Extract from ABC News
Analysis
The spectre of individual leaders being personally targeted is added to Donald Trump's arsenal of economic levers like tariffs on the one hand, and financial largesse on the other. (Reuters: Evelyn Hockstein)
The global shock caused by the actions of the Trump administration in Venezuela this week sent analysts scurrying for historic comparisons, and national leaders in the Americas into states of alarm about where the US president might strike next.
Looking for historical comparisons has possibly never been less helpful.
Direct comparisons have been made in recent days between the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and that of Panamanian strong man General Manuel Noriega in 1989.
Comparisons have also been made between Donald Trump's assertion that the US would "run" Venezuela and previously ill-fated American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And they have been made with the US's long, and generally ill-starred, interventions in Latin America over the past century. These were often made by US intelligence agencies using major military intervention and destabilisation campaigns and sought regime change.
But all these comparisons are deeply problematic. None reflect what has happened in Venezuela this week — at least not in the traditional sense.
Direct comparisons have been made in recent days between the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and that of Panamanian strong man General Manuel Noriega in 1989. (US National Archives )
Regime change ruled out
The capture of Noriega, by President George H W Bush's administration, seems to have provided the legal argument used by the Trump administration for seizing Maduro on drugs charges.
But Noriega was not recognised as the head of state in an institutional sense in Panama.
The US has conspicuously not opted for regime change in Venezuela as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump explicitly ruled out backing the Venezuelan opposition and, based on reports emanating from Washington, including by the Wall Street Journal, his administration has struck a deal with the Venezuelan military on what happens next.
And Trump has avoided — at least for now — the spectre of a major "boots on the ground" intervention in Venezuela.
That doesn't mean that what has happened has not been deeply alarming for what it implies for the world order: That it has ripped up the final vestiges of expectations that nation states will act in a way which recognises international legal and diplomatic norms.
It reflects a view of a world which is carved up by great powers with an implicit agreement that they will not intervene in each other's backyards: In Russia's case Ukraine and China's, Taiwan.
Indeed Fiona Hill, who served as a senior foreign policy adviser in the first Trump administration told Congress in 2019 that the Russian government had been "signalling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap agreement between Venezuela and Ukraine".
Dominance of the Western Hemisphere
In the case of Venezuela, Trump has maximised his announcement effect, and minimised the physical intervention.
He is seeking to run not just Venezuela but the broader Western Hemisphere by threat of further action: A crude, basic "whatever it takes" punishment and reward system dictated by the self interest of the US — for which read business and economic interests over all else, from an administration that cares little for legalities, niceties or alliances.
The spectre of individual leaders being personally targeted is added to Trump's arsenal of economic levers like tariffs on the one hand, and financial largesse on the other.
In the case of Venezuela, Trump has maximised his announcement effect, and minimised the physical intervention. (AP Photo: Alex Brandon)
That means that rather than looking through this week's events through the paradigm of past events, an assessment of the second Trump administration's actions needs to start with what the end goal is in each case, and study how those end goals have been, or could be, pursued in very non-traditional ways, whether that is in Latin America, or at the other end of the Western Hemisphere, Greenland.
Trump's colourful language adds an additional level of confusion to what may be taking place.
A photograph which US President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account shows what he describes as Venezuelan President "Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima" amphibious assault ship. (Truth Social: @realDonaldTrump)
Just witness the confusion at what he meant on Sunday when he said that the US would "run" Venezuela.
But there is some underlying order and ambition to what has been happening, not just in recent days but since Trump's second inauguration last year.
It was formalised in the release of the US national security strategy last month.
At the heart of the strategy though is a focus on controlling the Western Hemisphere — the broader Americas — that it says is there to serve US purposes:
"The United States must be pre-eminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region."
"We want a hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations," it says.
It could have added, that what it wants in the Western Hemisphere is governments with both like-minded political philosophies and an acquiescent approach to US demands.
The Trump administration has already used a range of non-traditional means of pursuing this strategy.
The case of Argentina
In Argentina, the US has helped prop up the ideologically aligned government of Argentinian president Javier Milei through a currency swap agreement last year of up to $20 billion aimed "at contributing to Argentina's economic stability" ahead of midterm elections there late last year. It has also supported a separate $20 billion facility from "private banks and sovereign wealth funds" to support Argentina's embattled economy.
Trump threatened Argentinian voters with withdrawing aid if his ally was defeated at the ballot box.
"If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina," Trump said.
By comparison, the government of Brazil's left wing President Lula da Silva was hit with "additional" 40 per cent tariffs (above a 10 per cent base line) "to address the government of Brazil's unusual and extraordinary policies and actions harming US companies, the free speech rights of US persons, US foreign policy, and the US economy."
This was linked to what the administration said was the "government of Brazil's politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President [and Trump ally] Jair Bolsonaro and thousands of his supporters [which] are serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil."
The term "geo-strategic coercion" has become a regularly used one of late and certainly seems to apply to the US approach to Brazil.
But it also demonstrates the shortcomings — or possibly short-sightedness — of this approach.
Is the American intervention in Venezuela a breach of international law? (Adam Harvey, Michael Rowland, Jacob Greber)
Trump is, in part, punishing Brazil for its economic ties with China. But his policy is only pushing the South American nation closer to China.
And now the strategy has taken on a much more ominous tone with the effective decapitation of another country's government.
Trump has listed grievances against other Latin American countries: Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.
Cuba will be under intense knock-on pressure from any changes in Venezuelan policy. Just how the US might seek to interfere in Colombia and Mexico remains to be seen.
But it is the reheating of threats against Greenland that is worrying allies.
A long history
There is a long history of the United States wanting to control Greenland as far back as 1867.
Trump has spoken on occasion of buying Greenland, including on the first day of his second term.
The sparsely populated country holds considerable natural resource reserves and is only growing in strategic importance as interest in the Arctic for both shipping and natural resources grows.
There is a long history of the United States wanting to control Greenland as far back as 1867. (Reuters: Marko Djurica)
Greenland may be part of the Western Hemisphere. But it is also part of Denmark — a US ally and NATO member.
The spectre of the US seizing Greenland by force seems both incomprehensible but very real in the wake of events in Venezuela.
Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, told CNN on Tuesday (Australian time) that Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO.
Asked to rule out the prospect of the US taking Greenland by force, Miller said that "nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over the future of Greenland".
This came after Trump himself said that "I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future".
What we have seen to date suggests Trump will avoid a military operation unless he thinks he can simply walk in to Greenland — in line with his pledge to his base to not be involved in any 'boots on the ground' campaigns.
But the administration's comments have set up the extraordinary challenge for NATO members in Europe of working out what they would do if the biggest NATO member — the US — invaded their territory.
The world as we know it really has been turned on its head.
Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.
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