The United States Has Now Gone Full Villain

IMarch 1933 US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address in the murky depths of the Great Depression. With the financial system close to collapse, the threat of civil collapse loomed. Roosevelt famously intended to calm a frightened nation with his famous phrase, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

But no matter how critical the domestic situation, Roosevelt understood that the United States and all other countries needed to restore international trade while avoiding war. So he included the following resonant observation:

In the realm of world politics, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, in so doing, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with the world of his neighbors.

This became known as Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy, although the idea originated with his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. Hoover's involvement is significant.

The Republicans of the 1920s were isolationists towards Europe and much of the world, but in Latin America they were enthusiastic imperialists. The US occupied Nicaragua between 1912 and 1933 to hold land for the construction of a second canal across the isthmus. This occupation spawned a brutal six-year rebel war between 1927 and 1933. In Haiti the story was similar. It's the same with the Dominican Republic. There were also shorter invasions and occupations of Panama and Honduras.

American corporations, especially the United Fruit Company, which coined the term “banana republic,” liked this approach. Corrupt elites in Latin American countries did the same. Ordinary Latinos were not as enthusiastic. The leader of the rebel movement in Nicaragua, Augusto Cesar Sandino, became a folk hero throughout the region.

To Hoover's credit, he recognized that these disgusting wars and occupations were a foolish waste of resources that so badly poisoned America's reputation that it actually weakened American commerce and security. So he started to roll back. With the advent of the Great Depression and America's struggle for survival in 1933, Roosevelt adopted and expanded on Hoover's work.

The United States has entered a truly new era in its relations with Latin America.

In World War II, the United States demonstrated why it is good to have neighbors who like you. Or at least not hate you.

Of course, the start of the Cold War created a powerful new incentive for American intervention in Latin America, and there was plenty of that for decades, but the old, naked imperialism never returned. America rationalized its intervention by insisting that it remained a good neighbor. No matter how small the fig leaves were, they at least gave an honorable nod to the sovereignty of Latin American countries. The naked imperialism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is relegated to the history books.

President Donald Trump doesn't bother to rationalize.

Without offering any meaningful explanation for his actions, Trump bombed Venezuela, kidnapped its president and his wife, and declared that the United States would “rule” Venezuela until a government that Trump liked was in place. Nicolas Maduro and his wife will also be tried for cocaine trafficking, which would not be considered a legal pretext for an invasion even if Judge Pam Bondi were in charge of the courtroom – but it looks even sillier considering that just a month ago Trump granted a blanket pardon to the wealthy and well-connected Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former Honduran president convicted of trafficking cocaine on an industrial scale. No, the war on drugs is not Trump's business. There is money and power.

Few things bring money and power like oil, so on many occasions Trump has publicly insisted that the stupidest thing the US has done in Iraq (and that's no small claim) is to “not take the oil.” (By the way, an “oil grab” would be a crime under international law, but I think it's already abundantly clear how much Trump cares about anything called “international” or “law,” much less international law.) Given this precedent, it's a safe bet on what's in store for Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world.

Venezuela will be a bonanza for American oil companies, as Trump has more or less already said. And we can be sure that the industry will show its gratitude to Trump, his sons and the growing Trump empire. On Sopranothey called it “throwing up.” The boss always comes to taste. As every smart guy knows, this is rule number one.

I've been saying for over a year now that Trump's attacks on the international order, particularly his willingness to award Russia land in violation cornerstone principle of American foreign policy and international law – are destroying what was built after World War II by America and its allies. We are rapidly sliding back to the pre-1914 order. The order that gave birth to the First World War. And the Nazis. And World War II.

But with his invasion of Venezuela, Trump appears to be pushing the US back even further, to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when American imperialism was naked and any intervention could be justified by expanding the reach of business, perhaps peppered with a little talk of advancing civilization among ignorant brown peoples.

Or perhaps he's rolling back the calendar even further.

Before the Civil War, southerners repeatedly hatched plans to seize Mexico, Cuba, or some other sultry place with the goal of joining the Union of slaveholding states. Even after the Civil War, then-President Ulysses S. Grant put forward a plan to annex the Dominican Republic to the United States so that the new state could become a refuge for blacks fleeing the KKK and white supremacy in the South. Could some of the growing number of groypers, fascists, corporate monarchists, racist psychopaths and general purpose nutcases in today's Republican Party seriously consider adding a tropical star or two to the flag? I doubt it. They want to get rid of wet people, not add new ones. But Grant's idea? Listen to far-right commentator Nick Fuentes. Read X. There will be many who want it.

I fully admit that I am now in wild speculation territory. But go back to January 3, 2025. If I told you that less than 365 days after taking office, Trump would be threatening to invade Panama and Greenland, start a global trade war, bomb five countries, and invade South America – all while complaining about being denied the Nobel Peace Prize – you'd think I was crazy. And yet here we are.

Originally published as “When good neighbors turn bad» Dan Gardner (Substack). Reprinted with permission of the author.