Donroe Doctrine and a Panama throwback

The US’s strategic interests are real, but the Venezuela strike also echoes a ‘law and order’ action from the past.

Various theories have been advanced to explain the reasons for Donald Trump’s order to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and attack the resource-rich Latin American nation. Is it a thinly disguised attempt to grab and control oil and other natural resources?

Or a return to the doctrine-directed interventionism of the past (Monroe Doctrine of 1823) by the United States in the Western Hemisphere, and its justification? The first theory centres around oil: to grab and control Venezuela’s vast oil deposits by allowing the entry of US multinational oil companies after Maduro’s exit.

Apart from oil is the deeper rationale of metals like silver. The Arco Minero del Orinoco, a vast mineral-rich region in Venezuela, is estimated to contain over $1 trillion in untapped natural resources.

This region is said to have huge reserves of silver, gold and rare metals which are important for American military systems, defence supply chains, and advanced electronics. Also, in light of a growing shortage of precious metals, these strategic metals are becoming as important as oil was. Control of these resources could secure years of strategic metal supply and give the US a geopolitical edge.

The second reason is the traditionally trotted American desire to “restore democracy”. This time, in Venezuela, where the “rigged” 2024 elections saw the opposition’s Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who was leading in pre-election opinion polls, ended up with only 44.2% of votes against Maduro’s 51.2%.

This was akin to what President George HW Bush had told Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev during the Malta Summit on December 2-3, 1989. Bush spoke of the problems caused by Manuel Noriega, a former CIA asset, in Panama, and that the US was preparing “solid indictments” against him and was going to bring “democracy” to Panama.

The third reason, as reported by the Spanish daily El País on December 8, relates to the US President’s new security doctrine wherein Latin America is seen as a source of some of the US’s serious problems, such as migration, drug export, transnational crime, and the burgeoning Chinese investment in the region.

Trump’s twin strategy would include rewarding right-wing regimes in El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia, expressing support for the right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura in the elections in Honduras, and pardoning former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US for drug trafficking.

Also, such countries would be awarded US companies’ contracts without the need for public tenders. Friendly countries would be encouraged by Washington to “make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region”. This is a reference to China. At the same time, recalcitrant states like Venezuela, Colombia, and Chile would be “softened” by “targeted deployments” of military force.

Time magazine said: “The news diverted attention from America’s affordability crisis, the loss of health care coverage for millions, and the Epstein files. Instead, all eyes turned to Venezuela”. Some observers cite this diversion as the fourth reason. This comes amid reports that the US debt is expected to hit 100% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of fiscal year 2025.

Some of these grounds appear unrealistic. First, most of the US economic and technical publications say that the American oil industry has “no interest” in “making the needed investment to revive the antiquated drilling and refining operations of Venezuela” to extract the less desirable “heavy oil, a thick, viscous product, which is far harder to extract and move compared to the domestic US sources”.

They quote Reuters and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which indicate a supply glut in 2026. El País quotes former Chilean minister and ambassador Jorge Heine, who alleges that Trump wants countries in South America to be like “vassal” states. According to him, Trump does not understand the reluctance of American companies to operate major projects in South America as they find them unprofitable. “The United States is too late; there’s no turning back from China’s presence in Latin America.” Heine also said, early in December, that South American states would not be cowed down by the threat of force through the modern “Donroe Doctrine”, which flips the Monroe Doctrine to the present with US plans to reshape the Americas.

A reason why US forces have not yet occupied and taken over Venezuela is the bitter experience in Iraq, despite Trump’s declaration that the US would “run the country”.

The Noriega abduction

Thus, as things stand, the abduction of Maduro is a US law and order action based on a 1989 legal opinion by then-Assistant Attorney General Bill Barr, issued six months before the invasion of Panama and the abduction of Noriega, the de facto dictator of Panama, on December 20, 1989. That opinion, which is likely to be quoted again, was that the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force in international relations did not bar American agencies from carrying out “forcible abductions” abroad to enforce domestic laws.

Interestingly, the conversation on Noriega during the Malta Summit, held aboard the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky, came days before Bush decided to invade Panama – on December 20, 1989 – and capture Noriega, based on indictments by the Grand Juries in Tampa and Miami, for money laundering and drug smuggling. To this, Gorbachev reacted: “People ask, is there no barrier to US action in independent countries? The United States passes judgment and executes the judgment.”

This was recorded by President Bush himself in a book, A World Transformed (1998), jointly written by him and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. It was during this summit that the two leaders, Bush and Gorbachev, declared the end of the Cold War.

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat; 
Syndicate: The Billion Press)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.