WASHINGTON DC – At her first press conference of the new year, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made no effort to justify the Trump administration’s raid on Venezuela on legal grounds.
She took no steps to promote the need for democracy in the country, no timeline for fresh elections, nor demands for exiled opposition leaders to be allowed to return. She also had nothing to say about the estimated 863 political prisoners who continue to languish in Venezuela’s prisons.
She did talk extensively about Venezuelan oil, the US’s determination to purloin it and Donald Trump’s hit-list of countries now at risk of being on the receiving end of yet more US military adventurism.
Leavitt portrayed the United States as now exercising what she called “maximum leverage” on Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, after US forces – assisted by their UK brethren – seized the sanctioned Bella 1 oil tanker in the waters of the North Atlantic on Wednesday.
The US showed in both astonishing raids that it can act in any environment at short notice, without a single casualty – and Trump is not hesitant to take dramatic and violent action.
With the world reeling at the rapid acceleration in the US President’s action movie style efforts to get what he wants, Leavitt reiterated that Trump was only just getting started on his mission to seize control of the western hemisphere.
She claimed – again, without any legal justification – that the Venezuelan government was being “fully dictated” to by Trump, and dismissed Nicolás Maduro, the captured President now in detention in New York, as “an illegitimate dictator and an unserious person”.
She failed to deny reports that the administration has ordered Venezuela – a sovereign nation – to cut ties with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, but did say that the US “has made it quite clear to the interim authorities in Venezuela that this is the western hemisphere and American dominance is going to continue”.
With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Trump’s “America First” has become “America Fist”, and that he’s taken the gloves off when it comes to intervention on foreign shores.
Many world leaders will be watching their backs a little more carefully in the coming period as Trump’s strategy becomes clearer – and it becomes evident it could play right into Vladimir Putin’s hands.
A Colombian soldier on the country’s border with Venezuela following Nicolás Maduro’s capture (Photo: Jair F Coll/Getty)Asked whether the Pentagon has drawn up plans to invade Colombia and oust President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump has accused of trafficking cocaine into the US, Leavitt demurred. “That would be a very unwise question for me to answer,” she said with a smile.
In a marked shift in tone, Trump later said he had had a cordial phone conversation with Petro and had invited the Colombian leader to visit the White House.
Leavitt also expressed Trump’s disappointment over Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s refusal to accept US offers of military assistance to combat drug cartels operating on her country’s soil.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNBC, Chris Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, pointed in Cuba’s direction, calling the communist-governed island 90 miles off Florida’s shores “a socialist kleptocracy that’s impoverished its people”. He said the White House expects to see “very significant pressure” on the Cuban government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel and predicted a possible “internally-driven change” on the island.
There have also been threats by Trump to get involved in events in Iran, where demonstrations triggered by the country’s ailing economy have resulted in casualties. Earlier this month, Trump said that if Iran shoots and kills protesters, the US will come to their rescue. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said.
Whether Trump will ultimately send special forces into any of these countries, as he did against Venezuela, remains to be seen, but the mood has notably changed. It’s also unclear how any of them might respond to the threats.
Nicolás Maduro in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents (Photo: XNY/Star Max/GC Images)When it comes to Venezuela, Leavitt assured reporters that “there is a plan” for its future, but proved unable to articulate it. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – increasingly the Trump administration’s clean-up man on foreign policy matters – described a three-point process that may, one day, lead to a change of government in Caracas.
Rubio, accompanied by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, told lawmakers that the US plan involves “stabilisation”, “recovery” and then “transition”.
He told reporters that Venezuela must enter a period of “quarantine” first, in which the US would take full control of its sanctioned oil. “We don’t want it descending into chaos,” he said, describing Washington’s military stranglehold on the industry as “part of that stabilisation and the reason why we understand and believe that we have the strongest leverage possible”.
Rubio told lawmakers that Washington plans to control the Venezuelan oil industry “indefinitely”.
The White House said that private sector engagement is now underway with US oil companies to ensure they are ready to refine and process the up to 50 million barrels that Trump claims the US will shortly receive from Venezuela. “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States,” Trump wrote on social media.
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With each passing hour, Trump’s determination to bully, cajole and – if necessary – attack his neighbours becomes more emboldened.
Albert Ramdin, secretary general of the Organisation of American States, which brings together 35 nations including the US and Canada, has urged the hemisphere to reject Trump’s aggression. “The stability of our region depends on our collective response,” he warned.
It’s a message that Trump is likely to just dismiss, as he continues his increasingly aggressive approach to dealing with other countries in the region and beyond.
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