Viva El Trump!

by Stoker

Image: Courtesy of Mrs Stephen Miller

Image: Courtesy of Eduardo Pregado dos Santos, Investment Consultant

Before we head south of the Equator, let’s head toward the Arctic Circle, to one of the last European colonies, a colony, of all places, of Denmark.  We are of course in misnamed Greenland, that huge, empty land of ice. There are few folk in this frozen wilderness, around 50,000, and whilst they would quite like to be independent, they can’t afford it.  The Danes have been kind and generous colonists and call it a “protectorate” and leave the Greenlanders pretty much to their own devices, whilst at the same time lobbing money in their direction.  So that has worked well for everybody – well, it’s hard to know what Denmark gets out of it, but tradition and habits are hard to overcome.

But now comes a threat, from the south. Not from Canada, but further south. Yes, from Donald T.  He says that Greenland is a very important component in the USA’s defence strategy and therefor must become an American possession.  As often, Donald has a point, but seems to have overlooked that there is an agreement between the USA and Denmark (on behalf of Greenland), signed in 1951, to the effect that the US can do whatever it likes regarding stationing military defences in Greenland.

So what is The D up to?  Well, we posited in these pages a couple of months ago that Mr Trump has a sense of humour.  This was disputed by my learned colleague Michael Carberry last month and Michael apparently knows Donald very well and knows he hasn’t. But nevertheless, Stoker suspects Trumpian mischief is afoot again, Mr T knowing only too well that various European states will get very excited and cross and do absolutely nothing except bluster.  Which is, if you are in the White House, very funny.  

There is another, more serious, reason however. Not an urge to get American hands on oil or rare ores or whatever might lie under the Greenland ice.  But a more subtle diplomatic one.  If you want to get concessions from across a negotiating table, and in this case a negotiating table with various confused and financially-stretched European nations on the other side, make them nervous.  Europe is still not prepared to pay for its own defence, let alone contribute to that of Ukraine, and wants the USA to go on doing it. Mr Trump is reluctant to do that, as are American taxpayers, and wants to drive a harder bargain with Europe. So he is pursuing his usual game of unsettling his friends (as he has before).  It will probably work.

But now let us move to a far more upsetting bit of Trumpian diplomacy.  His vicious and entirely unprovoked and utterly wicked attack on the freedom-loving government of Venezuela, and the totally illegal and morally indefensible abduction of its much-loved El President Maduro.  (The previous sentence was inspired by retired Private Eye columnist Dave Spart, a true tribune of the people, who we thank for his inspiration.)  

You may be thinking that potentially the best thing to have happened in Venezuela for many years is the arrival of an American task force to get rid of the alleged crook, bandito, and dictator Nicholas Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chavez on his death in 2013.  Most people thought nobody could be a worse ruler of Venezuela than Chavez, but Maduro proved them wrong.  What should be probably the richest country in South America, with massive reserves of easily drilled oil, has been reduced to a poverty-stricken and particularly nasty dictatorship.  (Though the Chavez and Maduro families have become very rich.)

To be fair to Mr Maduro he did not dismantle the democratic system, contenting himself with locking up or forcing into exile his opponents.  In 2018 and again in 2024 he won the presidential elections, right? No, wrong. He simply stuffed the ballot boxes to ensure that he won. He was, is, immensely feared by the citizens of his country, but such has been his grip, and the military benefits of selling oil cheap to China, that he kept the opposition cowed.

So the events of last week, a carefully targeted removal of the President and his wife, with minimal casualties and very few “boots on the ground”, were surely a thoroughly good thing.  No, they were not, say numerous western politicos, ranging from Zarah Sultana, joint non-leader of Your Party, to Ed Davey, leader of the LibDems. Liberation movements are not their thing; at least when led by Donald Trump.  What has happened is “outrageous”, a “travesty of justice”, a “dreadful breach of international law”.  (Feel free to insert further protestations here.)  None of these passionate commentators live in nasty dictatorships fearing the midnight knock on the door, of course.  (One suspects that in 1945 they would have stopped Allied troops at the German border and allowed Mr Hitler to continue as the elected leader of the legally constituted Germany state!)

Opinions in Venezuela itself have been rather different. Jubilation, but nervously constrained, as Maduro’s armed thugs are still roaming the streets.  Exiles outside the country have been rather more exultant.  They are delighted to see the regime ousted, noisily delighted.  Sir E Davey and Ms Sultana have not yet convinced them that what has happened has been a disaster for their country and for their futures.

What happens next is what will truly matter.  How will a transition back to democracy, preferably of a resilient and lasting nature, be handled?  We don’t know and at the moment the Americans are being criticised for having no plan as to what to do next.  Nobody knows whether there is a plan or not.  Marco Rubio, who has long had an interest in Venezuela, has been appointed as a sort of viceroy, and seems to be engaging with various factions as to how to deal with the new politics.

It seems that one thing Mr Trump does not wish to do is to send American troops into the country.  This has been tried in the past - in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Vietnam most notably - and has ended in withdrawal and general disaster, at least in the short term (one might argue that it has worked in Vietnam in the long run where the communist victory is evolving into a free capitalist state). And The Donald has a great dislike of getting the USA involved “on the ground”, for what seem to be reasons both of a dislike of violence and of cost.

Whatever Mr Trump does will turn out to be wrong.  He sends in the troops; he is a colonist invader. He gets American business involved; it was always just about the oil*.  He walks away; it was a cruel and cynical play against a personal demon.  In fact, we can only be certain of a couple of things: that western liberals need to rethink their approach to this matter from the perspective of a cruelly oppressed people; and whatever goes wrong, it is Donald Trump’s fault.  Donald has several times said he will be judged by history. And he will be.

*Those who say it is all about the oil are a little bit right but mostly wrong.  The USA has huge reserves and there is no advantage in having more; but there is a strategic advantage in cutting off some supplies to China, and indeed to Russia.  Venezuela’s role as a drug entrepot to the USA, and crime dealings generally, matter much more. As does the encouragement of US-friendly regimes in South America.