The man behind the curtain. Still from Wizard of Oz.

President Trump signaled the Monroe Doctrine’s return from the start of his second term. A volatile mix of geopolitical, hemispheric and local politics was in play. The world’s largest reserves of “Texas Tea” turned the wandering Eye of Sauron in Washington on the birthplace of the Bolivarian Revolution. The Trump Administration intends to juice US and global economic growth by reducing energy costs, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices dropped. Fossil fuels are the Trump Administration’s preferred choice of dirty energy to fuel the AI boom, which the US intends to lead. Oil-laden tankers departing from Venezuela en route to China are not part of the program.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration treats the American public like turnip truck rubes. While Trump, in Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs fashion, blows sulfurous clouds of smoke behind the curtain regarding drugs and DEA arrests, we are expected to ignore that Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia by several multiples, is the bigger exporter of illicit substances to the United States. Fortunately for Colombia, they have the 34th largest reserves of oil in the world, rather than first, and unlike Venezuela, are supplicants to the United States, ergo, expect none of their leadership to be arrested and dragged off in handcuffs by Uncle Sam’s, ahem, DEA Agents.

Latin America had roughly two decades of reduced attention from its weakening, yet nonetheless still powerful, northern neighbor in the 21st century. The US partially disengaged from Latin America with Dick Cheney’s 2003 war on Iraq. After all, one can only do so many things. When Cheney wasn’t shooting hunting companions in the face with demands for apologies........

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