The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on drug trafficking charges by the United States has provoked a familiar chorus of critique.
On the left, Democrats like Senator Bernie Sanders dusted off the language of “imperialism” and seized on Trump’s comments about oil, suggesting that Venezuela’s massive reserves were the real reason for American military intervention.
On the right, non-interventionists such as Republican Thomas Massie have reflexively joined in on the oil criticism, while also conflating the arrest of Maduro with the last two decades of neoconservative “regime change” wars.
Both reactions misread what is happening.
The arrest of Maduro is not the beginning of another “forever war” or a betrayal of Trump’s promise to not embroil the United States in costly foreign conflicts. Rather, it is a reassertion of an America First foreign policy that dates back over a century. It reflects an older, more restrained, and more honest tradition of American statecraft, one rooted in hemispheric primacy, strategic objectives, and realism.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s contentious exchange with CNN’s Jake Tapper captured this reality with refreshing bluntness. Miller argued that the Maduro raid is an example of the United States acting as a superpower should – using its military “unapologetically to secure American interests in our own hemisphere.” Allowing a country in America’s backyard to become a supplier of resources and weapons to U.S. adversaries, he said, is “absurd.”
Invoking both the Monroe Doctrine and what he described as the “Trump Doctrine,” Miller contrasted this approach with decades of neocon foreign policy that sent American soldiers to die in “distant deserts” in futile attempts to build parliaments, democracies, and prosperity for others while ignoring the needs of the American people.
The lesson, he concluded, is simple: America’s future depends on asserting its interests “without apology.”
And what are America’s interests?
Certainly, one interest is oil, which the U.S. should not be ashamed of admitting. But there are far more pressing concerns.
The oil narrative persists because it offers, in part, a simple explanation for public consumption and borrows from familiar precedent for justification, most notably our wars in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it also allows for a simplistic attack vector for critics to seize upon.
But as energy analyst Tracy Schuchart of Renegade Resources has argued, the reality is far more complex than just oil, with far more serious implications. Specifically, Venezuela had become the only location in the Western Hemisphere where three major U.S. adversaries established a simultaneous operational presence.
China has increased its control of rare earth mineral extraction in Venezuela essential to advanced weapons manufacturing. China currently dominates the global rare-earth supply chain, controlling much of both mining and processing capacity. This gives Beijing disproportionate leverage over the inputs that underpin America’s economy and military.
Additionally, Iran has manufactured offensive weapons systems within striking distance of American territory, and Russia has increasingly integrated its military advisory missions and air defense systems into Venezuela’s military.
This convergence transformed Venezuela from a dysfunctional communist narco-state into a strategic threat that, according to Schuchart, exceeded the Pentagon’s tolerance threshold.
So no, the Maduro raid was not a simple oil grab or a clear-cut case of “imperialism.” Venezuela under Maduro’s authoritarian rule knowingly and intentionally crossed a national security red line, and President Trump acted quickly and decisively to neutralize the threat.
Critics are right to warn that intervention carries downstream consequences. But so does non-intervention. If America is to have a foreign policy grounded in reality without overextending, U.S. leadership must focus on our own hemisphere, instead of defending every corner of the world.
That is the definition of America First – taking actions abroad with the express purpose of benefitting the American people at home. Spreading liberal democracy or isolationism to the point where it imperils the homeland is not.
America has never been truly isolationist. From the earliest days of the republic, American leaders understood that geography imposes both limits and obligations. The United States cannot, and should not, police the entire globe. But it also cannot allow hostile powers to entrench themselves in its immediate neighborhood.
This logic runs straight through American history and four well-respected American presidents.
George Washington warned against permanent alliances and foreign entanglements, not against using American power to safeguard American national security and independence.
John Quincy Adams famously declared that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” but he paired that restraint with an uncompromising commitment to defending American sovereignty.
James Monroe formalized this thinking with the Monroe Doctrine, declaring the Western Hemisphere off-limits to external powers.
Theodore Roosevelt later clarified enforcement with the Roosevelt Corollary, asserting America’s right to exercise “police power” in the hemisphere to prevent instability or foreign intervention.
By those standards, American military action in Venezuela is a return to a long-forgotten traditional form of American foreign policy.
This is why equating Venezuela with America’s global entanglements elsewhere is a category error. Funding and arming Israel ad infinitum with no strings attached, draining U.S. weapons stockpiles and sending money to Ukraine, pledging to defend Taiwan from China, and threatening to start another Middle East war may be defensible under other foreign policy frameworks, but they do not pass the foreign policy test of the aforementioned U.S. presidents.
Those engagements involve distant theaters, open-ended commitments, permanent alliances, and a military posture of never-ending global policing. Venezuela does not.
This was not Iraq. It was not Afghanistan. It was not Libya. This wasn’t even a case of classic neocon regime change in the name of “democracy.”
Yes, Maduro was removed as Venezuela’s head of state, but the regime itself remains largely intact, suggesting narrower and more strategic objectives and a potentially negotiated transition. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has also recently struck a less combative tone and invited cooperation with the United States.
Additionally, the U.S. doesn’t seem intent on installing opposition leader María Machado or the exiled duly elected President of Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutia, to replace Maduro, which differentiates this operation from previous neocon regime change wars.
Of course, there is no guarantee of success. Foreign intervention always involves risk. But risk alone is not an argument for inaction, especially when the alternative is allowing adversaries to consolidate power in America’s own hemisphere.
The great failure of the post-9/11 era was not the use of American power, but the abandonment of realism in favor of idealist abstractions like spreading “liberal democracy” and moral virtue signaling.
An “America First” foreign policy rooted in the pragmatism of Washington, Quincy Adams, Monroe, and Roosevelt is a return to realism, a reordering of priorities, and a much-needed corrective to decades of neocon mistakes.
Within this framework, the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, while simultaneously countering China, Iran, and Russia, is a long-overdue reassertion of American power where it matters most: in our hemisphere, and without apology.
Adam Johnston is a writer and Senior Contributor to The Federalist, whose work has also been featured in The Blaze, and the Daily Caller. He is also the creator of the Substack publication “Conquest Theory,” where he regularly writes about politics, history, philosophy, and technology. You can find him on X @adamkjohnston.
