"That may sound counterintuitive. After all, the US has kidnapped a foreign leader, and Donald Trump has announced that he will run Venezuela. Surely this looks less like decay than intoxication: a superpower high on its own force. But Trump's great virtue, if it can be called that, is candour. Previous US presidents draped naked self-interest in the language of democracy and human rights. Trump dispenses with the costume."
"In 2023, he boasted: When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door. And this was no off-the-cuff remark. The logic of an oil grab, and much more besides, is laid out plainly in Trump's recently published National Security Strategy. The document accepts something long denied in Washington: that US global hegemony is over."
Venezuela's skyline lit up under US bombs as the United States kidnapped a foreign leader and Donald Trump announced he would run Venezuela. Trump boasted in 2023 that Venezuela was ready to collapse and that the US would have taken it over to seize oil. The recently published National Security Strategy accepts that American global hegemony is over and foresees a world of rival empires enforcing distinct spheres of influence. The strategy assigns the Americas as the US sphere and vows to reassert and enforce a Monroe Doctrine–style preeminence. Historically, the Monroe Doctrine claimed to block European colonialism but in practice established US domination over Latin America.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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