The “Donroe Doctrine” Truth
Opinion by Ben Everidge for Thomas
Video and Photo Credit: Adobe Stock with AI by Родион Бондаренко
Venezuela Beyond Drugs and Oil - the Real Map of Power in the Western Hemisphere
Recent foreign policy debate in America has surged around what the Trump White House has been telegraphing as a bold U.S. operation targeting Nicolás Maduro – an action framed at different moments as counter-narcotics, energy security, and finally something more ideological.
While the administration’s public explanations have shifted during this past week’s capture of the Venezuelan dictator, the strategic through-line is becoming clearer: this was never primarily about drugs, and oil alone, which has been the popular theory, does not fully explain it either.
Legitimacy First: Why the Legal Arguments Fall Flat
From the administration’s vantage point, Maduro’s claim to legitimacy has long been suspect. Disputed elections, repression of political opposition, and international non-recognition by large portions of the democratic world weaken the traditional foreign policy objections rooted in sovereignty.
This framing matters. If a regime is viewed as illegitimate, then the usual arguments about non-intervention carry far less moral weight in the eyes of those ordering action. In this logic, the operation was not an invasion of a sovereign democracy, but an enforcement action against a hostile, criminalized state apparatus embedded in disreputable transnational networks.
Whether one agrees or not, this premise explains why many international-law objections have been, or are being, brushed aside rather than rebutted.
Why Trump Pivoted from Drugs to Oil, and Then Past Oil
Initially, the administration leaned on drug interdiction and the role of Venezuelan territory in narcotics flows. But President Donald Trump, in his post-capture press conference, ultimately reframed the mission in terms of oil and strategic resources, and then went a step further by invoking what he dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine,” a deliberate echo of America’s Monroe Doctrine.
That rhetorical shift is revealing.
Oil is tangible and politically digestible. But oil alone does not justify or appropriately depict the scale, risk, and audacity of the Maduro operation, dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve.” This means that Venezuela has become a gateway for extra-hemisphere powers, particularly China and Russia, to project influence, intelligence capacity, and economic leverage deep into the Western Hemisphere.
In that context, from a politically independent perspective, oil is not the prize; it was, and remains, the platform.
China’s Western Hemisphere Strategy
Beijing’s approach in Latin America is patient, transactional, and infrastructural. Loans-for-resources deals, port access, telecommunications build-outs, satellite cooperation, and security training are all tools in a long game designed to dilute U.S. influence in the region.
Venezuela – isolated, sanctioned, and desperate – became an ideal partner. So did Cuba. And increasingly, concerns are being voiced quietly about Colombia’s internal vulnerabilities and external courtships.
From this angle, the Venezuela operation reads less like a rogue adventure and more like a warning shot: the Western Hemisphere is not an open board for great-power competition.
Why Columbia and Cuba Matter Next
Why?
Cuba has long functioned as a strategic listening post and ideological bridgehead for adversaries of the United States. Any deepening Chinese or Russian military-technical presence there would cross a red line for almost any American administration, regardless of party.
Colombia, while a U.S. partner at convenient times, it seems, faces internal pressures from narcotics networks to political fragmentation, which external actors could exploit. Instability there could have cascading effects across the region.
Seen in this way, and in the context of our Three Trinity Doctrine, Venezuela is neither an endpoint nor should it be. It was a signal.
Misdirection and the Trump Method
Trump’s rhetorical flourishes about annexing Canada or Greenland are best understood as a classic form of political misdirection. These statements are headline-grabbing provocations that are designed to distract from quieter strategic moves.
While critics and Congress fixate on the absurd, the administration advances a harder-edged doctrine beneath the surface: reasserting U.S. primacy in its own hemisphere before rivals can entrench themselves irreversibly.
This has always been Trump’s pattern – noise on the surface, leverage beneath it.
The Credit Question
If the Maduro operation is ultimately judged successful–strategically, not just tactically – Trump will almost certainly receive substantial credit by the end of his presidency. Not because the action was polite or popular abroad, but because it re-established a boundary that had been eroding for two decades.
The deeper story is not Venezuela, and Venezuela should not be another Iraq in Gulf War I, where America stopped at the city limits rather than getting the job done. The deeper story is the return of hemispheric realism.
Whether one supports or opposes the Trump-Maduro mission, it forces a serious question for 2026 and beyond: If the United States will not defend its own hemisphere from great-power encroachment, who will?
In that sense, the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” may be less a Trumpian slogan than a blunt reminder of an old truth: geography still matters, power still fills vacuums, and the Western Hemisphere is not as insulated as Americans once believed.
Thomas examines not only what happens but also why it happens. On Venezuela, the “why” may tell us more about the next decade than the headlines ever will.