Consumer confidence is falling. The national debt is $38 trillion and growing like a yodelling mountain climber in The Price is Right. Donald Trump's approval ratings are falling and the US is becoming increasingly restless as 2025 draws to a close.
What should a person who wants to become a strong person do to maintain his regime?
Of course, attack Latin America!
US warplanes bombed small ships in international waters off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia since September with extrajudicial fervor. The Trump administration said the boats were full of drugs and manned by “narco-terrorists” and released videos for each of the 10 boats it burned to make the actions appear as routine as a mission in “Call of Duty.”
“Narco-terrorists intent on bringing poison to our shores will find safe harbor nowhere in our hemisphere,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who just ordered an aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Mediterranean to base itself in the Caribbean, wrote on social media. He will meet with the 10,000 troops stationed there in one of the largest US deployments to the region in decades, all in the name of stopping the drug epidemic. what has devastated red America over the past quarter century.
Trump this week authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela and said he wants to strike ground targets where his people say Latin American cartels operate. Who cares if host countries give permission? Who cares about American laws that say only Congress, not the President, can declare war on our enemies?
After all, this is Latin America.
Military buildup, bombing, and new threats in the name of freedom are one of the oldest moves in American foreign policy. For more than two centuries, the United States has treated Latin America as its own personal piñata, foolishly criticizing it for its products and not caring about the dire consequences.
“Everyone knows what we get [our blessings] “From the perfection of our institutions,” James Monroe concluded in an 1823 speech outlining what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially ordered the rest of the world to leave the Western Hemisphere to us. “Should we not then take all measures that may be necessary to perpetuate them?”
Our 19th-century wars of expansion, official and unofficial, won us territories inhabited by Latin Americans—Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, but especially Mexicans—whom we ultimately treated as little better than serfs. We have occupied countries for years and sanctions imposed on others. We have propped up puppets and despots And democratically elected governments overthrown with the regularity of the seasons.
All of these actions culminated in a mass migration from Latin America that forever changed the demographics of the United States. And when these people – like my parents — arrived here, they were immediately exposed to the racism firmly ingrained in the American psyche, which then justified a Latin American foreign policy aimed at dominance rather than friendship.
Nothing brings this country together historically more than being tied to Latinos, whether in the countries of their ancestors or here. We are the perpetual scapegoats and perpetual invaders of this country, and hurting gringos—whether by stealing their jobs, moving into their neighborhoods, marrying their daughters, or smuggling drugs—is supposedly the only thing on our minds.
That's why when Trump ran on an isolationist platform last year, he never had the region in mind—of course not. The border between the United States and Latin America has never been a fence separating the United States from Mexico or our shores. That's where the hell we say it is.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego speaks at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly on September 23 at UN headquarters.
(Pamela Smith/Associated Press)
That's why the Trump administration expects to get away with bombing boats and wants to escalate the situation. For them, the 43 people who were killed by American missile strikes on the high seas are not yet human, and anyone who has even an ounce of sympathy or doubt also deserves aggression.
That's why when Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the US of murder As one of the strikes killed a Colombian fisherman with no ties to the cartels, Trump took to social media to criticize Petro's “fresh mouth,” accusing him of being a “drug kingpin” and warning the head of a longtime American ally that he “better shut down these killing fields.” [cartel bases] immediately, or the United States will close them to him, and that will not be done very well.”
The only person who can lower the proverbial temperature in this matter is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who should know all the bad things that American imperialism has done to Latin America. The United States treated his parents' homeland of Cuba as a playground for decades, supporting one dictator after another until the Cubans rebelled and Fidel Castro came to power. The multi-year embargo, which Trump tightened after taking office for the second time, did not help liberate the Cuban people, but only worsened the situation.
Instead, Rubio is the instigator. He insists on regime change in Venezuelabefriending the self-proclaimed “world's toughest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and supporting Trump's missile attacks.
“The bottom line is that these are drug ships,” Rubio told reporters recently alongside Trump. “If people want to stop seeing drug ships blowing up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”
You may ask: who cares? Cartels are bad, drugs are bad, right? Certainly. But every American should speak out against it every time a suspected drug vessel launching from Latin America is destroyed without any questions and no evidence. Because every time Trump breaks another law or regulation in the name of protecting the United States, and no one stops him, democracy is eroded a little more.
After all, this president seems to dream of treating his enemies, including American cities, like drug boats.
Alas, few people care about this. After all, this is Latin America.
