Trump and Latin America
Trump has made a somewhat cryptic announcement:
President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, and it was unclear whether he was announcing a new policy or simply reinforcing the messaging around his campaign against Maduro, which has involved multiple strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean on small boats accused of ferrying drugs as well as a buildup of naval forces in the region. More than 80 people have been killed in such strikes since early September.
The Republican president addressed his call for an aerial blockade to “Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers,” rather than to Maduro.
What’s going on? It seems one goal is to isolate Maduro and Venezuela. I suppose the idea is to frighten and intimidate those in the drug trade – although I would think they’ve already gotten that message through the attacks on drug boats. Trump also likes to employ his reputation as an unpredictable loose cannon, which can be useful.
Trump’s policies in Latin American haven’t gotten too much coverage compared to so many of his other actions, such as in Ukraine and Israel. But his administration – and particularly SOS Rubio – has been quite busy there. For example, here’s an article from last month:
Nine months into Donald Trump’s second term, Latin America has become a central focus of U.S. foreign policy. The administration has shifted away from traditional development aid and diplomatic forums, opting instead for a strategy centered on tariffs, military pressure and bilateral political alignment. …
U.S. Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican and one of the administration’s most outspoken defenders, said Trump’s approach marked a long-overdue shift. “The Trump administration is doing exactly what it needs to do — to take out of power an illegitimate president, someone who stole the elections last year after promising to abide by the Barbados Accord,” she told Newsweek.
The article goes on to describe Trump’s alliance with Argentina’s Milei, and his opposition to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro as well as his confrontations with Panama over the Canal and Chinese influence.
More:
Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, described the administration’s approach as “aggressive but erratic.” He told Newsweek: “It’s hard to deny that the Trump administration is doing more in Latin America than any U.S. government this century. Yet it’s equally hard to discern a coherent plan.”
Oh, is it? How about: promote what’s good for the US and discourage what’s bad for the US, as well as being friendly with simpatico leaders such as Milei? It doesn’t seem all that incoherent.
Neo: I kinda think you’re right about Trump just saying/doing things to get people riled up/wary. It might even be an intentional dual purpose ruse aimed at both Putin and Zelensky. I’ve read several times about how Xi was very leery about Trump during his first term simply because he was so over-the-top different from other presidents or any other Western leader for that matter. Xi thought he was entirely capable of doing something very rash.
I don’t think we’ll have boots on the ground simply because his base is foursquare against any such incursion to the point that he was criticized for bombing Iran.
But Maduro might not be willing to bet on that.
God no, no war with Venezuela. Since Vietnam or even earlier we’ve had a “you break it, you bought it” policy. Sorry, we don’t need 100s of thousands or millions of Venezuelan refugees, no small number of whom will be Chinese assets.
Trump and Maduro reportedly talked last week and it wasn’t to Trump’s satisfaction. So now he ups the ante. Seems good to me. Tighten the vise and hopefully yields a resut.
The GOP signed up for this. Now we’re along for the ride.
Let us all pray that the reports that Hegseth ordered the military to kill survivors of one of the boat strikes earlier this year are false. Hegseth didn’t exactly deny it:
https://x.com/SecWar/status/1994552598142038358
CC™ is deeply troubled about “we” getting taken for a ride and worried that the Washington Post is a reliable source, not a propaganda organ of the Democrat party.
CC™ let the mask slip, he talks about the “GOP” signing up for The Great Orange Whale’s further misadventures. Prior to this CC™ posed as a Republican, i.e., part of the GOP.
om – I cited Pete Hegseth’s X/Twitter feed.
CC™ accepts the premise that the Washington Post is credible and then takes his own spin.
Here is Hegseth’s statement from CC™’s bleat:
What part of lethal don’t you understand? Not uniformed soldiers/sailors/airmen, not the Venezualen(sic) navy, narco-terrorists. Can you read or just bleat?
om – You’re playing the same kind of weasel game that the left is famous for, but MAGA is quickly warming up to.
The allegation is that Hegseth ordered a first strike, saw that there were survivors after the first strike who were clinging to the wreckage of the boat, and then ordered a second strike to kill the survivors.
“We intended the strikes to be lethal” isn’t a defense to that allegation. It isn’t a denial of that allegation. In fact, when your response to that allegation is that you intended the strikes to be lethal, you are basically admitting the allegation.
CC™
The intent was to kill the people on the boat. You do understand that their survival was not planned or intended. What part of that don’t you understand? It seems all of it.
@Sgt. Joe Friday
I can sympathize. Unfortunately we are already dealing with dozens if not hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees here, many of whom are hostile assets. I do not want a war, but we have been hoping utterly hostile regimes like Cuba’s and Venezuela’s would go away or reform for decades to no avail. And for better or worse if things did go hot there is a waiting Venezuelan government in exile based on the legitimate election winners, so I imagine it would be less of a bother than the other examples. At least to some degree. But you are correct, we have hamstrung ourselves in war and apparently lack the knowledge on how to win both it and the peace
Bauxite:
It is Part II of the “illegal orders” campaign by Democrats, Part I having been the video by the 6 members of Congress about disobeying illegal orders, when no illegal orders had been given.
Also:
Rumors may well be deliberate leaks. On Youtube, it was stated rha Naduro offered Trumo to leave Venezuela…in a year!
But what Everyone musses is Xi, and China’s LatAm Belt and Road penetration. So successful in Brazil.
Xi was going to buy and control both ports if the Panama Canal — a treary violation.
So pressure got Panama to reverse course.
Thus, the plan is obviously to intimidate Maduro and turn Venezuela — which supports our enemies in Tehran, Havana, and Moscow. Not just China.
And thus isolate the Marxist former guerrilla President of Columbia.
Its Monroe Doctrine Lite strategy by Team Trump. And I approves uts message.
It aims to jettison destabilizing forces like China’s and thereby support Milei’s reforms in Argentina.
Much of what we expect international law to be, frequently is, comes from what is known as the Westphalian Model or System. From the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, ending the Thirty Years War.
Itself it is not law but it is a kind of overall construct of the ways things should be.
Among other things, nobody gets to invade a sovereign nation. Except…sovereign nations are responsible for what comes out of them and if it’s bad enough, reciprocal violence including invasion and even conquest are justified. Question is what degree of the former justifies what degree of the latter.
All pretty cool. But what of non-state actors? Like Hezbollah, Hamas, et tedious cetera? Or the cartels? Except for Antarctica, there is no dry land on the planet which is not part of a sovereign nation. Thus the non-state guys are invariably within a sovereign nation.
So what is the host nation’s responsibility? To stop them going abroad and hurting other people. Some nations like the idea and won’t interfere while other nations are afraid to mess with them.
So what to do? Invade a sovereign nation in pursuit of an entity not affiliated with said nation? Does the nation in question resist the intrusion? Is there then a war between the two nations, with the non-state lending a hand where convenient?
So who are the people on the high seas from the non-state actor? However military they may be, they’re not legal combatants, having no nation to back them up legally. Are they outlaws and thus not covered by various armed conflict rules and practices? If so, what rules and practices apply? Is anybody even allowed to arrest them? Who has jurisdiction?
Morally, one may insist that killing a couple of narco-terrorist drug runners before they drown or the sharks get them is a bad idea. But…what degree of risk is a rescue party required to undertake?
Need some mutually agreed upon regs for the issue.
Patrick Byrnes, Michael Flynn and Sydney Powell’s fringe but dramatic claims about election 2020 are getting revived by authors of a new book, “Stolen Elections: The Takedown.”
About the 2020 Election Fraud, “there are elements in the intelligence and diplomatic corps that are paid agents of Cuba and Venezuela”, says Gary Bentsen. The digital-fraud elections go back to Castro and Hugo Chavez in 2004, the former suggested to the latter that software could control outcomes of digital electronic elections that were becoming common then.
And the decade’s string of Leftists winning in LatAm that followed occurred because digital election control software engineers, starting out from Venezuela (eg, VE-US dual citizens), used them as trial runs of their anti-audit detection strategies.
https://www.kunstler.com/p/coupcoup-birds?hide_intro_popup=true
William Howard Kunstler’s column:
“In between the DC ambush story and the culinary difficulties of Thanksgiving, the election fraud story unspooled in alt media. Surprise, surprise! Turns out to be our auld acquaintance, the Kraken? Remember that monster? Eminent DC attorney Sidney Powell had conniptions over the Kraken in the months after the 2020 election that ushered senile (let’s just say it) “Joe Biden” into the Oval Office for four disastrous years. (After which, Sidney Powell was methodically defamed and prosecuted by mysterious forces.)
“Ms. Powell threatened to “release the Kraken,” meaning: a malign combine out of Venezuela had managed to foist Dominion vote tabulation machines all over the USA, but especially in swing vote states, along with Smartmatic software.
“And all this janky machinery was connected by the Internet through Serbia to the CCP, or something like that. And that this machinery, plus massive voter fraud operations run by Lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Mary McCord, with help from Mark Zuckerberg’s $400-million Center for Tech and Civic Life org, prestidigitated millions of extra votes needed to push “Joe Biden” into the winner’s circle.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA9OCusr64A
21Nov25, Lara Logan interviews authors of the new book, “Stolen Elections, The Takedown”.
Gary Berntsen & Ralph Pezzullo explain how America’s enemies, foreign & domestic, are stealing the Republic.
“We dissect the controversial involvement of Smartmatic in the U.S. election system and explore the swirling allegations of manipulation and fraud. Our discussion probes deep into electoral malfeasance, questioning the integrity of the very systems that uphold our Republic. Expect a thorough examination of the evidence and sentiments surrounding these topics, drawing connections that extend all the way to Venezuela.”
Bentsen explains how digital election control engineers defeat standard audits. They work from a suite of 14 methods. They combine 2 and 14 for one election district, and 1 and 12 for a nearby one. And therefore standard audits are unable to detect and determine that election fraud has occurred.
Bentsen says that Venezuelan and Cuban penetration of US security institutions reached dominance over the past 25 years. GO TO 44m in the above time-stamps for examples.
THIS IS STUNNING. Congressional Investigations and reports are sure to follow. Kunstler reports that Suzy Wiles has been awakened to these facts, and therefore Trump is already on it.
Now, any bets that Trump foreign policy goals are not served by defeating the fountainhead of Venezuelan drug cartels that financed all of this?
neo – I really hope that you’re right. Hegseth’s response didn’t give me a lot of confidence. Parnell’s answer is better, but there’s still some wiggle room there.
A lot of MAGA defenders, like om and as Hegseth appeared to do, are playing a bait-and-switch game where they call the “narrative” false, not necessarily because there wasn’t an order to kill shipwrecked survivors of the first strike, but because the whole attack was intended to be “lethal.” Of course, that’s so much nonsense.
So when Parnell says the narrative is false, is he playing the same kind of semantic game or is he specifically denying the allegation? In other words, is the Washington Post wrong about the facts, or just wrong about what the administration believes should be the “narrative.” That’s not entirely clear. Somebody needs to ask Parnell and/or Hegseth a few follow up questions.
Also, this purportedly happened in September. It is also plausible that members of Congress knew about it long before the Washington Post story and that this was what prompted the video from the 6 Dems rather than this being the second step of a plan.
I don’t think anything is off the table yet. I’ll wait to see how the facts play out.
CC™ appears to think that the US DOD has nerf drones to use against drug runners and their boats (speed boats and semi-submersibles).
CC™ swallowed the WA Post fable because The Great Orange Whale’s minions are sketchy? Will the horors never cease?
Please define the word nonsense, I don’t think you know what that word actually means. Plausible is another word you should look up BTW.
neo – I’ll add that I think your theory that this is step 2 of the “illegal orders” video plan and that WaPo’s anonymous sources are making up facts out of whole cloth is also very plausible.
As the saying goes, the process is the punishment. Any officer doing Trump’s bidding may well end up innocent in a court martial after having been prosecuted by dem operatives.
Far as I know, that sort of thing cost Mike Flynn a million bucks. Did he get any of that back?
That’s an obvious possibility. Wonder what the lifers are thinking.
There are two issues in the administrations use of military force against drug cartel boats.
The first is whether a drug cartel can be classified as a combatant and as such fall under the rules of war.
The second is if they are classified as enemy combatants (and even if they’re not), the Geneva treaty would not allow the killing of enemy combatants once the boat was destroyed. Any survivors have to be treated as POW’s.
This is a summary of the relevant current interpretation of international law by Grok.
This raises a bigger and more general issue with surrender and POW’s. This has been a dilemma for ages about surrender. Since the Geneva Treaty following WWII, taking no prisoners is not longer acceptable war strategy.
The Ukraine war has highlighted new complexity to the concept of surrender. With the advent of first person view drones, what is the obligation of the drone operator when an enemy combatant attempts to surrender? There is no simple way for the drone to take control of the now POW. There are instances of this scenario where the drone operator has dropped ordinance on a combatant attempting to surrender, killing them.
But in the case of naval operations, the rules are clear.
The Washington Post story is likely completely made up. Secretary Hegseth knows the rules of war. It’s unlikely he would be that stupid to authorize an illegal act in defiance of international treaty.
Seems to me there’s a correlation between the countries whose governments are utterly corrupt, have cozy relationships with cartels/narco-terrorists, and are in Latin America.
Starving them first, then taking them easily when they’re weak, is right out of Sun Tzu’s philosophy.
Brian E:
I think it is also said that the boat was not completely destroyed by the first strike.
Berntsen, senior ex-CIA, says Maduro recruited some 300 hardcore Venezuelan prisoners, directly by phone from the Presidential Palace— given a bare six weeks intel training, and then sent to the US to organize criminal activities. This was then followed up with 5,000 more.
Wasn’t this an act of war by Venezuela? Of course it was.
Sharyl Attkisson interviews Gary Berntsen and company (Ralph), out this weekend here https://sharylattkisson.com/2025/10/stolen-election-ralph-pezzullo-and-gary-berntsen-podcast/
Bauxite:
I was going to respond to you in a comment here with some further information that’s relevant, but there’s actually so much more to say that I think I’ll plan another post on the subject, hopefully tomorrow.
Neo, according to Grok:
Cited Hague, 1907 Convention XI, art. 3; Second Geneva Convention (1949) art. 12 & 18.
U.S. Navy Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations: “Once a warship is clearly indicates an intention to surrender or is otherwise rendered ineffective (e.g., dead in the water with no means of defense or propulsion and crew abandoning), it may not be subjected to further attack.”
plus additional cites.
The Sharyl Attkisson interviews of Ralph Pezzullo and Gary Berntsen is both shortest and clearest introduction to the case for election fraud by digital means, here and internationally since 2008. https://sharylattkisson.com/2025/10/stolen-election-ralph-pezzullo-and-gary-berntsen-podcast/
Just a reminder:
Those “hostile assets” are in the US by design—“No More Malarkey” design.
(Also have to factor in years-long-entrenched Hezbullah/Iranian drug manufacturing and smuggling strategies in South America—Yep! Obama/“Biden”’s Best Buds…)
Is a drug running boat a “warship?”
Words mean things.
Missed it by a nautical mile.
Thanks. Looking forward to the new post.
Not sure about all these claims. We would benefit from a return to analog methods.
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1. Hard copy voter registration forms, sent through the mail. At the board of elections, a team consisting of one Republican clerk and one Democratic clerk check the form for material errors and omissions, check the addresses given against a gazeteer, and check the registrant against a half dozen databases assembled by state agencies in order to screen out those who have died, those enmeshed in the criminal justice system, those under guardianships, and those who haven’t filed a state income tax return from addresses where they said they were resident > 18 months ago. Such forms should always require the registrant to identify himself as a native or naturalized citizen and state the date of his naturalization where applicable (under penalty of perjury charges).
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2. Limiting the issuance of postal ballots to (a) civilian employees of the U.S. government posted abroad (and any spouse in country with them), (b) servicemen (and any spouse living with them), (c) persons under 25 enrolled at a residential campus, and (d) miscellaneous persons who are eligible but live in institutional group quarters (e.g a school dormitory or an eldercare center). The first three might live anywhere in the world and correspondence with them would be sent to their palpable residence. The fourth would have to live in state and have a nominal residence with a relative or friend. You might also send postal ballots to the domicile of those who have applied for one with a 3d party attestation from their doctor (that they are homebound) or their work supervisor (that they are outside the county overnight for > 50 days per year). You could have such ballots on renewable standing order.
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3. Stock checks of the entire county voter roll on a biennial cycle. You re-run the check done when a form first arrived and put some in the ‘inactive file’. You then send a postcard to those whose registration has been de-activated inviting them to re-register or call for clarification.
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4. Voting precincts of roughly equal population with a maximum of one precinct per 3,000 residents.
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5. Allowing eleven hours to vote on Saturday (7:00 am to 6:00 pm) and four hours (6:00 pm to 10:00 pm) the evening before.
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6. Registers you must sign in the precinct. For those who vote by post, there should be a master arrival register at the board of elections and each ballot returned must be recorded on the register with a Republican and a Democratic clerk providing initials and a date to attest to arrival.
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7. Printed ballots with serial numbers and other identifying marks which distinguish them from counterfeits. The serial numbers on the ballots sent to a given precinct would be recorded, but there would be no association recorded between a particular serial number and a particular voter.
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8. Tabulation machines in the precinct which are tested beforehand by Republican and Democratic employees and are not networked.
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9. Dispatch of counts to the board of elections HQ via e-mail followed by hard-copy reports signed by the chief Republican clerk and the chief Democratic clerk on duty.
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10. Storage of postal ballots rejected on arrival in one lock box (with two locks, one for the Republican elections commissioner, one for the Democratic) and storage of those which arrived too late to be validly tabulated in another.
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11. Verification checks on postal ballots arriving to be conducted each workday by teams consisting of a Republican clerk and a Democratic clerk. On a given day, you check the previous workday’s arrival. The last round of checks would occur the morning of the Friday on which in-person voting was to begin. All arriving later would be invalid.
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12. Storage of checked postal ballots in lock-boxes with two locks. On the Saturday postal balloting is taking place, they’re transported to a gymnasium unlocked, and the ballots in them tabulated. The tabulation would take place in the afternoon and be complete before the close of the polls at 6:00 pm.
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Other things which could be done would be for the IRS to make available for the Secretary of State or the Commissioner of Taxation in each state lists of persons who had file a federal income tax return from an address in the state. Flow checks of incoming registration forms and stock checks of the file of registrants could be undertaken against this database. An additional question on tax returns could be added, insisting people state under penalty of perjury whether they were native citizens, naturalized citizens, or aliens and having them put the dates of their naturalization where applicable. These questions could then be subject to spot audits each year.
Art Deco, thanks for the suggestions on voting procedures. The long time to tabulate ballots—didn’t California take 2-3 weeks?—has got to end.
Perhaps narcos could be designated “hostis humani generis”. That’s Latin for enemies of all mankind. Old Roman law, folded into Admiralty law some centuries back.. Pirates were enemies of all mankind and anybody could capture them and punish them–haning, say–as desired.
As a general rule, non-state actor individuals are, at least by birth, citizens of some nation or other. Can’t hardly avoid it. And narcos seem to work from where they were born.
Need a different designation and maybe the HHG is it.
Richard Aubrey, finding a new classification for drug terrorists that allows for a new set of rules of engagement would be the best solution.
There are problems with trying to fight them into the terrorist classification.
There is a stalled senate bill that tries to address the issue with limited AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force). This would be a good step– but probably no chance for it ever becoming law.
– Grok
It still doesn’t address the issues of declaring drug cartels as “unlawful combatants”.
Related:
“Why the Venezuela-Turkey connection is a ticking time bomb;
“The most dangerous lifeline for the Venezuelan dictatorship today isn’t Havana or Moscow. It is Ankara….”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/418647
Can a legal combatant be, in effect, “representing” other than a sovereign nation?
To put it another way, if not the armed force of a sovereign nation, what do you need to be a legal combatant? That’s a legal question. A practical/moral question would be different, more than likely.
If there were an acknowledged HHG designation, would they be legal combatants? I think the point is they wouldn’t. Thus, what laws outside of common humanity would apply? And how much of common humanity is gong to be deserved by the narcoterrorists? Or Hamas?
I asked Grok what are the legal risks of the strategy by President Trump declaring the cartels Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and invoking non-international armed (NIAC) conflict status to justify the strikes on drug running boats.
Here’s Grok’s short answer:
Richard Aubrey @ 5:25 pm raised important questions about a new designation to avoid all of the settled rules of war issues. The strategy President Trump has used is already being challenged by Maduro in the ICJ which will have no effect other than to rally global support for Venezuela. More importantly, court cases in the US will likely limit the administration’s strategy. The passage of S. 1234 would help his case if Congress would get involved.
I suppose one might say, “All they have to do is stop sending drugs. How hard is that?”
And then think about how hard that would be.