COLUMNIST: It's Been a Week, Even by Trump Standards
First Venezuela, now he wants Greenland, Colombia, Canada and Cuba. The world is taking notice.
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
Life is happening fast and furiously in the Trump regime.
His blitzkrieg conquered Venezuela in one quick strike and now the president has set his sights on Greenland, with Colombia, Canada and Cuba also in the conversation. Then, Friday he boldly suggested that the United States military might go after drug cartels in Mexico.
That’s pretty brazen, and the rest of the world is taking serious note of what is going on. Some countries are already sounding the alarm. Just how long Europe and Asia will allow such imperialist greed to continue is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure Trump’s actions are being discussed in sober words by many heads of state.
Already new alliances are being forged, pacts that do not include the United States. Since Jan. 20, 2025, we – not Russia or China or even Iran - have become the world’s “loose cannon.”
Trump has seized oil tankers on the high seas, cargo destined for China and other countries. Under international law, this is piracy, plain and simple.
What would happen if China hijacked a tanker loaded with American oil? We would retaliate, of course, and rightfully so. So far, China has not responded to Trump’s piracy in a violent manner. But as the old Chinese proverb says, “Revenge is best served cold.”
It has been widely reported and confirmed that Trump conferred with American oil companies, not Congress, before going into Venezuela. The regime change he sought there was not about drugs or justice, it was about oil, and the president made no bones about declaring that fact. The blasting of “drug boats” before the raid was obviously a ploy to build a case for his eventual oil takeover.
Oil companies, even if they were eager to get Venezuelan oil at the outset, may be rethinking their strategy. According to Trump – and oil experts – it will take billions of dollars to upgrade that country’s oil infrastructure.
What happens in four or five years when Trump is out and a more honest president takes over? Does he (or she) give Venezuela back its oil and allow its leaders to sell it to who they want? Will oil companies spend big bucks in equipment upgrades over a period of several years, then find out that those dollars were wasted?
Trump, like other brazen leaders of the past, seems to believe that his regime will continue for the next 1,000 years. That will not happen. First, the rest of the world will not allow it to happen and second, a continuation of Trump’s philosophy will run this country into the ground, perhaps by the end of his term.
Trump’s Venezuelan strike could be a hedge against our future relationship with Canada, one of our greatest allies until the president’s threats began. If we strike at Greenland, Canada will almost certainly retaliate, most likely shutting off its oil supply to the U. S. And Canada is our greatest supplier of crude.
Canadian crude is heavy crude and Texas refineries are already equipped to handle it. Venezuelan crude is also heavy crude, which would keep the refineries operating in case of a Canadian embargo.
If oil companies had to switch to light, sweet crude from other parts of the world, refineries would have to be refitted, which would require at least a partial refinery shutdown and dramatically raise the price of gasoline.
Even the Trump bootlickers don’t like high gas prices.
The rest of this world can’t help but see Trump and the Republican Congress, which has failed to reign him in, as a threat to world peace and at some point, even our allies may turn against us. We have never had a world war on our soil, but we are not immune to an attack from other nations.
China, for instance, could put more soldiers on the ground than America has people. And that country has nuclear capability, as does Russia. Are those countries just sitting and allowing Trump to play his hand before uniting in a common cause?
We in this country have long said that all it takes is one deranged leader to start a nuclear war. We now have men in charge of Russia, China and the United States who could push the button at any moment.
When a world leader invades one country and then, in a matter of days, threatens to invade four or five others, the rest of the world stands up and takes notice.
Last week Mexico’s president did turn to the United Nations for help in stopping Trump, but that world group was rendered impotent by George Bush when he defied it and went into Iraq. That, of course, turned out to be an unholy mess and further destabilized the Middle East.
It should be noted here that the League of Nations, established after World War I, was done away with in the 1930s. World War II followed its demise.
And an American invasion of Greenland would almost certainly destroy NATO. Some European nations have already threatened to remove U. S. military bases if Trump follows through with his Greenland threats.
In 1940 Hitler invaded neutral Holland and established a government that answered to him personally. Is history repeating itself? Now Trump wants to do the same thing in Venezuela and Greenland, and maybe other countries.
The past two weeks have been troubling ones. Two shootings by ICE with the Trump Administration now saying that agents may go door-to-door looking for illegals (probable cause is being thrown out the window), the intimidation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the taking-over of Venezuela (which “we will run”), threats to take over Greenland, Cuba, Canada, and Colombia, the piracy of oil tankers and a threat to put boots on the ground in Mexico.
Trump’s manifest destiny seems to be a takeover of the both the North and South American continents.
Will the rest of the world stand for this or will they answer with bombs?
God help us.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”