After Venezuela operation, Trump says the whole hemisphere is in play

As President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for now, he and top aides made clear that the U.S. may not stop there — and demanded that the rest of the world take note.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Venezuela’s long-time dictator, Nicolas Maduro, captured in an overnight raid and extradited to New York on Saturday to be indicted on narco-conspiracy charges, “had a chance” to leave on his own before becoming the latest example of a leader paying a high price for not responding to Trump’s pressure.

“He ef**d around and he found out,” Hegseth said of Maduro. The menacing comments were interwoven with specific threats toward three other countries that could soon be in the administration’s sights: Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

The rest of the hemisphere is paying attention, and attempting to push back on Trump through condemnations of the strike itself and warnings of what could come next.

“All nations of the region must remain alert, as the threat hangs over all,” the Cuban government said in a statement.

The administration’s warnings, meanwhile, are getting bolder and more definitive.

Trump again accused Colombia’s president of “making cocaine” and reaffirmed his past threats that he “does need to watch his a**.”

He predicted, “We will be talking about Cuba.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a more sinister threat of future American action.

“Look, if I lived in Havana and I worked in the government, I’d be concerned,” Rubio said.

Earlier during a phone interview with Fox News, Trump warned that “something will have to be done about Mexico,” stating that he’s asked President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wants the U.S. military’s “help” in rooting out drug cartels.

“American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the attack as an aggression against all of South America and announced the mobilisation of troops along the country’s border with Venezuela to halt a possible flood of refugees.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who in recent months has tried to establish a rapport with Trump, said in a post on X that Maduro’s ouster “crossed an unacceptable line” and “recalls the worst moments of interference in the politics of Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Mexico also criticised the strikes, which Sheinbaum said are a violation of the U.N. Charter. The Mexican, Colombian and Cuban embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment on Trump’s latest threats against their governments.

At the same time, some countries made an effort to play peacemaker. Colombia’s embassy in Washington said in a statement that Petro offered to help mediate a solution to the crisis.

Trump outlined a more aggressively expansionist foreign policy in his inaugural address nearly one year ago, shocking long-time allies with threats of making Canada “the 51st state” and colonising Greenland, an autonomous region belonging to Denmark.

In his prepared remarks on Saturday, Trump cited the Monroe Doctrine, a 200-year-old foreign policy blueprint that has seen something of a revival in conservative circles. It stems from President James Monroe’s 1823 declaration of a U.S. sphere of influence in the Americas that also served as a warning to would-be European colonisers to limit their aims to their own affairs.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal. But we’ve superseded it by a lot,” Trump said. “They now call it ‘the Donroe Document.’” (POLITICO)