Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 4 January 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
Venezuela Déjà vu
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – A U.S. military intervention into Latin America? We have been here before. First, a brief history:
The Monroe Doctrine (1823) asserted the right of the United States to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere. The Theodore Roosevelt Corollary (1904) took this a step further, asserting the U.S. right to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, especially when they were unable to pay their debts, a direct response to the 1902-03 Venezuela Crisis that witnessed a naval blockade by European countries to collect debt repayments. This spawned the Banana Wars, interventions prompted by large U.S. corporations such as the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company, and resulted in the 1912-33 U.S. occupation of Nicaragua, the classic case of gunboat diplomacy.
The Theodore Roosevelt Corollary was fully repudiated by his cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt, whose 1934 “Good Neighbor Policy” of non-intervention created creations known as “Frankenstein dictators” in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Haiti. Following World War II, this, in turn, was repudiated by the Eisenhower administration to combat communist influences in the region during the Cold War.
Now, to the present. Enter President Donald Trump. During the night of January 2-3, 2026, U.S. forces suppressed Venezuelan military defenses and arrested Venezuela’s alleged narco President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Trump then announced that his administration would be running the country until a transition to a working democracy was achieved. He also said without a hint of artifice that large U.S. oil companies would take back ownership of assets that had been confiscated by Venezuela and recommence running the country’s oil industry. What followed has been confusing.
Is Trump invoking the Roosevelt Corollary to reinstate a true democracy in Venezuela? He ignored María Corina Machado, Venezuela's Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader, and said Vice President (now acting President) Delcy Rodriguez would follow his orders. She disagreed, and her armed supporters are roaming the streets of Caracas.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked back Trump’s declaration of control, stating that existing sanctions on oil exports would force her hand even though these sanctions never forced Maduro’s hand.
Meanwhile, Trump has not proven to be a great supporter of democracy at home or abroad, as he governs by executive orders and embraces such autocrats as Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, not to mention his on-again-off-again bromance with Vladimir Putin. This would be in line with a “Good Neighbor” policy of supporting friendly “Frankenstein dictators.”
In the end, the whole operation may have been nothing less obvious than a resurrection of Banana War gunboat diplomacy, with the world’s largest proven oil reserves substituting for bananas, big oil companies substituting for big fruit companies, and backed up by a powerful fleet more than replicating the gunboats of yore.
So, with realpolitik cynicism, the orders following the attack to Americans running the thugs running Venezuela are, “Take the oil; leave the cocaine.”
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
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END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND