Op-Ed: Congress Must Intervene to Stop Imperialist Trump
I published the following piece in the New Hampshire Union Leader on Tuesday. Read it here: Carleigh Beriont - Congress Must Intervene to Stop Imperialist Trump
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, deposed as President of Guatemala in 1954 by a CIA-orchestrated coup d’etat; Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by right-wing military leaders in Chile with the support of Henry Kissinger and the CIA; Manuel Noriega, recruited and supported by the CIA as an intelligence asset in Panama until he was deposed and arrested after a US invasion in 1989; Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first elected Haitian leader to peacefully transfer power to an elected successor, overthrown in 2004 by right-wing ex-paramilitary units with the tacit support of the U.S. State Department; and Nicolás Maduro, abducted along with his wife by U.S. military forces in Venezuela on Saturday.
This is just a partial list of the leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean that the United States Government has helped overthrow. Some were brutal military dictators and others were democratically elected leaders. What did they share? US presidents perceived them to be an obstacle to US strategic interests in the region. These actions are among the darkest and most reprehensible parts of the long and sordid history of United States empire, and now Donald Trump has added his name to the ignominious list of presidents who have sought to work their will on sovereign countries throughout the region.
Many high school history students in the United States learned--and probably forgot until late Saturday morning--that in 1823 President James Monroe declared that the Western Hemisphere was closed to European colonization and military interference. According to what came to be known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” North and South America, along with the Caribbean, belonged within the United States’ sphere of influence. John Quincy Adams, Monroe’s Secretary of State, was the chief architect of the policy, and had, only two years earlier, issued a clear warning that if the United States were tempted to ''become the dictatress of the world, she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.''
Even at that early stage of the American Republic, tensions between Republican ideals and expansionist ambition were stark, but there was tacit recognition that America would, at least nominally, support the nascent independence of Latin American republics that were just then breaking free from European colonial powers.
No such nuance exists for President Trump. When it comes to his invasion of Venezuela, his abduction of Maduro, his promise to “run” Venezuela, and his newly coined “Don-roe Doctrine,” we’re seeing nakedly imperial ambition premised on the idea that “might makes right.” It is emblematic of the very worst moments in the history of US Empire, and it weakens the power and potential of democracy both here and abroad.
Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela does not make the United States safer, and it sets a dangerous precedent for dictators and aspiring autocrats around the world, from Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping. As Mark Twain wrote: "America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home."
Make no mistake. Maduro was a brutal autocrat who sacrificed his country’s economy and democracy to his own insatiable thirst for power.
And, the long history of US intervention and imperial adventurism has never made the region safer, more prosperous, or more democratic. Trump’s actions on Saturday demonstrate that he is either ignorant of this history—failing to learn from the most egregious aspects of US imperialism—or too arrogant to accept that his administration is bound by the same international laws and lessons of history. Likely it is both, compounded by malevolence. The same has been on display in recent months in the blocking and deportation of Venezuelans fleeing Maduro’s brutal repression and their country’s economic collapse, our administration’s killing of Venezuelans at sea, and the claims that we are protecting their interests by attacking Venezuela, abducting their president, and putting the lives of millions of Venezuelans and Americans in danger.
Congress must intervene to prevent President Trump from continuing this illegal and dangerous invasion, and candidates for Congress in 2026 should demonstrate that they understand the history of US Empire and how it has, over multiple centuries, undermined democracy both here at home and around the world. Only then can we prevent this history from becoming our future and live up to the ideals of our democracy.
