By invading Venezuela, President Trump simply lit America’s everlasting exploding cigar.
For over 175 years — ever since the US conquered half of Mexico — practically each president has messed with Latin America whereas telling the remainder of the world to remain the hell out.
We have now helped depose democratically elected leaders and propped up murderous strongmen. Educated loss of life squads and provided bailouts to favored allies. Ran financial blockades and inspired American corporations to deal with the area’s riches, and its employees, like a cookie jar.
From the Mexican American Battle to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Panama Canal to NAFTA, we’ve solely regarded out for ourselves in Latin America even whereas wrapping our actions within the banner of benevolence.
It’s hardly ever ended effectively for anybody concerned — particularly us. Lots of the leaders we put into energy grew to become despots we tolerated till they ran their course, like Panama’s Manuel Noriega. The political upheaval we helped create has led generations of Latin Individuals emigrate to el Norte, essentially altering our nation whilst too many Individuals suppose individuals like my household ought to have stayed of their ancestral houses.
So there Trump was at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, insisting that the seize of Venezuela dictator Nicolás Maduro and his spouse by American troops was a army motion as sensible and consequential as D-day. He additionally introduced that the U.S. would “run the nation” and virtually jiggled out his bizarre “YMCA” dance on the thought of earning profits from Venezuelan oil.
His message to the world: Venezuela is ours till we are saying so, identical to the remainder of Latin America. And if allies and enemies alike nonetheless didn’t get the trace, Trump introduced an up to date Monroe Doctrine — the concept the U.S. can do no matter it needs within the Western Hemisphere — referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine.”
Due to course he did.
Nobody in Washington needs to be extra versed on this horrible historical past than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the kid of Cubans who fled the island when it was dominated by the U.S.-backed caudillo Fulgencio Batista.
Rubio grew up in an exile neighborhood that noticed Batista’s alternative, Fidel Castro, stay in energy for many years, regardless of a U.S. embargo. As one in all Florida’s U.S. senators, Rubio represented thousands and thousands of Latin American immigrants who had fled civil wars sparked by the U.S. in a technique or one other.
But he’s Trumpworld’s greatest cheerleader for Latin American regime change, serving to torpedo the president’s anti-interventionist marketing campaign promise as if it had been a narco boat off the South American coast.
On Saturday, Rubio regarded on silently as Trump threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro to “watch his ass.” When it was Rubio’s flip to take questions from reporters, he mentioned Cuban leaders “needs to be involved” and provided a warning to the remainder of the world: “Don’t play video games with this president in workplace, as a result of it’s not going to prove effectively.”
In Latin America, few are extra reviled than the vendido — the sellout. Betraying one’s nation for private or political acquire is an unique sin courting again to the tribes who aligned with Spanish conquistadors to take down repressive empires, solely to endure the identical unhappy finish themselves. Vendidos have dominated the area’s historical past and stilted its growth, with leaders — Mexico’s Porfirio Diaz, the Somozas of Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo within the Dominican Republic — very happy to facet with the yanquis on the expense of their very own countrymen.
Rubio belongs to this lengthy, sordid lineup — and in some ways, he’s the worst vendido of all of them.
Then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), left, listens throughout a 2016 president debate with candidate Donald Trump.
(Wilfredo Lee / Related Press)
I nonetheless bear in mind the fresh-faced, idealistic man making an attempt to go a bipartisan amnesty invoice in 2013. Although too right-wing for my style, he appeared like a Latino politician who may thread the needle between liberals and conservatives, gringos and us.
It was fantastic to see him name out Trump’s boorishness when the 2 ran towards one another within the 2016 Republican presidential main. He informed CNN’s Jake Tapper, in phrases that sound extra prophetic than ever, “For years to return, there are numerous individuals … which can be going to be having to clarify and justify how they fell into this lure of supporting Donald Trump as a result of this isn’t going to finish effectively, by some means.”
The thirst for energy has a means of corrupting even probably the most idealistic hearts, alas. Rubio ended up endorsing Trump in 2016, supporting Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged and proclaiming on the 2024 Republican Nationwide Conference that Trump “has not simply reworked our social gathering, he has impressed a motion.”
Rubio’s reward for his boot-licking? He units our international coverage agenda, which is like placing an arsonist in control of a fireworks stall.
I’m positive all of this comes off as leftist babble to the Venezuelan diaspora, lots of whom cheered Maduro’s destiny from Spain to Mexico, Miami to Los Angeles. Solely a deluded pendejo may help what Maduro wrought on Venezuela, which was a affluent nation and a comparatively secure U.S. ally for many years as the remainder of South America teetered from one disaster to a different.
However for Trump, toppling Maduro was by no means concerning the well-being of Venezuelans or bringing democracy to their nation; it was about securing a foothold to flex American energy and enrich the U.S.
In the meantime, his deportation Leviathan has wolfed up tens of 1000’s of undocumented Venezuelans and canceled the momentary protected standing of tons of of 1000’s extra.
Again in 2022, when Rubio was nonetheless a senator, he advocated for Venezuelans to be eligible for momentary protected standing, which is granted to residents of nations thought of too harmful to return to. On the time, Rubio argued that “failure to take action would lead to a really actual loss of life sentence for numerous Venezuelans who’ve fled their nation.”
Now? At a Could information convention, he maintained that the 240 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador earlier in 2025 “weren’t migrants, these had been criminals,” despite the fact that the Deportation Knowledge Challenge discovered that solely 16% of them had legal convictions.
Rubio has lengthy long-established himself as a modern-day Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan who led the liberation of South America from Spain and who has been a hero to many Latinos ever since.
However even Bolívar knew to be skeptical of American hegemony, writing in an 1829 letter that the U.S. “appears destined by Windfall to plague [Latin] America with miseries within the identify of Freedom.”
Plague, thy identify is Marco Rubio. By pushing Trump to run rampant over Latin America, you’re setting in movement the identical previous track of U.S. meddling that ties your loved ones and mine. By letting Maduro’s cronies stay in energy in the event that they play together with you and Trump, despite the fact that they stole an election in 2024, proves you’re as a lot for the Venezuelan individuals as, effectively, Maduro.
Vendido.
