Commentary: As Trump blows up supposed narco boats, he uses an old, corrupt playbook on Latin America

Consumer confidence is falling. The national debt is $38 trillion and climbing like the singing mountain climber in “The Price is Right.” Support rates for Donald Trump are falling, and the United States is increasingly uneasy as 2025 approaches.

What should an aspiring dictator do to support his regime?

Attack Latin America, of course!

US warplanes have been bombing small ships in international waters off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia in an extrajudicial effort since September. The Trump administration claimed those ships were filled with drugs used by “narco-terrorists” and released videos for each of the 10 boats it burned to make the actions seem as normal as a mission on “Call of Duty” and counting.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who ordered an aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Mediterranean to set up shop in the Caribbean, said on social media, “Narco-terrorists who want to bring poison to our shores will not find a safe haven in our hemisphere.” He will meet with 10,000 soldiers stationed there as part of one of the largest US deployments to the region in decades to stop the drug epidemic that has ravaged red America for the past quarter-century.

This week, Trump authorized CIA covert action in Venezuela and declared that his people wanted to launch attacks on ground targets where Latin American cartels said they were operating. Who cares whether host countries allow it? Who cares about American laws that state only Congress, not the president, can declare war on our enemies?

This is Latin America, after all.

Threatening military build-ups, bombings and more in the name of freedom is one of the oldest moves in the playbook of American foreign policy. For more than two centuries, the United States treated Latin America as its own personal piñata, foolishly criticizing it for goods and disregarding the ugly consequences in its wake.

“Everyone knows that we won [our blessings] James Monroe concluded in his 1823 speech, which laid out what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially told the rest of the world to cede the Western Hemisphere to us: “Shall we not, then, take every precaution which may be necessary to maintain them?”

Our wars of expansion in the 19th century, official or not, gave us lands populated by Latin Americans (Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, but especially Mexicans), and we ended up treating them little better than serfs. For years we occupied nations and imposed sanctions on others. With the regularity of the seasons we supported puppets and despots and overthrew democratically elected governments.

The culmination of all these actions were the mass migrations from Latin America that changed the demographics of the United States forever. And when these people — like my family — came here, they were immediately exposed to a racism that is ingrained in the American psyche; This then legitimized a Latin American foreign policy based on domination rather than friendship.

Nothing historically supports this country more than sticking it to Latinos, whether in their ancestral countries or here. We are the permanent scapegoats and eternal occupiers of this country; Harming strangers (whether by stealing their jobs, moving into their neighborhoods, marrying their daughters, or smuggling drugs) is supposedly the only thing on our minds.

So when Trump ran on a pro-isolationist platform last year, he never meant the region — of course not. The border between the United States and Latin America has never been the fence separating the United States from Mexico or our shores. Wherever we say it is, it happens.

That’s why the Trump administration is banking on the idea that it can get away with boat bombings and salivating to escalate the situation. In their view, the 43 people killed so far in American missile strikes offshore are not human beings, and anyone with even the slightest bit of sympathy or suspicion deserves to be attacked, too.

So when Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murder because one of the attacks killed a Colombian fisherman with no ties to the cartels, Trump slammed Petro’s “new mouth” on social media, accused him of being a “drug leader” and warned the president of the longtime American ally “better shut down these killing fields.” [cartel bases] “immediately, or the US will shut them down for him, and it won’t be done in a nice way.”

The only person who can turn down the proverbial heat on this issue is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who must know all the evils that American imperialism has wrought in Latin America. For decades, the United States has treated its parents’ homeland, Cuba, like a playground; He supported one dictator after another until Cubans rebelled and Fidel Castro came to power. The embargo, which Trump tightened for decades upon his second term in office, has made things worse for the Cuban people rather than liberating them.

Instead, Rubio is the instigator. He’s pushing for regime change in Venezuela, pairing it with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator,” and cheering on Trump’s missile strikes.

“Ultimately, these are drug ships,” Rubio told reporters alongside Trump recently. “If people don’t want to see drug ships blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”

You may ask: Who cares? Cartels are bad, drugs are bad, right? Certainly. But every American should always oppose the destruction of a suspected drug ship sailing from Latin America, with no questions asked and no evidence presented. Because when Trump violates another law or norm in the name of defending the United States and no one stops him, democracy erodes some more.

This is, after all, a president who dreams of treating his enemies, including American cities, like drug vessels.

Unfortunately, very few people will care. This is Latin America, after all.