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The Risks Of Trump’s Brazen Latin America Policy
Late last year, following Donald Trump's reelection, a piece in Foreign Affairs predicted an end to
Thanks for that. I wonder if t and cronies simply are looking for an easy win for the military for the purpose of assuring followers that they are ” making America great again”. As you said, no strategy. Likely just another transaction in the brainwashing effort.
Yeah, this article was long overdue, but the problem is that for any individual action Trump takes, it’s hard to tell whether he’s just shooting from the hip or whether there’s a larger story to tell. There’s only so much time in a day, and I’m trying to avoid the black hole I got into during his first term, when every other article was a Trump article. You (i.e., me) have to figure out some kind of happy editorial medium where readers get a bigger-picture narrative they can wrap their minds around, as opposed to what you get from the mainstream media which too often is just a live blog of his every word. It’s to the point now where if you read the Times (for example) at the end of any given day, you don’t know where to start. There are usually dozens of articles chronicling just that one day’s Trump “news.” I don’t think that’s especially helpful for people.
I appreciate the trade-off between you covering Trump establishing a new policy on something vs. Trump making noise. I find too many editorial sources simply cover Trump and his administration having done something horrible today. It is overwhelming, depressing, and repetative. Thank you for making the effort to (try to) put Trump’s actions into a meaningful context.
Yes. Your analysts helps to keep me from falling into the reactionary, non evaluative mode of followers that makes me angry and frustrated. My first comment was in that mode. I’m working at avoiding going there.
Some of the drug problems are from Latin American but I think a route cause analysis would point toward the demand side of the problem.
Remember, Trump doesn’t care what he stumbles into. After all, he’s up to date on his protection payments at SCOTUS and he’s fully immunized. Does he ever sleep?
The fact that the USN is willing to go along with this blow up personal watercraft with ship to ship missiles thing is very concerning. This is clearly the Coast Guard’s domain. The watercraft in question are of no threat to either the ship’s themselves nor our border. If the Coast Guard was executing this mission they would search the craft and the people aboard before making a determination about use of force. It seems implausible based on a. the 2 survivors being repatriated and b. that one of the victims was reportedly a fisherman returning to his home country, that these boats are actually running drugs.
Given all of that, what you end up with is just plain old murder, using some of the most advanced and expensive weapons on the planet as your tool. If the Navy can be convinced to do this, what else might they be convinced to do?
This is not a defense, I still think it’s murder, but this last one was a ‘semi submersible’. They aren’t out there fishing on submersibles. That still didn’t stop Trump from blatantly lying and saying that they were bringing fentanyl to America, when everyone knows they were taking cocaine to Europe.
Yes, these guys are fishermen, because who do you want running your boats across the sea with drugs, unemployed farmers? I’m sure the Navy have surprisingly good intelligence before blowing a boat and its occupants out of the water. I know from firsthand experience many decades ago that a fast attack submarine is an amazingly effective espionage tool that fishermen and dock workers aren’t prepared for. We’ve been deploying advanced assets to find drug smugglers since the Reagan years, it’s only the blatant murder and seemingly bragging about it that is new.
The problem here is the assumption side of the argument. We are expected to assume people are doing their jobs diligently. But everything in this administration has communicated an absence of diligence or even planning. It’s been closer to “the boss says he wants it done” and people going and trying to execute. This of course is well described in “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder.
Regardless, this remains not the Navy’s domain. We are not at war, no declaration has been made. These exercises are designed for the Coast Guard, they have the expertise. The Navy is built to fight a military not deal with drug runners. Extrajudicial killings are certainly not new but we also have never seen them broadcast in effectively real time before. At what point do we all just acknowledge that the Constitution had a good run but this is no longer a nation of laws? Because what is happening on an almost daily basis violates the very fiber of that document and nobody even seems to be able to call attention to that fact.
Is Marco Rubio playing any role in this?
Argentina. Many unknowns about Bessent’s tactics and strategy. Unsure potential for Bessent to fight off a target on peso. Of course, probably inconsequential for trump no mater what happens given his luck to date.
On the other hand, the president can be quite loyal to his friends in the region – even to his own political detriment. My eye fell on this related snippet in an article about how the US administration’s efforts to support the Argentine was not being welcomed by American cattlemen and soybean farmers.
Seems the Monroe Doctrine 2.0 plan is toss China out, shift Santa’s Workshop from China to Central/South America (put the Latin elves on ICE, marked return to sender) and get the hedge fund boyz their money back from Argentina and Venezuela
One could easily envision a policy designed to improve our relations with Latin America based on improved trade relations, coordinated drug policy, goodwill missions, and pledges of humanitarian aid and support. Homie don’t play that. Using the U.S. Navy to destroy small craft that may be carrying small amounts of drugs (or not), an impulsive bailout of Argentina, increased tariffs, and the potential bombing of Venezuela. I mean, what are our expected outcomes from this course?