Trump’s Bet On Regime Change In Venezuela Is A Sharp Departure From MAGA Agenda

PALM BEACH, Florida/WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Venezuela, arrest its president and temporarily rule the country marks a striking departure for a politician who has long criticized others for overreaching in foreign affairs and vowed to avoid foreign turmoil.

His vision for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, outlined at a noon news conference, left open the possibility of further military action, continued interference in the country’s politics and oil industry, and the possibility of “shoes on the ground.” The term brings to mind the kind of military deployment that presidents often avoid for fear of provoking domestic political backlash.

“We will govern the country until we can have a safe, appropriate and reasonable transition,” Trump said.

It gave little insight into how far Maduro is willing to go to seize control of Venezuela, where his top aides still appear to be in power.

‘WARS WE WILL NEVER FIGHT’

Shortly before he was inaugurated for a second term last January, Trump told supporters: “We will measure our success not only by the wars we win, but also by the wars we finish and, perhaps most importantly, by the wars we never fought.”

Since then, Trump has bombed targets in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia, blown up dozens of alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, and made veiled threats to invade Greenland and Panama.

The overnight attack on Venezuela was the most aggressive foreign military action yet; It struck the capital Caracas and other parts of the country and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in New York to face drug trafficking charges.

These developments ran counter to Republican hopes that the president would focus more on voters’ domestic issues: affordability, health care and the economy.

Trump said at the press conference that intervention in Venezuela was consistent with his “America First” policy.

“We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability. We want to surround ourselves with energy,” he said, referring to Venezuela’s oil reserves.

But the emerging political stakes were also seen in a social media post by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who broke away from Trump because she said she broke with his “America First” rhetoric of limiting foreign adventures. He will resign from Congress next week.

“A lot of people in MAGA thought they were voting to end this. Boy were we wrong.”

Trump’s continued interest in foreign affairs is fueling Democrats’ criticism of him ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections, when control of both houses of Congress is likely to come down to just a few races in the United States. Republicans currently narrowly control both, giving the president a great deal of latitude to enact his own agenda.

“Let me be clear, Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but taking military action without congressional authorization, without a federal plan for what happens next is reckless,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a call with reporters.

While lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump has worked to end many foreign conflicts, including Ukraine and Gaza. But U.S. military actions tend to attract more public attention and have historically carried more political risk for presidents and their parties.

Before the attack, polls showed that the prospect of US military action against Venezuela was highly unpopular; Roughly one in five Americans supported force to remove Maduro, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in November.

REPUBLICANS’ FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE

Marco Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser, called several members of Congress early Saturday in an attempt to blunt opposition to military action.

Mike Lee, a prominent libertarian-leaning senator, initially questioned the administration’s decision to take military action without a declaration of war or authorization to use military force, but wrote in X that after speaking with Rubio, he concluded that the operation was likely within the president’s authority.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a frequent critic of Trump, wrote in a post on “If this action were constitutional, the Attorney General would not be tweeting that they arrested the President of a sovereign nation and his wife for possession of a gun in violation of the 1934 US firearms act,” Massie wrote in a separate post.

USA ‘WILL GET WORSE’

For a president who constantly compares himself to Republican “neoconservatives” of the late 20th century, Trump’s foreign policy has developed striking similarities with those of his predecessors.

In 1983, under former President Ronald Reagan, the United States invaded Grenada, claiming that the government at the time was illegitimate; An allegation that Trump also made regarding Maduro.

In 1989, former President George HW Bush invaded Panama to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega, who, like Maduro, was wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. In this case, the USA replaced Noriega.

Elliott Abrams, who served as ambassador to Venezuela Trump’s During his first term, he said he did not believe the president was taking a political risk in his own country by overthrowing Maduro and that “as long as American soldiers do not die, he is given wide latitude.” But he admitted: “I don’t know what it means to govern Venezuela.”

“He did the right thing in removing Maduro,” said Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The question is whether he will do the right thing in supporting democracy in Venezuela.”

Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser to the Barack Obama administration, said the United States could now be drawn into managing a complex transition process.

“I don’t see a short version of this story,” said Bruen, who is now president of the international affairs consultancy Global Situation Room. “The United States will be involved in Venezuela, but it will also have new problems with its neighbors.”

(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Palm Beach, Florida, and Simon Lewis in Washington; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Craig Timberg and Suzanne Goldenberg)