After failing to win the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump opened 2026 with a stunning military gambit, striking targets inside Venezuela and capturing its leader, Nicolás Maduro, in what many observers have described as a shocking breach of sovereignty.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The weekend escapade in Caracas appeared to show the U.S. President warming to foreign intervention and entanglement he’d previously campaigned against, leading a number of other countries to worry, with reason, that they too might be in his sights.
Here’s what to know about Trump’s potential next targets.
Colombia
In Colombia, which borders Venezuela, President Gustavo Petro condemned the U.S.’s military actions in Caracas. Petro posted on X early Saturday morning that his government “rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America” and also urged a convening of the United Nations Security Council to address the matter.
Trump, meanwhile, has not only tried to justify the intervention, saying Saturday in a meandering speech that Venezuela under Maduro was “increasingly hosting foreign adversaries” and “acquiring menacing, offensive weapons,” but to expand his scope of potential further intervention. Trump referred to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a U.S. foreign policy maxim asserting U.S. influence over the Western Hemisphere, saying: “The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.” This could be called the “Don-roe” Doctrine, he said.
Trump’s declaration comes after the Administration released a National Security Strategy document last year that noted a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine that reflects the Administration’s apparent targeting of Latin American states, with a goal “to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.” The Administration has already for months deployed a strong military presence in the region under the pretext of curbing the flow of drugs into the U.S.
Colombia and the U.S. have had a decadeslong security alliance, but those relations have increasingly been strained amid the feuding between their leaders. Colombia’s Petro has vocally criticized Trump and his military campaign against Venezuela, while Trump has described Petro as an “illegal drug leader” who has failed to curb his country’s supply of cocaine to the U.S.
In early December, when Trump threatened to expand his anti-drug-trafficking military operations—so far focused on Venezuela—to potentially cover Colombia next, Petro invited Trump to come to the country to witness how Bogotá has tried to address its cocaine problem. But Petro’s invite also came with a warning. “Do not threaten our sovereignty, because you will awaken the Jaguar,” Petro posted on X at the time. “Attacking our sovereignty is declaring war, do not damage two centuries of diplomatic relations.”
Weeks later, Trump claimed the country had at least three major cocaine factories that it needed to shut down, and he continued lambasting Petro. “He’s no friend of the United States,” Trump said. “He’s very bad. Very bad guy and he’s got to watch his ass.”
Aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump referred to Petro again: “Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long.” Asked whether it meant the U.S. would pursue a military operation against Colombia, Trump answered, “It sounds good to me.”
Petro appeared to respond to Trump on X: “Today I will check if Trump’s words in English translate as the national press says. Therefore, later I will respond to them once I know what Trump’s illegitimate threat really means.”
Cuba
In a press conference following the attack on Venezuela, Trump was asked Saturday if Cuba and its President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, could take away a message from the U.S.’s intervention. “I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation right now,” Trump responded.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants and a critic of the Díaz-Canel regime—also issued a warning. “If I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned—at least a little bit,” Rubio said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) also told Axios that the leaders of Cuba and Iran should be “worried” following the attack on Venezuela.
But on Sunday, Trump appeared to walk back the idea of U.S. interference in Cuba. “I think it’s just going to fall,” he said. “I don’t think we need any action.”
Díaz-Canel, who condemned the attack on Venezuela and demanded the release of Maduro and his wife, has not yet publicly reacted to Trump’s statements about Cuba. However, he did post on X: “Our #ZoneOfPeace is being brutally assaulted … Homeland or Death We Shall Overcome!”
Greenland
Trump also used the Venezuela intervention as a springboard to revive his calls to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump told the Atlantic on Sunday, when asked if that was part of what Secretary of State Marco Rubio was referring to when he said that “when [Trump] tells you that he’s going to do something, when he tells you he’s going to address a problem, he means it.”
Trump added others could decide how the U.S.’s actions in Venezuela translate for Greenland’s fate. “They are going to have to view it themselves,” Trump said. “You know, I wasn’t referring to Greenland at that time. But we do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense,” he said, hinting at the arctic island’s relevance to U.S. national security as it is “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.”
Concerns over an American takeover of Greenland were further fueled by Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and a former White House official, when she posted an image on X late Saturday showing a map of Greenland in the U.S. American flag’s colors with the caption: “SOON.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen condemned the Administration’s latest overtures in a statement on Sunday. “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland,” Frederiksen said. “The United States has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Commonwealth.”
Iran
A day before the U.S. intervened in Venezuela, Trump threatened potential U.S. intervention in Iran. In a Friday post on Truth Social, Trump warned that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” He added: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
It’s unclear how exactly Trump would intervene in the country. But his threat came as widespread protests—fueled by a devaluing currency and rapid inflation—have rattled the country in the past week, leading to violent clashes involving security forces.
Iran already faced U.S. military intervention last year, when the U.S. struck three key Iranian nuclear sites in June amid repeated threats by Trump of pursuing regime change there.
Iranian officials swiftly countered Trump’s latest warning. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of Iran’s Parliament, posted on X on Friday that if the U.S. intervenes, “all American centers and forces across the entire region will be legitimate targets for us in response to any potential adventurism.” Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi also called Trump’s remarks “reckless and dangerous” in a post on X, saying that Iranians “will forcefully reject any interference in their internal affairs” and that Iran’s Armed Forces “are on standby and know exactly where to aim in the event of any infringement of Iranian sovereignty.”
Following the attack on Venezuela, Iran was also among the U.S.’s adversaries that issued strong condemnation: its foreign ministry said that the U.S. military attack was a violation not only of Venezuela’s sovereignty but also of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter and rules of international law.
Mexico
On Fox & Friends on Sunday, Trump warned that “something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” which he has criticized as a major drug production and transit nation.
Trump has said he has repeatedly offered Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, with whom he claimed a cordial relationship, U.S. assistance to “take out the cartels” in the country, only to be refused. “She’s very frightened of the cartels,” Trump said Sunday.
On Air Force One later, Trump floated potential action on Mexico again, saying: “Mexico has to get their act together, because [drugs are] pouring through Mexico, and we’re going to have to do something,” Trump said.
Sheinbaum has so far not responded to Trump’s remarks. But following the attack on Venezuela, she shared the Mexico government’s statement of condemnation on X, citing the text of the United Nations Charter, which states that member-states like the U.S. should “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
But experts say Trump’s braggadocio about potential further U.S. intervention in Mexico and elsewhere may not necessarily translate into action and actually, alongside specific targeted interventions like the one against Maduro, amount to more of a pressure tactic.
“If you look at the way Trump operates, what he always hopes is other countries will do what he wants them to do without him having to use very much force,” David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s U.S. Studies Centre, told Al Jazeera. “That these short, spectacular displays of force, like the bombing in Iran, this operation in Venezuela, will scare other countries into doing what Trump wants them to do.”
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