Swamp Notes: Why Trump wants to ‘run’ other countries

0:00Hey, guys. It's Mark Filippino. This weekend, we're bringing you an episode of the other podcast I host, Swapnotes, the FTES U. Politics. show. This conversation is all about the change in foreign policy priorities our reporters are seeing in Washington, namely U.S. President Donald Trump's willingness to take over other countries. The news this first week of the new year has been really crazy, and I hope this episode can help make some sense of it all. Okay, without further ado, here's the show.

0:29After attacking Venezuela, the President of the United States has his eyes on other nations. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. Greenland, Cuba, Colombia. Donald Trump has an interest in all three. The future of the free world depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology. And his advisors say it's within Trump's right to use force to take charge of other countries.

1:05This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the Financial Times, where we talk about all the things happening in U.S. politics, finance, and the economy. I'm Mark Filippino, and this week we're asking, what's behind Trump's push to run other countries? Here with me to discuss is Edward Luce. He's the FT's U.S. national editor and co-author of the Swamp Notes newsletter. Happy New Year, Ed. Great to see you, Mark. And we've also got Amy McKinnon, who covers foreign affairs for the FT. Happy New Year, Amy. Great to be here. First time. Yeah, nice to finally have you on. Amy, it has been an incredibly busy start to the new year, to say the least.

1:38Donald Trump ordered troops into Caracas to capture Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro. Tell me what we know about that operation. So this operation was several months in the making. The CIA was on the ground as early as August. And their role in this was to really help build out a picture of Maduro's patterns of life. So all of the things that you would need to know about a person if you are looking to snatch them in the dead of night. And of course, over the fall publicly, we saw this very large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, strikes on boats there that the administration alleges were trafficking drugs.

2:15And then Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said in his briefing over the weekend that it was really by December, early December, they had all of the pieces in place for this operation. And it was just a matter of finding a time when Maduro was accessible, where they could minimize civilian casualties, and when the weather was conducive to carrying out a massive air operation like this with over 150 flights involved. And that day ended up being January 3rd. What is the Trump administration's rationale for ousting Maduro? Well, there are several rationales. The immediate trigger was that Maduro wasn't, according to Trump, playing ball.

2:54Trump felt that he was playing games with him and messing around when he was trying to negotiate his more comfortable exit than what eventually transpired. But I think that this is a case of Trump wanting to get rid of a troublesome figure who's sort of annoyed him right from his first term. He wants to get access to the oil. the largest oil reserves unedgedly, although there's some controversy over that in the world. His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has long seen Venezuela as the ultimate subsidizer of Cuba. You have this, I think, now rapidly fading narco-terrorist pretext for removing Maduro that, of course, was the cause of all those strikes since September.

3:40Of course, there is the ultimate Western Hemisphere being ours and the national security strategy that the administration published last month had this so-called Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, this hemisphere being ours. And Rodriguez, who's taken over for Maduro. Delce Rodriguez, the former vice president. Yes, the former vice president, now acting president, has two briefs really from Trump, neither of which involve drugs or democracy or anything like that. they are, to get rid of the adversaries, the Cubans, the Chinese, the Russians, etc., and to start pumping the oil and sharing that wealth with Trump, with America.

4:19Amy, after Maduro is taken by American forces, Donald Trump and members of the administration hold a press conference. Donald Trump says that the United States would like to, quote, run the country at that conference. We already hit a little bit about this with Delce Rodriguez, but what to you stands out about that moment? I think in the most immediate moment when I heard that, two things came to mind. One was that it was clear that the U.S. involvement in Venezuela is going to be deep and profound, at least for the short to medium term. And the second thing, of course, is that the US does not have a great track record with trying to run other countries, particularly in Latin America.

4:58So I think there's a lot of questions at the moment about the kind of Pandora's box that they may have opened in Venezuela by ousting Maduro with a fairly limited plan of what comes next. Marco Rubio has played this interesting role throughout this administration, whereby Trump goes in front of the mics and he makes these quite dramatic pronouncements. And then Rubio comes in later that day, the next day, and he kind of imposes what seems like a more thought-through framework on Trump's remarks. We had a little bit of that this week when Marco Rubio went in front of the press. And he said that the plan is, step one is the stabilisation of the country, followed by recovery and then transition.

5:39And that word transition caught my eyes. It does suggest that they are still looking for some kind of political transition into the country, which then begs the question of why and for how long would Delcey Rodriguez and other Maduro allies go along with it if the U.S. plan is still ultimately to remove them from power through some kind of a transition. You know, in terms of Donald Trump going up on mic and making these big pronouncements, I want to talk about the Monroe Doctrine, which, Ed, you already brought up. This is from a press conference from last Saturday. The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.

6:18They now call it the Donroe Doctrine, I don't know. Ed, what is he talking about here with the Monroe Doctrine? Why are we all of a sudden talking about this? The Monroe Doctrine's been around for almost, well, no, slightly more than 200 years, 1823, and it was where the then President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere off limits to outside powers, but basically to European powers, then updated by Teddy Roosevelt, the first, and I guess, you know, perhaps until now, last really overtly imperialist American president with the Roosevelt corollary in which he declared that this doctrine would extend to America's right to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they felt there was outside power presence in them.

7:01And he then, of course, you know, fomented a civil war in Colombia in order to break off and create this new state of Panama, across which he promptly built the Panama Canal. Trump's updating and rebranding and putting his name on the Monroe Doctrine and on the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, doing it in much more sort of brutish, I'd say, terms. And it clearly, you know, is intended to go way beyond Venezuela. He had a call with Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, a man who hates him. and until this phone call, apparently this was mutual. He talks about, you know, the fentanyl factories in Mexico.

7:41He talks, at least until recently, talked about and imposed sanctions on Brazil for imprisoning its former president, Bolsonaro. This is Trump's idea of foreign policy. Does the Trump administration have that kind of power to do what Ed is describing here, to go after all these countries? International law does allow for military intervention in other countries, breaches of sovereignty in acts of self-defense. And the administration has tried to portray its ouster of Maduro as an act of self-defense, saying that it was an effort to clamp down on narco trafficking, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

8:21That has always been a very tenuous explanation at best for the campaign against Maduro. Venezuela plays a very limited role in fentanyl trafficking. This has been seen by international legal experts as a very, very thin explanation and one which would probably not stand up as a justification for a unilateral act of aggression like this against Venezuela. I think one of the most striking things, maybe I shouldn't rank them, but the U.S. also seized a Russian oil tanker this week that coupled with the strike in Venezuela and the rhetoric about taking over these other countries that we're talking about, why has this week been as overwhelming as it's been?

9:06Everyone's taking a deep breath right now. I mean, you know, there's no definitive answer to that. But I think that the discovery that all presidents make as their time goes on, that their most untrammeled sphere of action is in foreign policy in general. But, you know, the use of the military in particular, on which, you know, politics is always way too late. Congress is always behind the curve. And even when it catches up, it can't really throw grit into the wheels too much. They're trying right now, by the way. I don't think it'll have any impact. And the courts always show forbearance towards presidential executive action when it comes to national security.

9:49And so I think that as Trump finds his domestic situation outlook darkening and it isn't looking good, his poll numbers are really in the toilet. And the outlook for Republicans in the midterms, assuming they are free and fair and that we're not in a very different climate by then, are for Republican defeat, at least in the House. And so I think it's an axiom amongst not just Democrats, but never Trump Republicans and observers in general, that the darker things get for Trump in terms of his domestic political outlook, the more kinetic he's going to become. Amy, this is your whole job here. What do you think of those theories?

10:29I agree with Ed, and I would just add a couple of things. I mean, I think the administration has really found its stride. I think they are emboldened and you've really seen that in the wake of this Maduro capture, which setting aside the questions of legality and the future, it was an incredibly impressive military and intelligence operation in the way that it was executed. And I think the other interesting aspect of this is that a lot of people in Trump's orbit, particularly in the second administration, are from this kind of newly emerging restraint wing of the Republican Party that were very frustrated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saw them as a loss of blood and treasure and have called for restraint in US military action overseas.

11:12And I think Trump is particularly in this most recent strike is trying to forge a kind of a third way of almost regime change light. I think the very first iteration of this in the first administration was maybe the strike on Qasem Soleimani, where you have these very short, incredibly effective military operations. Sorry, sorry. Just to jump in. Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander who was assassinated during Trump's first term. None of them resolving a long term U.S. policy challenge, but potentially kicking the can down the road for three, six months and not getting the U.S.

11:51bogged down in boots on the ground. And that's how they've kind of tried to spin it after the fact. And particularly figures like J.D. Vance, who is probably one of the most wary of regime change and overseas military adventurism. They've tried to cast it as this isn't regime change. This is a quick targeted operation. But of course, much remains to be seen as to how these things are going to go out in the long term.

12:27We've talked a lot about the action in Venezuela, but I want to talk about a piece that you wrote, Ed, that suggested that Greenland might be the most likely place Trump would try to use military force to take over next. Why would you think that that would be the case? Simply because he keeps saying it. Yeah, it's fair. It's a fair point. It has been since his first term, by the way. I mean, this isn't something that just popped into his head. Harry Truman tried to buy Greenland off the Danes. I think I'm right in saying the last time America bought territory from another country was the American Virgin Islands from Denmark for something like$25 million.

13:08So Trump's been fixated on Greenland for a very long time. and, you know, what Amy was describing about him sort of being quite confident, being in his stride, you know, feeling very comfortable with these bold, you know, iconic precedent-shattering, shocking actions that he's been taking more and more of, is Greenland fits perfectly into it and perfectly into it being part of our hemisphere. And it's become a sort of a mantra. And the more that, you know, the people around Trump take this seriously as well as literally, the more likely it is to happen. I'm not predicting it's going to, but I think it's, you know, there is a tendency amongst people to say, oh, here he's just trolling.

13:54He's just joking. I don't think he's joking. I think he's putting it on a front to try and get Denmark to sell it. Since Denmark has no intention of selling it, it's just not going to happen, then the next logical step is to an exit. And that would take a minute and, you know, he could watch it from the situation room. Amy, is there any opposition in Congress? I know internationally there's been a lot of opposition, but opposition in Congress in particular to the strikes in Venezuela or the talk about Greenland? So senators this week voted on a war powers resolution which would block Trump from taking any further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval.

14:34And a small group of Republicans actually broke with the party to allow that to pass. So I think that tells you a lot about the mood of Republicans and the mood of the Senate right now, which really feels that it's war power's role. It has ebbed over successive administrations, but really feels like it has been put on the very far back burner by Trump's pretty liberal use of military force in this administration. And Republican senators, particularly with Greenland, have come out with some pretty sharp statements saying, you know, this isn't serious. We're not seriously considering military action to take Greenland.

15:08There was this phrase in the first Trump administration, take him seriously, but not literally. That has been flipped this time round. I think it does actually bear to take Trump literally this time. You know, he said he wanted to bomb Iran. He bombed Iran. He said he wanted Maduro out. Maduro is out. I don't know if that necessarily means that we are going to see a U.S. military operation in Greenland, but I think think it means that he should be taken very seriously when he says that he wants it. The distinction between Iran and Venezuela, though, I think compared to Greenland, is that with the prior two, there was a small kernel of agreement which lawmakers could rally around.

15:51So even if you didn't agree with the nature of the strikes on Iran, everybody could agree that Iran's nuclear program was a threat. That gave them a ready talking point. Similarly with Venezuela, you know, whether or not you think it was the right thing to do, Republican or Democrat, everybody could agree that Maduro was a problem. In Greenland, there is no such point of consensus. There is no kernel, singular kernel of truth that you can really rally around, however implausible, to back or to even just talk your way around a U.S. military intervention in Greenland. The only thing that everyone can agree on is that Greenland is strategically advantageous for the US to have.

16:34Yes. And even then, the two talking points advanced by the administration have been that Greenland is strategically significant. Trump has alleged that there are Russian and Chinese warships in the area. Also, it's rich in minerals, critical minerals. But on both of those two talking points, the Danes have said, And A, Denmark is a NATO ally, so it already has deep ties with the U.S. They've said they would welcome more security cooperation from the United States and Greenland. Similarly, on critical minerals, I mean, the Greenlanders have opened their doors to U.S. investment, U.S. exploration, which hasn't really come to fruition.

17:13So again, those two justifications don't quite seem to add up. So there's still a big question mark for me. Last question, guys. Does Trump have any incentive to not go down this path? Are there any consequences? As you saw with Iran last June, when the president takes action, kinetic action for national security reasons, usually, by the way, giving an address to the nation, Trump didn't do that. There is a surge of support for the commander in chief. That's always been the case in my recollection. And this time it wasn't. It's not like there's big opposition either. There is just a sort of flat public opinion response, which is, OK, let's see what happens.

17:56That's sort of kind of how people are interpreting it. And as Amy was pointing out, Trump likes these sort of very clean, remote control, taking out targets, assassinations, abductions, whatever they might be, as long as they don't involve U.S. boots on the ground. We're past that phase. We're really, we're now at the phase, I guess, if you think with the Iraq war, where Saddam Hussein's statue was taken down and everyone thinks it's mission over and now it's going to be, you know, stabilizing and everything's going to start to get better. But actually, you know, Trump likes that first phase before it gets complex.

18:33He's not interested in complexity and Venezuela is going to get very complex. Complexity is interested in him. And then I think, you know, we're going to get to a trade-off. Well, does he have to put some boots on the ground? Does there have to be more strikes on Venezuela? Does he have to lateralize this to Colombia, to Mexico? I mean, there are all kinds of actions implicit in the unraveling of this situation that public opinion would have strong views on. Amy? I think a lot of people have brought up this week the famous Colin Powell pottery barn rule which he warned Bush of in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq of, you know, you break it, you own it.

19:15I don't actually think that Trump thinks he owns the outcome in Venezuela. Given the way they've done this operation, they have taken Maduro out, but they have left his vice president, they've left his close allies in place. I think it's really plausible that you could see a scenario where even if Venezuela descends into a very dark place and becomes very chaotic, and there's all too much potential for that, that Trump says we left their people in place, not our problem. I don't know if he actually is bought into the pottery barn rule that has led so many presidents before him down this path of overseas military adventurism.

19:51And the other thing is just Trump's capacity to flood the zone, especially on the foreign policy front, which might not make the situation in Venezuela any happier or any more stable, but he's very skilled at just moving the narrative along. I mean, you just look at how many irons he has in the fire, even just this week, right? He's got his senior envoys are in Europe for continuing talks to try and end the war in Ukraine. Over the holidays, Netanyahu is in Florida for talks in the second phase of the Gaza deal. He's ousted Maduro. You know, there are massive protests going on in Iran right now.

20:30The Israelis are warning that Iran is trying to reconstitute, Greenland, Colombia, you know, you name it, whatever the next truth social post is. And so I think even if Venezuela does, if he has opened Pandora's box and things get worse there, there's a good chance that he can just move the narrative along and try as we might keep up with it. You know, our voters are going to be all that aware. I want to thank our guests, Edward Luce, who's the FT's U.S. national editor and co-author of the Swamp Notes newsletter. Thanks, Ed. Great to be with you, Mark. And Amy McKinnon, who covers foreign affairs for the FT.

21:06Thanks, Amy. Thanks for having me.

21:15This was Swamp Notes, the U.S. politics show from the FT. If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we've got a link to that in the show notes. Our show was produced by Henry Larson. It was mixed by Sam Giovinco. We had help this week from Lauren Fidor. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson. I'm your host, Mark Filippino. Our acting co-head of audio is Topher Forges. Original music by Hannes Brown. Check back next week for more U.S. political analysis from the Financial Times.