposed.

The threats facing Venezuela are a harbinger of a widespread aggressive policy across the Western Hemisphere which must be met with the establishment of a strong anti-imperialist movement throughout the United States and the region in order to counter the plans of Trump and his Latin American allies.

Originally Published in La Izquierda Diario

Translated and adapted for Left Voice by James Denis Hoff

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