WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday marks the latest foreign intervention led by President Donald Trump in his second term after years of touting an “America First” brand of foreign policy that called for less involvement in global conflicts.
Trump, who over the past year has put himself at the center of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Iran, and India and Pakistan, among other international conflicts, defended the operation to depose Maduro as in line with his “America First” mantra. But his critics argued the operation was the latest departure from his longtime pledge to keep the U.S. out of conflict.
Trump’s foreign policy positions have undergone an “evolution” between his first and second terms, said Meena Bose, director of Hofstra University’s Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency.
“When he first ran for president and started campaigning in 2015, he was very much opposed to U.S. intervention abroad,” Bose told Newsday in a phone interview. “His America First policy was very much against the Iraq War. He called for … economic U.S. primacy in the world, but to also kind of step back from direct engagement. And yet, we’ve seen multiple efforts from the first term and the second where the administration has been engaged in airstrikes and military action abroad.”
Since taking office last January, Trump has authorized a U.S. military airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, airstrikes over Yemen targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the spring, and most recently missile strikes last month in Nigeria targeting Islamist militant groups.
Trump, speaking during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Saturday morning, cast the operation in Venezuela as part of a “new national security strategy” and an effort that would benefit U.S. interests by providing access to the South American nation’s vast oil supply. He also argued Maduro’s removal would curb drug-trafficking operations emanating from the region.
“We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors,” Trump replied when asked how Maduro’s removal fit with his “America First” brand. “We want to surround ourselves with stability, and we want to surround ourselves with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country. It’s very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world.”
But Trump’s one-time-allies-turned-critics, including outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R- Ky.), argued the massive U.S. military operation to remove Maduro was not the type of foreign policy favored by his “Make America Great Again” base of supporters.
“This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end,” Taylor-Greene wrote in a post on X, just days before she is set to step down early from office on Monday after months of publicly feuding with Trump.
Massie, in a post on X that linked to the Department of Justice’s indictment of Maduro, questioned the justification for the authoritarian leader’s removal, noting there is a “25 page indictment but no mention of fentanyl or stolen oil. Search it for yourself.”
Despite the criticisms, conservative social media voices largely rallied behind Trump on Saturday.
Kevin Smith, founder of The Loud Majority, a political group that has organized several pro-Trump rallies on Long Island over the years, posted on X: “The Monroe Doctrine has been replaced with the Trump Doctrine.”
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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