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“Welcome to 2026,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared on Saturday during the Mar-a-Lago press conference celebrating the U.S. military attack on Venezuela. “Under President Trump, America is back.” Back, that is, to the early 1900s era of gunboat and dollar diplomacy when the United States aspired to imperial hegemony over Latin America, engendering enmities that have never entirely dissipated.

For Donald Trump, who envisions a world divided into spheres of influence, U.S. domination in the region is a goal unto itself. “America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he told reporters just hours after the predawn raid involving aerial attacks on multiple Venezuelan airports and the forcible rendition of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Asked what would be next for Venezuela, Trump answered, “We’re going to be running it.” So much for his promise of no more nation-building.

“Welcome to 2026,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared on Saturday during the Mar-a-Lago press conference celebrating the U.S. military attack on Venezuela. “Under President Trump, America is back.” Back, that is, to the early 1900s era of gunboat and dollar diplomacy when the United States aspired to imperial hegemony over Latin America, engendering enmities that have never entirely dissipated.

For Donald Trump, who envisions a world divided into spheres of influence, U.S. domination in the region is a goal unto itself. “America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he told reporters just hours after the predawn raid involving aerial attacks on multiple Venezuelan airports and the forcible rendition of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Asked what would be next for Venezuela, Trump answered, “We’re going to be running it.” So much for his promise of no more nation-building.

The U.S. bombing of Caracas, the abduction of Maduro, and Trump’s plan to take over Venezuela’s oil industry have dealt a profound blow to the inter-American system first envisioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy and codified in the 1950s by the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Although Maduro has few friends in Latin America, the leaders of most major countries have condemned the U.S. attack. While regional leaders can do little to push back in the short term, the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America suggests that the diplomatic damage done to Washington’s standing in........

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