I get that the reports of a second US attack on a boat in the Caribbean aiming to kill two survivors of the first is troubling. It may well be a war crime. But it is far from the most egregious Trump administration act in recent days. The entire effort to indict drug trafficking with military means is worrisome. The US is conducting war without Congressional approval in a large part of the Caribbean as well as along the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central America:
The entire effort to pressure Venezuela into we know not what is concerning. I am no friend of President Maduro. I’d like to see the legitimate elected president, Edmundo González Urrutia, in power in Caracas. Venezuela is long overdue for a democratic regime. But President Trump is no friend of democracy, at home or abroad.
What is President Trump’s objective? The Defense Department’s Operation Southern Spear avowedly aims to stop drug smuggling. But the Administration’s primary concern, fentanyl, does not come from Venezuela. Nor is Venezuela a major source of cocaine. Spending upwards of $10 million per day on preventing minimal drug smuggling is ridiculous.
If democracy and drug smuggling are not the issue, what is? More than likely Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. Trump is always looking for a business opportunity for himself, his family, or his friends and supporters. If the Trump pressure campaign succeeds, he will expect González Urrutia to deliver on access to Venezuelan oil for Trump’s designees. If he doesn’t he won’t last long.
Never mind that the US is now the largest oil producer in the world and that world oil prices are already falling, putting US producers in difficulty. This is isn’t about benefitting America, or even American oil companies. As usual, it’s about benefitting Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump’s other main foreign policy initiatives are in serious trouble.
In Gaza, the Israelis continue to attack at will while no serious plan to move from a ceasefire to something more permanent has emerged. This suits Prime Minister Netanyahu, as he wants to continue the war. But it puts Trump’s peace project in a difficult spot. Muslim cooperation in providing peacekeepers (the “stabilization force”) depends on a serious plan to disarm Hamas and to transfer governance to the Palestinian Authority, or something linked closely to it. Nothing approaching those requirements has emerged.
Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine into an unacceptable agreement with Russia has also run aground. What Trump really wants are business opportunities in Russia for his friends and family. Ukrainian President Zelensky has used the American proposal as a springboard for his own ideas, supported by the Europeans. Russian President Putin will reject the revised proposition. We seem to be stuck in the same charade that followed Trump’s Alaska meeting with Putin. This is not surprising: neither Zelensky nor Putin is prepared to give up on their incompatible war aims.
Trump’s overblown balloons are deflating rapidly. Netanyahu pays him no mind. Hamas is defiant. Putin plays him like a fiddle. Zelensky has learned to exploit him. Europe has learned to replace him. Maduro is defying him. America First is becoming America deflated. Another three years of this will leave us alone in the world and easy prey for more serious competitors.
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