WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - National Security Matters: American Diplomacy

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Malia Thibado discusses how the Venezuela takeover and capture of Madura benefits U.S. trade and military negotiations, even with the operation's dubious legality.  

Hello and welcome to National Security Matters, the show where we discuss anything and everything related to U.S. international relations and defense policy. I'm your host, Malia Tibodeau. The new Don Row Doctrine is in effect, a riff on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and a new declaration of intent for the U.S. to be more militarily proactive in the world. Now, Trump himself didn't name it the Donne Roe Doctrine, thankfully, a political analyst in 2025 did. And that shows that apart from the series of U.S. attacks on Venezuelan drugboats in late 2025, analysts were already picking up on the Trump administrations refocusing on foreign policy in Latin America. Political analysts had been raising the alarm for years about China and its influence on Latin America. It's Bell and Road Initiative, which resulted in massive economic dependence and debt,

And the fact that China replaced the U.S. as the dominant trading partner of every Latin American country except Mexico and Colombia meant that people were rather alarmed. So the U.S. came back under the second Trump administration, except there's an upfront confrontation of the U.S. using its military slash economic threats against smaller countries. retaliation against Panama unless the country stops cooperating with its Chinese contractors in the Panama Canal, proposing a 50% tariff on Colombia unless the country takes back planes full of deported illegal immigrants, and finally the bombing of Venezuelan civilian boats in international waters. Now, we're in a situation where we can assert a few things. One, Trump has not proven to be a chicken. The bombing of Caracas and detention of dictator Nicholas Maduro and his wife show that Trump's administration is actually willing to take action. We've already seen this during the summer with the U.S. bombing of Iran, which was seen as a favor to Israel.

This time, though, it's a conflict initiated by the U.S. and resolved for its own benefit. Now, the countries that we negotiate with or who function as our adversaries cannot afford to take our threats lightly. Trump has already leveled threats against countries like Mexico and Colombia, saying that Mexico must act more overtly against the cartels or face American military intervention and that Colombia is run by a drug dealer, an echo of the rhetoric he used previously against Maduro. The president of Colombia, we can see Gustavo Petro, has since since, called Trump and will be visiting the White House, which will likely result in a stronger U.S. presence in Colombia, regardless, and a more active anti-gang slash drug force in Colombia.

So basically, Trump won that exchange. America's military prowess has also raised alarms with China, Russia in Iran, casting doubt on China and Russia's own military, with some wondering why China and Russia haven't been able to accomplish as much with their involvements in military conflicts, especially Russia, which expected its attack on Ukraine to last only a few days and has instead spent almost four years there. For Iran, it's already felt the consequences of U.S. military intervention, but in light of Trump's threats of involvement, if the Iranian government continues its crackdown on protesters, the regime canceled an execution scheduled for this Wednesday

where it was going to kill 800 captured protesters. If anything, you can say the show of power is working for Trump. I definitely have negative opinions about the precedent that Trump is setting with his attack on Venezuela and deposition of Maduro and how it could emboldened countries like China in the future. And I might actually make an episode on it, but this episode is just about how the Trump administration really benefited from the military operation, at least on the face of it.

This has been National Security Matters with Malia Tibido on WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.