So we've captured Maduro, and Trump has said Gustavo Petro (Colombia) has to "watch his ass" and Cuba "is something we'll be talking about." See quotes in this reporting.
My initial spontaneous ask was "how does this serve America's interests and the America First principle?" It feels noble and right to help people in other countries, but unlike his first term, these excursions seem to have no measurable results in domestic, "America First" agenda he campaigned on.
So, has he lost the plot? Or is there still some grand strategy that you think is afoot?
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Well, energy and resources are important to the United States. And the more I read about this, the more I think there were other factors involved too. Like China was apparently trying a power play in Venezuela, and China shouldn't have control over the largest oil reserves in the world. People say "It's about the oil" and my thinking is "Yea, - Duh". I mean, energy and oil have been super important to the world powers for a long time now, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, California's green policies is causing gasoline refineries to shut down in the state, and it might push California gas prices to $8 dollars to $12 dollars a gallon, eventually, because of California.s insane environmental activists and hostility to the oil/gas industry. So this must be part of it, to help the US regarding oil supplies. The alternative was to let China control the vast oil reserves in Venezuela, and I don't think that is a preferable outcome. If you want the USA to remain as top dog, that is.
So you think it's ok for the US to just overthrow any nation and take their natural resources whenever we want?
And you think it's worth risking American lives and spending millions of taxpayer dollars to do so?
Wasn't Trump just saying he should get a Nobel Prize because he stopped like 15 wars in the last year? How can you go from "no new wars" to supporting this overnight?
The thing that bothers me the most about this is actually the lying and the insulting and weak attempts to justify this as having to do with fentanyl. I made an OP here over 2 months ago and by far the most common response from TS was, essentially, “Duh, of course it’s about drugs.”
Was it always this obvious to you? Why was it not obvious to the rest of TS? Finally, does it bother you that they’ve been lying about something so consequential?
Putting aside that this is specifically China we're talking about, how is this fundamentally different than the pitch we get for every other war?
We were told Iraq was about WMDs and terrorism that could claim the lives of millions of Americans. Other actions in South America were to keep to communists from getting a foothold in our hemisphere.
Going back to China, we directly fought their forces in the Korean and Vietnam wars. It's always sold as good for Americans, how is this different?
Why is No Trumppist answering this one? I am genuinely curious how you see this. Can you give me an insight?
If the Monroe Doctrine isn't America first, what is?
I heard it's called the Donroe Doctrine now.
I chuckled when I first read that but is there any seriousness behind the term? With the way the Trump administration and MAGA approach messaging it's difficult to tell when something is just a joke or when the joke is used to increase attention on actual policy.
If there is something legitimate/serious behind "Donroe Doctrine" do you know what it is or where I could learn about what it is?
How is the Monroe Doctrine relevant to the capture of Maduro and future relations between Venezuela and USA?
Venezuela under Maduro has been getting tight with both Russia and China. They are one of the major smugglers of Russian oil into the world market, redesignating it as Venezuelan oil, and they just signed an agreement for large purchases of Russian military hardware a few months ago. China has significant investments now in the Venezuelan oil industry. That all I would expect to end.
I'm confused. Can you explain the relevancy to the Monroe Doctrine?
Fourth part of the Doctrine was if a European power tried to interfere with any nation in the Americas, that would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.
So… is the Bush Doctrine America First also? Because arguably all he did was take the Monroe doctrine globally.
An actual dictator that we ourselves didn’t even prop up via Cold War necessity, holding power illegitimately,
sustaining the illegal cocaine trade with our nation, streaming refugees we can’t afford to our nation, producing one of the most dangerous gangs for our nation, holding industrial oil property stolen from our nation,
actively oppressing a population that shares our democratic values and could be a trade partner (big selling point for getting involved with Ukraine)…
getting cozy with China right in our own backyard.
How does this NOT serve America's interests and the America First principle?"
Because logic gets thrown out the window whenever Trump is involved. Fortunately for us, he is.
It’s been so crazy. I can even remember back when Democrat voters were the free speech advocates! Then came… the weirdness. First it was do whatever HRC told them, now it’s do the opposite of whatever Trump says.
I'm old enough to remember when Democrats held that even tolerating Maduro’s grip on power was dispositive evidence of being a Russian puppet. Now they're going Greta on removing him.
So are they the puppets now or is that (D)ifferent?
The contemporary left broadly has no worldview beyond core reflexive negations—Orange Man bad, whites bad, America bad, men bad—from which they almost algorithmically arrive at predictable clusters of conclusions.
Could it be because a lot of what he does isn't logical or based on facts? We hear it is about drugs, but he is more than happy to release a drug trafficker himself because the democrates were mean to him or something? I can't even follow him any longer, the more he speaks the less he makes sense nowadays. I feel like we're just watching bread and circuses to keep the maga crowd entertained and the crazy thing is that it works. Remember a year ago you guys wanted to release the Epstein files, the one thing Maga and I always agreed on? Now? Crickets or "its a democrat hoax", calling the few republicans who didnt flip the script RINO. What makes the republican party so beholden to one guy?
I wouldn’t know as I’m not a Republican. But we wouldn’t even have Trump as President if the former liberal side of society hadn’t lost their minds.
It couldn’t be because of anything Trump does, because it happened before his first election.
Do you think of Trump as a free speech advocate? How do you feel when he tells reporters 'quiet piggy', sues the BBC, pressures ABC to silence comedians etc?
I think Trump is a fallible free speech advocate, like nobody’s perfect. I’d say he’s got the general ideal for American rights, but also a big ego that he’ll fight over.
He sued the BBC for defamation, because they edited his answers. I’d applaud it if a housewife sued them for that.
And Reminder that there’s no proof- or even solid logic- that Trump pressured ABC “to silence comedians”.
Kimmel’s ratings suck and then he said something about a murder in front of family, and Disney is a family company. People get fired for far less every day.
These opinions reflect conjecture from the media.
So I feel fine when he tells reporters 'quiet piggy' because they’ve been attacking him constantly for 10 years.
What was Trump's logic behind pardoning drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández, a man who was responsible for 400 tons of cocaine into our country?
How come nobody is answering this one ☝️?
Because Trump is not on Reddit. You'd have to ask him for his rationalization.
I'm terribly sorry that I have not developed the ability to read minds as of right now. Working on it, promise.
I’m glad you stated the truth. Donald Trump has no logic and is making money off you every day. It’s sad. Good luck with breaking from the cult right?
But isn’t the challenging part what comes next? The devil is in the details. Sure, Maduro was bad but how can we be sure what comes next will be better? How can we ensure that the next person won’t do what Maduro did (or worse). And what if there’s a backlash within Venezuela to the US overthrowing their leader? What might that lead to?
While he may not have started a protracted war, who really knows what will happen now, right? Isn’t this kind of adventurism exactly what Trump said he would never do?
No, for the exact reasons I laid out above.
Yeah it’s a risky situation. It was increasingly risky with him holding the country too.
The riskiness is why Trump was supposed to be the president who didn’t do these sorts of things, right?
I mean, there are many leaders in the western hemisphere and beyond who are not great and could ultimately be harmful to America. Do we take them all out now? Do you agree that these sorts of actions don’t often work out well for the US in the end?
Isn’t part of “America First” the recognition that none of these foreign interventions actually benefit us in the long run, despite the justifications sold to the public at the time?
That is, without a real imminent threat to Americans, the government will create justifications (WMDs, nation building, spreading democracy) to exert influence abroad but does not substantively benefit American voters?
In fact the result of these are usually prolonged entanglements that result in deaths of foreign citizens and Americans, further destabilization of foreign societies and animus to the US that results in blowback (9/11) and puts Americans in the type of harm that less interventionist nations never have to worry about.
You know this has always been a liberal outlook, right? Stop the war machine?
I dunno but I’d say “America First” means put America first. American success and American values. Prioritize that over multinational corporations, for example.
But there’s a lot of overlap with your question, sure.
Nobody’s going to have anti-US animus over this action unless they would anyway.
Destabilization in this nation was already a fact; they were literally eating cats and zoo animals. We were already at risk with this criminal despot in power.
Wasn’t it Eisenhower who warned against foreign intervention? And Donald Trump? Conversely both Clinton and Obama led American intervention overseas, how is “stopping the war machine” a right-left issue and not an American people vs the American Government issue?
The administration has justified this as a police action but what American values would we be promoting by governing a sovereign nation?
To your final point, do you think that the Saudis that attacked the US on 9/11 or the Iranian regime that resulted from our overthrow of their elected government just hated the US naturally? Is it possible that our actions, specifically the prioritization of American interests in their countries over their own, contributed to the intensity and permanence of hatred toward the US.
HRC pretty much lost because of her Warhawk ways.
Just to be clear:
my experience is that leftists and shitlibs were incredibly cavalier about starting WWIII over Ukraine. Almost gleeful about it on Reddit and X. And quite keen to call anyone a coward or Putin lover if you challenged their energy.
Furthermore, I am prepared for disingenuous masses of them to suddenly pretend like all that didn’t just happen.
So “stopping the war machine” is not a right-left issue. But ever since ‘Nam it was primarily a liberal concern. Then it wasn’t. Now it suddenly is again. Blindly opposing Trump looks like the only common thread.
In the madness of this era, people won’t accept that they are saying the same things when it comes to Halliburton and such.
Either this guy was a criminal imposter like various governments and Presidents and scores Venezuelans say… or he’s the rightful leader. If it’s the former, there’s no “justification” needed.
Thus we’re not governing a sovereign nation. We might help them manage things to avoid destabilization, until they elect someone.
I don’t know; this feels very different to Middle East geopolitics.
How is South America in our own backyard? Its literally a completely different continent that doesn't even border the US.
Thwarting efforts of his allies that are our enemies and funding of terrorist organizations seems pretty America First to me. Not seeing any down-side for the US from this yet anyway.
Couldn't you make a pretty similar argument with Ukraine? Many Trump Supporters used America First as a justification for not continuing to support Ukraine.
Venezuela is our backyard, Ukraine is Europe's.
We should be helping in Ukraine, Europe should be leading.
Ukraine seems to be a loose loose situation. Initially I supported their defence of teratory, but the situation has degraded badly to an unwinable state . There's no quick solution. We can't go grab Putin - its a different situation with Russian security, military. We can't go claim Ukraine's terratory with military force, russia wou;d respond lilely with neuclear force.
We've been proppimg up Zelenski for years with no hope for success in sight. There's no visible benefit to the US other than maybe some rare earths but I don't see that happening soon.
In Venezuela a transition should take weeks or months - id this takes years we're doing it wrong.
uh, denmark?
What does Denmark have to do with snything?
Earnest Answer: Opoid drug deaths in the US have fallen by 34% in 2025. Americans not dying from nonsense is putting America first.
The DEA captured, convicted, and imprisoned Maduro's nephews and Biden pardoned them and sent them home.
Isn't that because most of the current crop of addicts died already?
No - there is no harvest season for addicts. New ones are born every day.
So why exactly have opioid OD deaths decreased?
The studies of confirmed opioid user are notoriously unreliable because they lie about everything. I suspect that without the border crossings and the boats that the product is scarce and the price has gone up.
What about the former leader of Honduras?
What about him?
He was a narco terrorrist and drug trafficker, arrested in Mexico on a warrant and extradited to the U.S. by our request, fearing Mexico would fuck up the criminal case.
He was tried in American federal court and sentenced to prison with bipartisan support (at the time).
The guy wrote a letter to Trump from prison and Trump pardoned him 2 weeks ago - confusing members of Trump’s own staff when asked about it.
How do you feel about Trump’s inconsistency here? Can you be “tough on drug traffickers” while granting clemency to convicted drug traffickers?
It looks to me like, based on what you said, that Trump pardoned him after conviction. Maybe the same thing will happen if Maduro is convicted. We will just have to wait and see.
Do you mind providing a source for that? I found one article from a doctor in California but the CDC system does not have that data available yet. But if 34% is impressive, are you willing to give Biden credit for dropping OD deaths by 39%(and in 2023 one less state reported data as well so it is most likely higher) in 2024 as well?
Yes - I searched for opiod deaths. Good luck.
No - I do not trust anything that the "Biden" admin reported.
But you trust what the Trump admin reports? Why is that?
Was it the AI Overview?
Biden didn't just pardon them. They were part of a prisoner exchange to get back Americans were wrongfully being held in Venezuela. Did you purposely leave that out to make the facts fit your narrative or were you genuinely unaware?
My point was the corruption and nefarious dealings of the Maduro organization. I made my point. You focused on the wrong thing.
If that was your point wasn't the statement about Biden not only untrue but also unnecessary?
Nothing I said was untrue or unnecessary.
what percentage of opioids entering the USA do you believe were from venezuela?
A smaller percentage than cocaine but not zero. Also, no one knows this percentage. Any numbers are just wild ass guesses.
This is interesting. Can I see your source? Most sources on that kind of data wouldn't have theirs published yet.
And are we comparing that to YoY or to pre-pandemic numbers?
Yes - it is freely available and searchable by google which is how I found it. I did not save the search.
I am sure it's one of those.
After some google searching I believe I found a similar source. However the data does include the caveat that it is 'provisional data' so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Another disturbing thing which should make us both wary of quoting your statistic is that the "34%" number is an estimate of the upper bound of what the data could be, not the actual number itself.
After looking at the data too it shows that Opioid deaths have fallen to what they were just at the start of the pandemic. While fantastic news I don't think we can attribute this to Trump since the rate of deaths began to fall nearly a year before Trump even took office, let alone had the time to enact policies that would help curb those deaths.
In fact I would say that regardless of who was president, that opioid deaths most likely would have fallen to what they were pre-pandemic as the pandemic-woes began to fade away, and that is exactly what we have seen.
With all of this in mind, how does this relate to Trump and his "America First" agenda if we can't even attribute this success to him (let alone any president)?
I don't think it's a grand strategy so much as an acknowledgement the rules based international order no longer makes sense for the United States. It's too expensive and we're sick of the constant criticism that comes with thanklessly doing our part while others free ride on our sacrifices. Trump is redrawing the boundaries so that the United States remains the regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere by kicking out China and Russia, who can go play in their own regions of the world.
So by that logic we should just let China take Taiwan and Russia take Ukraine?
It's not really a matter of logic, it's a matter of what's possible. Me telling you that I believe in One World Government isn't going to change the fact that Chine can build ships and the US can't, or that Europe can't defend itself from a Russian invasion. We're just too far gone for platitudes. But if platitudes would make you feel better, you can pretend I agree with you, I guess.
Europe is going to have to buck up and get its defenses in order, because a Russian invasion of its eastern flank looks likely. I don't know what to tell you about Taiwan, the US has wargamed that one out and we lose every time. I think Taiwan is going to have to agree to assimilation, at a time of the CCP's choosing.
Do you think any of this will result in an attack on US soil?
Do you believe it is a good thing that the US stops following the rule based international order? Do you think this will change how Russia and China behaves in their own Regions?
The world is clearly heading to a multipolar reality where America, China and Russia are the three regional hegemons and the smaller countries in there spheres of influence will have to defer to them. My preference would be for the United States to be the global hegemon, but that's unlikely to be maintained.
How important is foreign policy to you? I ask because you’ve essentially laid out Trump’s foreign policy: moving from a rules-based order to a “spheres of influence” type order in which most of the world would exist as vassal states of one of three (for now) hegemons. If the “rules-based order” can’t be maintained, it’s because Trump and his allies have actively sought to undermine it.
Foreign policy is, of course, important. I think it's impossible in this instance to say that President Trump is solely responsible for the (de)evolution to a multipolar world.
In large part, the continued mismanagement of a rising China and a crumbling Russia are the signal factors responsible for the changes to the international order we are seeing at present. These missteps predate President Trump by many years.
You can throw into the mix a continued propensity on the part of the EU to free ride on US military might and the institutions that make up the RBIO, and which have been underwritten by the US.
Simply put, as the world became more complicated, managing the RBIO became more complicated and therefore more expensive. With nobody willing to step up to the plate, the dissolution of the RBIO became inevitable.
monroe doctrine is america first
It's like Rome pretending to care about its red line of Mesopotamia while Italia has been flooded by Asiatics and the Emperors are foreigners.
"Oh no, the Persians crossed the Euphrates!" Who cares, my neighbor is already called Darius.
Monroe and his America is dead, his doctrine is meaningless if America isn't America.
Do you think his administration’s behavior is reflective of trying to achieve the Monroe Doctrine? Should Canada be worried?
Are Canada and Greenland financing terror in the Middle East, and elsewhere? Are Canada and Greenland shipping poison to the shores United States?
Is the answer yes?
Is the Monroe Doctrine about terrorism and drugs?
Or Greenland, Cuba, Mexico?
Are the leaders of Canada, Greenland, Mexico and Cuba personally complicit in the drug trade that is poisoning American citizens?
Why do you think he's threatening Cuba then?
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How is the Monroe Doctrine relevant to the topic?
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Do you have any sources for me to check out? I'm familiar with Monroe's state of the union address and the reinterpretation of the monroe docterine as a general policy of non-intervention but capturing maduro seems to violate that principle.
the monroe doctrine is something you learn about in like the 4th grade, if you dont understand the basics of what the monroe doctrine is, i am not going to hold your hand
Do you mean manifest destiny?
no i mean monroe doctrine
60% of Cuba's oil is from Venezuela, there's nothing else to it.
Everything else is a lie. I'd support bombing cartels but most of the cartels trafficking into America are in the actual narco-state of Mexico. It's wasteful and cruel to spend 30 years destabling Venezuela just to bankrupt the energy supply of Cuba and relitigate the Cuban missile crisis and cold war. Under the best out come, the US subsidizes a puppet government in Venezuela or it collapses into...something worse. It's like no one remembers the Arab spring and how that turned into Isis.
However, the Social Security crisis in 2033, the China-Taiwan war projected around 2027-2030 basically means if the US doesn't rap up Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran before 2027: it probably can't for decades to come if ever. Meaning, Russia and China have access to a spy port and weapons platform, which they would probably never use due to their own domestic national time bombs.
This is real geopolitics; it's disgusting, but it makes sense.
Reclaiming control of our hemisphere and wiping out narco terrorist dictators that are a boat ride away from us is putting America first. Not to mention the amount of oil that will now be under US control instead of China and Russia. You don't have to like Trump to be able to see how this works out better for the US in many ways, plus we freed an oppressed people. Win-win.
Does that give him power to go anything he wants to Canada, Mexico and any South American country?
Are they ran by narco terrorist dictators?
Is Denmark/Greenland?
https://globalnews.ca/news/11246670/fbi-director-blames-vancouver-fentanyl-crisis-us-data/amp/
They’re trying to make it seem like that. Do you agree with Kash here or the data from your government?
How should America "control" Venezuela? Should that country be a client state of some sort? Should it be a democracy? Who should decide who leads the country next and what their priorities ought to be?
America should quickly facilitate a free and fair election and let Venezuelans get their country back to the stable democracy it was before Chavez and Maduro took over.
If America doesn’t do that and instead installs their own ruler what would your opinion be? I ask because it seems that the US is not listening to the will of the Venezuelans currently since they did not turn the government over to the person that rightfully won the previous election
It's been all of 24 hours, maybe give it a week or two before making statements like that. My understanding is that Machado is a full supporter of Trump's and vice versa, I'm sure they are working on it behind the scenes.
Would you support keeping Machado in power if it went against the will of the Venezuelans? (I don’t live there but I’ve seen people saying they want him gone too)
What if the Venezuelan people elect a new leader who opposes American interests? Trump has made it clear that his goal is to create access for American oil companies to enter Venezuela but what if the newly elected leader rejects that goal?
They already elected Machado and Gonzalez last July who are supporters of Trump and vice versa, I'm sure a transition plan is being worked out behind the scenes.
Why should the US be in control of the whole western hemisphere?
Because China is trying to supplant us whether you want to realize it or not. No thanks. Trade map
But what gives you the right to control an entire hemisphere? If countries want to trade more with China than the US then they are free to do so. Why should you control who they trade with?
China operates off a debt-enslavor model that requires countries to completely rely on their investment to stay afloat, lead by corrupt puppets that thrive while their people fight for scraps. It's a shame you hate your own country so much that you're ok with that, but luckily Trump is president and that shit stops here and now.
might makes right. real politik. that's how it's always been. this is our domain and it's suicidal to allow adversaries to set up shop right near us
People want to pretend this isn't the way of the world - whether it's the US or otherwise. It is.
Honest question: did you expect this kind of international “adventurism” when you voted for Trump?
I expected a strong leader not afraid to do what's right for his countrys well-being. That's exactly what I got. 👍🇺🇸
Maduro was indicted on federal charges almost 6 years ago. Enforcing criminal indictments is in America's interests.
do you possibly envision how this argument falls apart quickly when you take into consideration who his captor was?
I don't understand the question.
The Biden administration had a $25 million reward in place for information leading to Maduro's arrest. They were just too weak to do anything about it.
I’m saying, in a vacuum, the argument “this guy was indicted in a US court and enforcing said indictment is in americas interests” kinda falls flat, no?
(Current POTUS also had that complication. Except in his case he called it law fare and was proceeded to be reelected president.)
Should we stop enforcing federal indictments because it "falls flat"?
Should the US capture Putin?
If there were a viable operational plan, we should seriously consider it.
Why do you think that it's legal for the US to enforce an indictment in another country without the cooperation of that country?
I am not a lawyer, so I can't cite a statutory reference. I do not doubt that there was a finding by internal lawyers that the action was legal. They don't have to share that with us.
Beyond that, trying to oust Maduro wasn't just Trump's idea. Biden had a $25 million reward on his head for "information leading to his arrest." Well, now he's arrested, and we didn't have to pay the $25 million.
Solving the root cause of migration. It's what Kamala did?
The people freaking out the most about this seem to heavily overlap with the pro-Marxist, pro-cartel, pro-censorship, pro-open borders, anti-enterprise, anti-merit, anti-industry, anti-natalist, anti-election-security, pro-decarceration, pro-fraud, pro-mass-migration, pro-Islamist, pro-grooming/MAPS, police-abolishing, assassin-celebrating, white-adjacent hating, child-mutilating, anti-Western crowds—which is usually a reliable signal you’re on the America-First side of the ledger.
The wildest thing is that only a few years ago, the mainstream lib narrative held that even tolerating Maduro’s grip on power was dispositive evidence of being a Russian puppet. Now they're going Greta on removing him. So are they the puppets now or is that (D)ifferent?
The contemporary left broadly has no worldview beyond core reflexive negations—Orange Man bad, whites bad, America bad, men bad—from which they almost algorithmically arrive at predictable clusters of conclusions.
Could you think about this this in terms of what actually happened, rather than which side people are on? Plenty of republicans seem concerned "running" Venezuela is a bad idea as well. Were all the people who were against the Iraq also "anti-Western"? How is this different?
Does any of this answer the OP's question?
Did you see the link to the cnn video? It says that because Trump left Maduro in power, America is in retreat. He is answering your question by saying that no matter what Trump does, the left criticizes him. When he left Maduro in power during his first term, he was bad, now that he has ousted him, he’s also bad (according to the left)
Removing a dictator from a country is a weird thing for the left to be against.
That didn’t answer the original question. Is this “America first”?
Clearly.
Can you explain how exactly? Would invading Columbia and Cuba like Trump suggested also be America first?
No country under the command of Trump was invaded during his term.
Do you believe the decision to invade Iraq as part of the war on terror in 2003 was ultimately a good decision?
I do not know what that has to do with the price of tea in china.
America First is about doing what’s best for the USA. If China and Russia are expanding in North and South America, do you really think an America First leader would just sit by and watch? I bet Maduro will snitch, and Trump will gain more information about hidden enemies. Trump is there to win. Pure America First doesn’t talk world politics, it plays to win. And Trump simply outworks his enemies in the GOP, the Democrats, and the EU.
We already know china and Russia are smuggling and repackaging product to get around sanctions and tarrifs. We seize illegal aluminum shipments all the time. I'm hoping he gives up the Chinese prison labor shops they're using so we can shut most of them down.
I support President Trump's enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. We should get a free hand in the Americas, while ceding a free hand in Europe/Asia to local powers in that area.
You don't think it's a pretty outdated/arbitrary/idiotic doctrine dating back from when it was still hard/slow for people to cross the Atlantic? I am pretty dumbfounded about why deposing Saddam was bad but deposing Maduro is good. Wasn't Saddam also a bad dictator? Didn't they also have oil reserves? Is your logic that regime change in South America will go better than the Middle East? Be honest - how much more did you know about Venezuela than Iraq to give you that confidence? Or are you just rolling the dice?
Seems to me that Republicans are forever destined to repeat their mistakes. From anti-world police, anti-regime change to "toppling other governments is good, actually, as long as it's arbitrarily in our hemisphere!".
People can make an argument for it being in our national interest but I am extremely skeptical. I'm not dooming over this but I'm not supporting it either.
No. Odd questions too when weighed against reality.
The CIA, created and run by poncey British pederasts, has every presidency in a gimp suit watching while they absolutely plough a ball-gagged America's once-tight Button Gwinnett.
Can you name the British pederasts specifically?
Lord Mountbatten, Keynes/Cantabrigians, Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew, OSS honeytrapping, the BDSM British 'public' school system plus adjacently Brigitte Macron, Skull and Bones hazing, Jeffery Epsberg.
Ghislaine Maxwell was a creator of the CIA?
Maxwell was impelled by a class of people. Quigley wrote about the origins of elite clandestine intel cadres in the 60s. We are in 3 wars for them now, they had plans for Crimea since 1850, NATO functions "To keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.", Lord Hastings Ismay (1st Baron Ismay), NATO's first Secretary General + EU top dawgs gave the Nobel Peace Prize to a warhawk begging for this regime change because we have an innocent lamb president who believes in the Nobel Peace Prize (or they got his nuts in a sling or both). Why do we blame Israel? Israel was created by the same Milner group albino monks who kompromat and/or shoot presidents with an intel cadre that also collects billionaires like milk caps.
Yes
> "Has Trump lost the "America First" plot completely?"
Nope. Isolationism was never "America First." The safety and security of the US requires us to be aware of and if necessary implement cvhange in other places. Of course this is a principle that int he past has been abused, used as a blind and so on to support rampant adventurism and meddling - but the correction to that is not isolationism.
Each of Trump's interventions have been very efficient. The US gets a maximum benefit with a minimal exposure to retaliation, with a minimal expenditure of soldiers at risk. As long as he keeps doing that, and choosing these interventions well? Then that is very much "America First."
I agree that isolationism would be to the detriment of the US. Given that we agree on this, what is your view on Trump's tariffs?
Personally I would prefer less military intervention abroad and more international trade.
I'm all for trade - on terms that favor us. Trade on bad terms is not a benefit at all.
In your view, which trade terms (if any) are bad for the US, and by what metric do you deem them bad/unfavorable for the US? Do you think Trump's tariffs have improved international trade for the US?
To really stop the drugs, you stop the source. America first is FIXING issues, not bandaiding them. This maduro event fixies a big part of the drug issue and also get us oil supplies back which touches all of the US economy. Are you watching to see daily all the info that is coming out about Russia and China using Venezuela as a launching ground to negatively impact the US? See how this is America first. Trump is delivering results driven policy that is so different than the same same of Rino republicans and leftists. The what about isms coming from the left are such a big red flag for the state of the left. But, but, but… just take the L on this one. Sit down and let the Venezuelans enjoy this. You’re ruining it for them with all your handwringing.
What do you mean "get oil supplies back"? The US does not own the oil under the ground in Venezuela. Are you talking about physical supplies? I frastructure and equipment? Or maybe recouping debt owed to US companies?
It's by far the most significant event that has made me question my support for Trump.
I still do only because he's literally the only hope (even if it's only 0.001%) for a real Right to establish itself.
MAGA has fully been engulfed by neoconservatives, and worse, they successfully fooled what little dissidents that do exist into thinking this is some restoration of old American glory. As if this is a filibuster adventure to establish a Confederate empire.
All this is is more of the same, the Empire safeguarding itself while happily destroying America.
Oil, "communists", China, whatever doesn't matter if Americans don't exist.
It is what it is, no god has promised a good life. I've accepted the reality that this is a generational war. I'm no different than a Roman laborer in the year 400. Asiatics have replaced all of Italy, the Empire pretends to be Roman, and all I can do is have a family who will hopefully some day establish something like the High Middle Ages.
How do you feel about the admin's compliance with the Epstein disclosure act?
Don't really care.
Is it fair if congress or courts put pressure on this administration for non-compliance?
You can find posts from people way more knowledgeable about this than myself, but getting Venezula to have a closer relationship means cutting off an oil supply to china, reduces the drug flow to all countries including the US, removes an attack point from china/russia since they were setting up shop there, may lower oil prices in the future (which lowers all prices), and slows down BRICS from taking down the petro-dollar.
It seems to align with helping us on multiple fronts.
The Monroe doctrine is America first, and we just recouped assets and capital stolen by Chavez. I'm not sure how taking our stuff back isn't America first.
I disagree with everyone here. Yes, he's lost the plot on America first. I hope he manages to get a few good things done, particularly with RFK, but the non-interventionist foreign policy he campaigned on, which was his biggest advantage over Kamala, has gone out the window with his unconditional support of Israel.