Trump’s Caribbean ‘drug wars’ are forging a new Monroe Doctrine
For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.
The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.
The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.
While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.
Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.
The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.
Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.
Beyond Venezuela
Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.
Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.
RELATED: A war on Venezuela would be a war on reality
All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.
It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.
Trump’s Monroe Doctrine
Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.
Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.
Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.
A war on Venezuela would be a war on reality
The drums of war are echoing across the Caribbean. U.S. warships patrol the southern sea lanes, and squadrons of F-35s wait on standby in Puerto Rico. Strike lists are reportedly being drafted in Washington. The question is not whether the United States can act but whether it should. And more importantly: Who is the real enemy?
All signs point to Venezuela, long a fixation of neoconservatives who see regime change as a cure-all. For years, some in the Republican Party have argued that Venezuela sits at the center of Latin America’s drug trade and that military action is overdue.
A legitimate campaign to combat drug cartels must not morph into another regime-change crusade.
That narrative is convenient — but false. Venezuela is not a cartel state, and this is not a war on drugs.
A tale of two narco-states
In September, the Trump administration made two moves that reshaped the regional map. It added Venezuela to its annual list of major drug-transit and production countries and, for the first time since 1996, decertified Colombia as a U.S. partner in the war on drugs.
That decision was deliberate. It acknowledged what U.S. policymakers have long avoided saying: Colombia, not Venezuela, is the true narco-state.
Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of cocaine. From Pablo Escobar’s Medellín empire to the FARC’s narco-financing, traffickers and insurgents have repeatedly seized control of state institutions and vast territories. At their height, these groups ruled nearly half the country. Decades of U.S. intervention under “Plan Colombia” have failed to stem coca cultivation, which remains near record highs.
Venezuela, by contrast, has never been a major coca producer. Its role is mostly as a minor transit corridor for Colombian cocaine en route to global markets. Corruption is real — particularly within elements of the military, where networks of officers known as the “Cartel of the Suns” have profited from trafficking. But those are rogue actors, not the state itself.
Unlike Colombia, Venezuela has never seen cartels seize entire provinces or build autonomous zones. The country’s economic collapse has weakened state control, but it hasn’t transformed Venezuela into another Sinaloa or Medellín.
Regime-change fever returns
Despite this, Washington appears to be edging toward confrontation. Naval buildups and targeted strikes on Venezuelan vessels look increasingly like the opening moves of a regime-change operation.
The danger is familiar. Once again, the United States risks being drawn into a war that cannot be won — one that drains resources, destabilizes the region, and achieves nothing for the American people. The echoes of Iraq and Afghanistan are unmistakable. Those conflicts cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars, only to end in retreat and disillusionment.
Americans have every reason to demand a serious, coordinated strategy against the cartels that flood our communities with cocaine and fentanyl. But targeting Venezuela misreads the map. Only a fraction of the hemisphere’s narcotics pass through Venezuelan territory — and the country produces no fentanyl at all.
If Washington wants to dismantle the cartels, it must focus on the coca fields of Colombia and the trafficking corridors of Mexico, not Caracas.
RELATED: Oops! The man they call a ‘threat to democracy’ just made peace again
No exit
A U.S. invasion of Venezuela would be a disaster. The Maduro regime has already begun arming civilians. Guerrilla groups operate in both urban and jungle terrain. The population is hostile, the geography unforgiving, and the odds of a prolonged insurgency high.
The opposition, eager for power, would have every incentive to let American soldiers do its fighting — then disavow the costs.
A war would not remain confined to Venezuelan borders. It would destabilize Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, and unleash a wave of migrants heading north. The fall of Saddam Hussein set off migration patterns that reshaped Europe for a generation. A conflict in Venezuela could do the same to the United States.
Limited airstrikes would achieve little beyond satisfying the egos of Washington’s most hawkish voices. A full-scale invasion would create a power vacuum ripe for chaos.
The real test
President Trump faces a critical test of restraint. Interventionists inside his own administration will press for action. He must resist them. A legitimate campaign to combat drug cartels must not morph into another regime-change crusade.
America has paid dearly for those mistakes before. It should not make them again.
NY Times Dubs Deadly Drugs A ‘Consumer Product’ Because The Media Don’t Take The Problem Seriously
It’s perfectly fine that people are raising questions about the legality of President Trump unilaterally ordering military strikes on suspected drug smugglers boating out of Venezuela. But the tell that Democrats and the dying media don’t genuinely care about constitutional integrity issues is in the way they talk about America’s raging, deadly drug problem as […]Trump puts $50 million BOUNTY on the president of Venezuela
President Trump is doubling a $25 million reward to $50 million for the arrest of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro — after accusing him of being one of the world’s biggest narco-traffickers.
Trump has also accused Maduro of working with cartels to pump fentanyl-laced cocaine into the U.S.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video announcement.
During Trump’s first presidency, Maduro was indicted in Manhattan federal court in 2020 on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. There was a $15 million reward for his arrest.
The Biden administration raised it to $25 million. Now Trump has doubled it.
“Oh, that’s so cute that you guys want to even pretend like you give a s**t about what Nicholas Maduro is importing into the country,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says about the Biden administration. “That’s very, very cute. Clearly, you don’t, ’cause the borders are wide open.”
“And so, now you have President Trump, apparently, with this coupled with the using military force to engage with drug cartels, he’s getting serious,” she continues.
“I mean, we’ve already closed the border. It’s what? President Trump said, like, 99.3% down from when Joe Biden was there. I mean, he’s pretty much solved that problem. But there are still problems that exist from that era, and it looks like he is putting a lot of time and energy into solving that problem,” she adds.
Want more from Sara Gonzales?
To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Carney's cure for conflict of interest claims? Just mention Trump
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t appear to be taking President Donald Trump’s latest threat of an across-the-board 35% tariff on all Canadian goods very seriously.
He was on vacation when Trump issued the declaration last week and has remained on vacation ever since.
Canada’s ethics commissioner revealed Friday that Carney has control or interest in hundreds of Canadian and American companies.
The PM did announce an “emergency” meeting with his cabinet and all Canadian premiers for July 22 in Ontario’s cottage country. But that’s not until next week. And an emergency response usually entails dealing with issues right now, today, immediately.
So why is Carney so blasé about a tariff that could be catastrophic for the Canadian economy?
Fentanyl flow
Unlike Trump's regular "51st state" jabs, this is not idle trolling. The president has indicated that any counter-tariffs will result in an increase in the U.S. tariff. He's also restated his disappointment in Canada’s lack of resolve to address the flow of fentanyl across the Canadian border.
Whatever happened to that "fentanyl czar" that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed, anyway?
Kevin Brosseau has literally not made the news since the announcement of his appointment in February. Since then, there have been increasing revelations of fentanyl precursors arriving at the port of Vancouver, where they are shipped to drug factories deep within the interior of British Columbia. FBI Director Kash Patel has called out this Canadian connection, yet we have heard nothing from Brosseau.
“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter,” Trump wrote in his letter to Carney.
Out of office
Carney blandly responded to Trump on Thursday, saying in a post on X that the Liberal government had “steadfastly defended our workers and businesses” and “will continue to do so as we work towards the revised deadline of August 1.”
“Canada has made vital progress to stop the scourge of fentanyl in North America,” he claimed, without indicating just what kind of progress had been made.
Is Carney relying on his apparent friendship with Trump and the goodwill of the president who endorsed Carney during Canada’s recent federal election campaign?
Or is Carney deliberately brewing a crisis in order to further his control of the Canadian Parliament and distract attention from the real elephant in the room: Carney’s massive conflict of interest problems?
Blind trust
When Carney first won the leadership of the Liberal Party, he was quick to remind everyone that he was not legally obliged to reveal his corporate involvement and stock investments for months. He feigned outrage whenever he was asked about potential conflict of interests as a result of the financial matrix that has generated his personal wealth.
Well, the truth about Carney’s massive financial interests finally emerged last week. His response? There's no problem because all of it is in a “blind trust.”
Canada’s ethics commissioner revealed Friday that Carney has control or interest in hundreds of Canadian and American companies.
Carney's much-publicized sting as Brookfield Asset Management chairman of the board was only the beginning. It turns out his financial interests embrace a huge swath of green energy corporations and companies like Stripe Inc.
Free reign
But the ethics commissioner has essentially allowed Carney to self-regulate and to participate in broad matters relating to his companies “unless those interests are disproportionate to the other members of the class.” That means Carney will essentially be trusted to govern himself.
That is a recipe for disaster when it comes to a well-connected operator who is already aggrandizing power within the prime minister’s office.
To recap: The most conflicted prime minister in the history of Canada will be given the benefit of the doubt to maintain a financial empire without much oversight while being responsible for generating huge infrastructure projects under legislation that his government just passed.
Just say 'Trump'
Sounds like an ideal time for Carney to demonize Trump and the United States again. Otherwise, Canada’s lapdog media might dwell too much on what Carney stands to gain from his green, China-friendly policies.
It's also in keeping with the Liberals' long tradition of never wasting a crisis. Trudeau was fairly efficient at finding opportunities to advance his party's authoritarian agenda; recall his invocation of the Emergency Act to crush the Freedom Convoy protest.
But Carney — enmeshed in a tangled web of business interests and significantly more ambitious than his feckless predecessor — promises to go even further.
Sackler cash can end fentanyl carnage — if we use it right
In a long-overdue reckoning, the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma have agreed to pay $7.4 billion as partial atonement for unleashing America’s opioid crisis. This historic settlement offers more than symbolic closure. If allocated wisely and aggressively, the funds could signal the beginning of the end for the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history.
Once fueled by prescription pills like OxyContin, the opioid crisis has evolved into something far deadlier. Illicit fentanyl and its analogs now kill more Americans ages 18 to 49 than any other cause. These drugs claim lives faster than guns, car crashes, or COVID-19 in many demographic groups. Children as young as 12 are overdosing on fentanyl-laced substances. The crisis isn’t looming — it’s already here.
We can’t afford to keep confusing addiction with criminality or leaning on obsolete tools while the chemistry of death evolves.
Fentanyl packs 50 times the potency of heroin and 100 times that of morphine. Just two milligrams — akin to a few grains of salt — can kill. Carfentanil, used to sedate elephants, is even more lethal. New synthetic opioids like nitazenes now appear in toxicology reports nationwide, catching users unaware. Xylazine, a veterinary sedative not approved for human use, is increasingly found in street drugs, leading to skin ulcers, amputations, and deaths that don't respond to naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.
Yet harm reduction efforts lag behind. Most of the country relies on outdated, fragmented, and dangerously insufficient infrastructure. The system meant to save lives barely functions — just as the death toll keeps rising.
For years, America’s harm reduction efforts have stumbled through a maze of failures and contradictions. Even when available, fentanyl test strips often miss the mark, lacking the sensitivity to detect tiny — but still lethal — amounts. Many publicly funded programs still hand out tools that can’t catch analogs like carfentanil or nitazenes. Others depend on clunky, lab-grade machines only found in major cities, leaving rural and underserved communities wide open to catastrophe.
State laws make matters worse. In several places, outdated statutes still label drug-checking tools as “paraphernalia,” turning safety into a crime and criminalizing the very people trying to protect themselves and others.
RELATED: FBI director Kash Patel to Canada: Control your border
The A47 test from the Fentanyl Test changes the game. These are the only commercially available tools that detect trace levels of fentanyl and its analogs — down to a single grain of salt. They also identify nitazenes, xylazine, carfentanil, and a growing list of synthetic poisons, all with speed, accuracy, and field-tested reliability.
This is beyond innovation. It’s lifesaving intervention at the molecular level.
To eradicate fentanyl poisonings, America needs a bold, coordinated strategy. That means universal access to ultra-sensitive testing kits like A47. It means decriminalizing drug-checking tools nationwide, building real-time data and distribution networks, and launching mass public education campaigns about synthetic opioid risks. State and federal governments must guarantee free access to testing in every community — rural and urban alike.
This plan doesn’t require trillions. A fraction of the Sackler settlement could fund it. What we can’t afford is to keep confusing addiction with criminality or leaning on obsolete tools while the chemistry of death evolves. The Sackler-Purdue deal isn’t just restitution — it’s a once-in-a-generation chance to build a system that saves lives before they need saving.
The choice is clear. The money is available. Now we need the courage to act.
www.theblaze.com