Trump’s empire-building leaves the UK looking weaker than ever ...Middle East

One of the best books written about Donald Trump is Audience of One, by a New York Times TV critic. It is about Trump’s lifelong addiction to TV screens.

Inevitably, this was how Trump watched the Delta Force raid to abduct Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Trump told Fox News “it was literally like I was watching a television show. If you would’ve seen the speed, the violence, it was an amazing thing”.

The raid – after a lengthy naval build up replete with missile strikes on so-called ‘drug boats’ – was typical of Trump’s approach to military operations. It was rapid, attention-grabbing and with no sense of long-term military commitment, echoing strikes last year in Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Iran.

Trump wants to show he is a strongman but also wants to reassure his Maga base that he is not repeating the ‘endless’ wars of his predecessors – though how he proposes to “run” Venezuela was left vague during yesterday’s press conference.

There were also threats against the presidents of Colombia and Mexico.

Events in Venezuela are within US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s shrinking sphere of influence, with much of his diplomatic remit having been usurped by Trump’s special envoys such as Steve Witkoff, Massad Boulos (Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law) and former Apprentice producer Mark Burnett for the UK.

As a Cuban-American, Rubio has a lifelong interest in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Cuban regime he hates depends on cheap Venezuelan fuel in return for doctors, nurses and intelligence officers, who in their black uniforms shadow Venezuelan army officers. Recent events could be a major blow to it.

Without Venezuelan oil imports, the Cuban government might collapse, since Russia and Iran, its other allies, have their own problems to deal with.

Even so, we should not overestimate the role of oil, even if Trump has spoken of little else. Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves – roughly 333 billion barrels – but Chevron, which has operated in Venezuela since 1923, only manages to pump a third of Venezuela’s one million barrels a day. This is because the Orinoco Oil Belt’s output is heavily sulphurous and viscous, meaning that demand is low. It’s primarily used for asphalt and heavy diesel.

The country’s oil infrastructure is also dilapidated and would require enormous investment, which US oil majors will be reluctant to make. Even within Latin America, Argentina, Colombia and Guyana produce almost as much oil, without the attendant political instability.

The second point about this latest intervention is that it reflects Trump’s belief in a Darwinian international model, based on strong men controlling their own spheres of influence.

Trump envisages a continental empire, including Canada, Greenland, Panama and the resources of Latin America.

In return, it seems, President Vladimir Putin can help himself to a third of Ukraine, provided the US gets access to key resources, while China can become a regional hegemon in the Western Pacific, provided it continues to supply the US with rare earth metals in return for advanced semi-conductors.

In such a world of wolves, the weak need to accommodate the will of the strong. The weak increasingly includes the UK and Europe.

So far our prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, whose entire professional career has involved respect for the rule of law, has said he wants to investigate “the facts”, despite Trump and his team having laid them out with more threats against other countries. This sort of caution does Starmer no favours as a leader.

Let’s consider some more facts that Trump did not mention.

Trump’s main excuse for this latest spasm of aggression was that the Maduro regime was a drug cartel, responsible, it is claimed, for saturating the US with toxic substances. But most drugs consumed in the US – notably fentanyl and cocaine – originate in Mexico and Colombia, respectively, with Venezuelan criminals more focused on Europe and West Africa.

Maduro’s government was actually at war with a major drug gang, Tren de Aragua, which, like the Salvadorean M13, was formed within US prisons to protect its members against the more formidable Mexicans.

Mexico’s paramilitary Los Zetas cartel, for its part, originated out of special forces soldiers trained by the US in Fort Bragg, and their hosts had a nice sideline in supplying them with heavy weaponry beyond what they can buy at gun fairs.

These soldiers switched from acting as bodyguards to being cartel bosses. Poisons flow both ways in that hemisphere.

The use of Delta Force in the raid on Venezuela is interesting as a bestselling book released last year, The Fort Bragg Drug Cartel, claimed its North Carolina headquarters were a major drug-trafficking emporium operating within the US itself.

Those who believe the Trump administration represents a break from the interventionism of the George W Bush era are likely to be disappointed, not least Trump’s Maga base.

If it wasn’t already clear that Trump ‘the peacemaker’ has developed a strong taste for military intervention that could have long-term implications, it is now.

However, the key delusion out of the US is the belief in surgical strikes, followed by imposition of a local ‘democratic’ client, but with no appreciation of the extremely messy aftermath.

Take a look at Iraq after Saddam Hussein, or Libya after the death of Muammar Gaddafi. Even if Venezuela is not riven with sectarianism or malign foreign influences, it seems unlikely that the Venezuelan opposition Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado, who Trump has publicly dismissed, will prevail against those in Maduro’s sphere who still control the armed forces and sizeable armed militias.

Trump doesn’t care about the state of democracy in Venezuela, or for that matter in Iran, where he claims he will act if the regime continues to repress those protesting against a cost-of-living crisis.

Like Venezuela, Iran is a big complex country, rife with unforeseen dangers for the geopolitically unwary.

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Looking ahead, what moral authority can the US now have to denounce any Russian or Chinese kidnappings and regime changes, say in Estonia or Taiwan, after its breach of international law in Caracas? And what happens if Denmark falls victim to some military stunt to strip it of Greenland, which Trump has coveted?

The raid on Venezuela and the arrest of Maduro has shown that, with neither Congress nor America’s allies offering much in the way of pushback, Trump is increasingly likely to feel that he can do what he likes, with little repercussions. This may be true in the short-term, but it is storing up major challenges for the future.

Michael Burleigh is Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas. His books include Small Wars, Faraway Places: The Genesis of the Modern World

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