President Donald Trump has built his political appeal over the past decade in part on promises to pull America out of military quagmire abroad, promising to avoid “nation building” and wars aimed at toppling regimes.
But hours after the U.S. military carried out a daring attack on Venezuelan soil, capturing its President Nicolas Maduro, Trump said the U.S. would temporarily govern the country and develop its oil industry, while he and his top Cabinet members warned other world leaders.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a Maduro ally, is “manufacturing cocaine” and sending it to the United States, Trump said at a Saturday news conference. “So he really needs to watch his ass.”
Earlier in an interview with Fox News, Trump expressed impatience with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum over how to deal with the drug cartels that “run” the country. He said, “Something will have to be done with Mexico,” without elaborating.
Cuba, he said, “will be something we end up talking about because Cuba is a failing country right now.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was even harsher. “Look, if I lived in Havana and was in government, I would be at least a little worried,” Rubio said, standing next to Trump at a news conference.
“We will talk and meet with anyone, but don't play games. Don't play games while this president is in power,” he said. “There won’t be a good result.”
Trump's use of the U.S. military to overthrow the Venezuelan president and his threats of potentially similar operations elsewhere are a sharp departure from his past “America First” rhetoric, underscoring his desire for a more interventionist foreign policy in his second term. In his speech Saturday, he laid out a new foreign policy doctrine for a president who has demonstrated a growing willingness to use military force on multiple fronts.
That approach could pose risks for the president, who said in his inaugural address last January that he hopes to be remembered as a “peacemaker.”
“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but by the wars we finish and, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never fight,” Trump said then.
Former Defense Department official Seth Jones, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump and his national security team will own the outcome of whatever follows in Venezuela.
“It’s theirs,” Jones said. “If things go wrong, there will be no one else to blame.”
As a candidate in 2016, Trump criticized fellow Republicans and previous presidents for supporting problematic military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. “Our current strategy of nation-building and regime change is a proven and utter failure,” he said.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, he vowed to fire government “warmongers” and chose as his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who championed his skepticism of fighting foreign wars.
Yet in his first year in office, Trump has ordered military strikes against targets in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and now Venezuela in an effort to capture Maduro and bring him to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.
White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said Trump is making good on his campaign promises by going after Maduro and that the operation is consistent with his “America First” agenda.
“President Trump is a decisive and strong leader who does EXACTLY what he says he is going to do,” Leavitt. wrote on X.
“During his historic 2024 campaign, President Trump explicitly promised that he would work to 'dismantle foreign drug cartels' to keep our citizens safe, and that's exactly what he did today with unprecedented speed, precision and force,” Leavitt wrote.
White House officials also cited Trump's role in brokering an elusive ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as evidence that his hard-line approach can defuse conflicts.
The operation in Caracas early Saturday followed a U.S. air campaign that began in September against dozens of suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The strikes, which like the operation against Maduro were not authorized by Congress, killed at least 114 people, according to the Pentagon. They received both support from Trump's allies in Congress and criticism from lawmakers, former military lawyers and allied governments that the attacks violated U.S. and international law.
US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities In June, when a massive bomb was first used to destroy the bunker, it sparked criticism and concern among some Trump supporters and political allies that he was straying from his original anti-interventionist vision.
Trump is now threatening to attack Iran again unless the regime's leaders heed his latest warning that they should not kill protesters who have flocked to Tehran's streets due to economic conditions.
“We're locked, loaded and ready to go.” Trump wrote in a social media post Friday. promising to come to the aid of the protesters if necessary.
After Trump announced Maduro's takeover, most Republican lawmakers publicly supported the move, while Democrats and a handful of GOP members expressed doubts about the legal basis of the operation and the possibility of an open-ended, risky U.S. involvement in Venezuela.
Outgoing Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Green of Georgia, an outspoken Trump supporter turned critic, said in X that Trump's Make America Great Again supporters shared a “disgust” at the “endless” military adventures abroad.
“This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. How wrong we were,” she wrote.
Trump's focus on foreign policy, either as commander in chief directing airstrikes or as a “peacemaker” pushing for diplomatic deals, poses potential political risks. His approval ratings have worsened as voters who had hoped to see improved economic conditions under his leadership struggle to pay their bills.
Mark Mitchell, chief pollster at Rasmussen Reports, who briefed Trump and senior White House officials privately in November, said that when voters are asked whether the government should focus on domestic or foreign policy, “everyone says domestic.”
Mitchell said he told Trump that “spending too much time on foreign policy is hurting him.”
In his speech on Saturday, Trump repeatedly called Venezuelan oil a prize won by the Americans in the operation against Maduro. According to him, dissatisfied with the amount of oil that Venezuela pumps, American companies will now enter the country, increase supplies and sell these products.
Later in the day, a US official clarified the situation, saying the administration would work with oil executives to begin expanding domestic oil production.
Trump has not ruled out additional military strikes against Venezuela if he deems them necessary.
In 2002, as President George W. Bush was weighing a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq, his Secretary of State Colin Powell warned him of the potential risks of regime change.
“Once you break it, you own it.” Powell told him“and we will be responsible for the 26 million people standing there looking at us.”
Ultimately, Bush decided to continue with the invasion and soon learned the harsh lessons of what was called the “Pottery Barn Rule.”
On Saturday, Trump suggested that Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Cain would manage the Venezuelan government transition.
Jones, a former Defense Department official, said the biggest challenge Trump will face is creating the conditions for a government that has the support of the Venezuelan people.
“The entire success of the mission will depend on whether the population views their government as legitimate,” Jones said. “This was the fundamental problem that the United States faced in Iraq.”
