Behind bluster, misunderstanding America's strength

It’s turning out to have really been about the oil.

President Donald Trump acknowledged last week that Venezuela would transfer up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. This initial bounty worth more than $2.5 billion will be put into bank accounts with the proceeds used to benefit both nations.

Trump’s bold and possibly illegal strike Jan. 3 on Venezuela to abduct Nicolás Maduro, its president, was initially justified to Americans as an act of self-defense. Among his promises, prosecuting Maduro in the United States would stop his nation’s widespread network of drug dealing cartels from sending their poison to us. It would end the nation’s dalliances with Iran and Russia in our sphere of influence. Finally, ending the corrupt self-dealing while rebuilding the nation’s democracy and economy would stop Venezuela’s outflow of migration and the reach of its vicious gangs.

If Trump’s all-rewards, no-risk pitch for his Venezuela gambit came as an email to Americans, it would be readily deleted as a scam.

It’s not just the U.S. Constitution Trump is ignoring in this process. The cornerstone of international law is that sovereign countries self-govern. But Trump 2.0 clearly is trying to execute a more interventionist — if not imperialist — approach to foreign policy. The administration also said “boots on the ground” in Venezuela, a country of 30 million people, is not out of the question. And Trump told The New York Times that turning things around will take more than a year. “Only time will tell,” he said.

Empowered by the brilliantly executed raid, Trump, Vice President JD Vance and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller began talking about expanding their efforts to bring down regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua. Miller said that it was unfair that Venezuela controls the world’s largest reserve of oil because it was really developed by “American sweat, ingenuity and toil” and therefore we deserve to help ourselves to a share, a view that is widely discredited. During the victory lap, even Trump’s long desired plan to annex Greenland — by force, if necessary — was brought back to the spotlight, even if that means undoing our alliance with NATO.

What happened to “America First” and the focus on affordability?

That’s why it was encouraging on Thursday to see the Senate take a bipartisan 52-47 procedural vote on legislation that would require congressional authorization for any subsequent use of military force against Venezuela. The law directs Trump “to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.”

LOSING SUPPORT

It’s all symbolic but the vote sends a message to the president that he is losing support for unilateral military actions — and perhaps, even, that Congress, controlled by his party, no longer considers itself a doormat. Congress also can restore its oversight function by demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi testify about the legal justification for the military action. Bondi told lawmakers she has a memo citing legal justification for the attack but has yet to produce it. The Venezuelan raid was preceded by at least 35 drone strikes killing 115 people on motorboats in the Caribbean Basin and the Pacific Ocean whom the administration accused of transporting illicit drugs.

Now, after the post-raid pushback, the administration is trying a softer approach. Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader Trump dismissed as having “no respect,” will meet with him at the White House. She went on Fox News to offer him the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize she won for her work and Trump later said “it would be a great honor” to accept the award. Perhaps getting the gold medal spurs Trump to focus on getting rid of the corrupt government while he takes the oil.

The administration also leaned on Maduro’s former deputy and the country’s current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to free eight of the hundreds of political prisoners that Maduro had taken into custody. As a result Trump said he had canceled “an expected second Wave of Attacks.” That must have been quite a negotiation. What about the 800 opposition members still in prisons?

And the visit by a State Department group to Caracas on Friday to reopen the embassy there shows that perhaps diplomacy will have a role going forward.

‘TAKE BACK THE OIL’

Meanwhile, Trump met with oil executives at the White House Friday to discuss his “take back the oil” plan, an effort to convince some of the industry’s biggest players that the costly, long-term process to rebuild the industry there would be worth their investment.

What’s next? Hopefully, the saber-rattling will stop. If the United States can articulate why Denmark should surrender it control over Greenland for strategic reasons that would better protect our European allies, let’s hear it. There already is a defense agreement in place that allow us to increase our military bases and positions there. Getting Russian and Chinese submarines away from that coastline would be a plus. But, like the oil, it seems we are most interested in the territory’s vital natural resources.

Miller’s remarks in a recent CNN interview that Trump can just walk right in were chilling. “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” he said.

That’s a very flawed view of the source of America’s strength. Might doesn’t make right is a lesson this administration needs to remember.