According to The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has been followed by an announcement that the U.S. will oversee the country’s oil sales. President Trump is dealing chiefly with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former No. 2 and still the country’s oil minister. Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls it a law-enforcement operation, but the administration previously invoked the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuela, using the language of war. White House officials, including Stephen Miller, explicitly scorn the “neoconservative” idea of demanding immediate elections everywhere. At a post-operation news conference, President Trump declared America “safer” and “prouder” with Maduro gone, warning other Venezuelan figures the same could happen to them if they aren’t “just” to their people.
The Bush Doctrine, With an Oil Kicker
Here’s the thing that’s so bizarre. The administration is loudly rejecting the neocon playbook, but Trump‘s own rhetoric is straight out of the post-9/11 Bush era. He’s framing a vicious ruler in a failed state (Maduro) as a direct threat to American safety. That was the core of the Bush doctrine after the 2001 attacks. But Trump, in his own unique way, has added a brutally transactional twist. He told Joe Scarborough the key difference in Venezuela is that, unlike Iraq, “We’re going to keep the oil.” So, is that the new doctrine? Regime change, but for the resources? It reframes the entire operation from a moral or security mission into something that looks a lot like an imperial resource grab. And that makes it philosophically messy as hell.
From Border Crisis to “Invasion”
The other huge shift is how immigration policy has driven this foreign policy. The Journal draws a sharp parallel. Pre-9/11 Bush saw terrorism as a law enforcement issue; post-9/11, it was an act of war. Similarly, first-term Trump treated illegal immigration as a law enforcement problem. Now? They’re calling the Biden-era border crossings an “invasion,” one they claim Maduro perpetrated deliberately. So the capture isn’t just about a dictator abroad; it’s seen as the source correction for a domestic political crisis. The unstated goal, as the piece notes, is the “voluntary return of millions of Venezuelans to their homeland.” That’s a massive, and deeply cynical, linkage.
What’s Next? Cuba, Colombia, and Beyond
And this might not stop at the Venezuelan border. Trump is already sounding like a man with a new hammer, looking for nails. He mentioned Cuba is “a failing nation” they’ll “end up talking about.” He threatened Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over cocaine mills, saying “he does have to watch his ass.” This is the real concern. When you combine a security rationale (stop the invasion, stop the drugs) with an economic one (keep the oil, counter China), and strip away the “democracy-building” baggage that constrained past administrations, what’s left to stop you? You get a foreign policy that’s purely transactional and preemptive. It’s raw realpolitik, driven by domestic politics and a desire for permanent solutions that outlast the next election. That’s a volatile mix.
