After Maduro capture, Trump's tough talk evokes a return to the days of
American imperialism
[January 06, 2026]
By AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump hasn't minced words about the
larger message he's trying to send the world with the U.S. military raid
to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit the deposed Venezuelan leader and
his wife to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.
“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere," Trump declared following
Maduro's capture, “will never be questioned again.”
In the days since the audacious raid, Trump and his team have doubled
down on the notion that the new focus on American preeminence in the
hemisphere is here to stay. He also held up Maduro's capture to make the
case to neighbors to get in line or potentially face consequences.
Trump’s rhetoric harkens back to the muscular talk of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries when American presidents deployed the military for
territorial and resource conquests, including to Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Hawaii, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican
Republic.
“There’s been periods, Vietnam and Iraq, which have evoked questions
about a return to American imperialism, but the U.S. leaders’ messages
in those periods were cloaked in talk of democracy. The way Trump is
talking about it is something we haven’t seen in a very long time.” said
Edward Frantz, a historian at the University of Indianapolis.
In the aftermath of the operation, Trump's tough talk has been been
directed at titular allies in Greenland — where he renewed calls for the
U.S. to take over the Danish territory for national security reasons —
and Mexico. Trump says America's southern neighbor needs to “get their
act together” fighting drug cartels.
Trump has also warned that longtime adversary Cuba is “going down” now
that Maduro, who has provided deeply discounted oil to the economically
isolated government in Havana, has been deposed. And the president has
heightened anxiety with Venezuela's neighbor, telling reporters that a
military operation in Colombia — the epicenter of global cocaine
production — "sounds good to me."
The Republican president has also said his administration will “run”
Venezuela policy and threatened the country's new leader, interim
President Delcy Rodríguez, with an outcome worse than Maduro's if she
does not “do what’s right.” He's made plain that he expects Caracas to
open its vast oil reserves to U.S. energy companies, further igniting
speculation about American overreach.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the
biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the
badly broken infrastructure — the oil infrastructure — and start making
money for the country,” Trump said over the weekend.
The Venezuela incursion has split Latin America, with Trump‑aligned
leaders mostly from the right applauding the ouster, and non‑aligned
leaders condemning it on sovereignty grounds. It's sharpened concerns
that Trump might actually be serious about his desire to annex Greenland
as well.
Leaning on Monroe Doctrine, Trump puts neighbors on edge
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned Monday that Trump would
mark the undoing of the transatlantic military alliance, NATO, if he
attempts to follow through on his assertion that the U.S. “absolutely”
needs to take over Greenland for national security reasons. The
alliance, which includes the U.S. and Denmark, has been a linchpin of
post-World War II security.
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily,
then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.
In the early part of the 20th century, American leaders repeatedly
turned to the Monroe Doctrine, a foundational U.S. foreign policy
document authored by the nation's fifth president, which had been aimed
at opposing European meddling in the Western Hemisphere.
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President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters
while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning
to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Now, Trump too is leaning on the doctrine to justify U.S.
intervention in Venezuela and threaten action around the hemisphere
in the name of protecting the safety and welfare of Americans.
“Trump's rhetoric conjures up images of Teddy Roosevelt and gunboat
diplomacy. The rhetoric is a return to a pre-Great War era,” Frantz
said, referring to the 26th president's intercessions in unstable
Caribbean and Central American economies as well as his backing of
Panama's secession from Colombia in the name of the U.S. national
interest.
Just weeks before the ouster of Maduro, Trump rolled out a
long-awaited National Security Strategy that had some disparate
elements that seemed to be at odds with each other.
On one hand, Trump, who has long eschewed America's role in foreign
wars, asserted that the administration would have a “predisposition
to non-interventionism.” But the strategy document also made clear
that the administration would push “to restore American preeminence
in the Western Hemisphere.”
With the ouster of Maduro, the administration has clearly doubled
down on the latter.
“This is the Western Hemisphere," Secretary of State Marco Rubio
said in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday. "This is
where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere
to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of
the United States.”
Anger at U.N. Security Council
The capture of Maduro and Trump's rhetoric could certainly be a
level-setting moment for global leaders as they consider what may
lay ahead in the final three years of Trump's second term.
At an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Monday, Colombian
Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres said the raid in Venezuela was
reminiscent of “the worst interference in our area in the past.”
“Democracy cannot be defended or promoted through violence and
coercion, and it cannot be superseded, either, by economic
interests,” said Zalabata Torres, whose country requested the
meeting.
At the same time, Democrats are questioning whether Trump's actions
have created a permission structure for Russian President Vladimir
Putin, who has designs of capturing further territory from
neighboring Ukraine, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has vowed
to annex the self-ruled island of Taiwan.
“What the president's done in this case has essentially given Putin
and Xi Jinping a hall pass," said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, in an
appearance on CNN.
The Russians, for their part, have condemned Trump's action in
Venezuela. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, the country's U.N. envoy,
said the world body “cannot allow the United States to proclaim
itself as some kind of a supreme judge” to the world.
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AP writers Jennifer Peltz and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations
contributed to this report.
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