Item — HN Reader

Post 9/11 US president is allowed to take action against terrorists without any approval(AUMF). Hence the months/years long messaging around "narcoterrorism" and it's links to venezuela. Not saying the drugs don't exist, but AUMF is selectively applied to say the least.

Now the real reason is that venezuela is a "hostile influence in the western hemisphere" both from a russia/china perspective as well as an energy security perspective so this was a matter of when not if (monroe doctrine and all that).

This is not the first time the US has intervened in LatAm, and it won't be the last. Being the sole influence in N and S america is a defining feature of america and all americans, and has been so since 1823.

1 comments

> and it won't be the last

The current US administration seemed to prefer isolationism (at least up until today), and seems hellbent on destroying the US economy. If they're successful in their goals, this might very well be the last SA intervention from the US for a very long time. Maybe they're aware of this, and this is some sort of dead-cat bounce or whatnot.

Isolationism will never become so strong that they limit influence to literally the country USA. If anything, they will refocus efforts on the americas, taiwan, rest of the pacific, away from the middle east and the indopac[1]. This means making sure japan, phillipines and taiwan are US allied, and of course that they are the sole influence in the Americas.

[1] which they have taken a lot of massive steps towards recently

That would require a functional economy though, which is why the US been able to do what they've been doing. Without it, I'm not sure how they're hoping to achieve this, but I'm guessing "oil" somehow is involved in the calculation, considering today's actions.

Ya, I find predictions for what would happen in that scenario extremely noisy. Tend to avoid them.

But I do believe that a lot of the US government posturing that if implemented would be bad for economy (which you are alluding to), will not actually happen. A massive revamp of the economy is what the majority voting bloc in the US wishes for, so the winning politician will have to keep signalling in that direction. But actually following through with it, be it in a way with positive or negative effect, is extremely difficult. So I don't pay much attention to it.

> The current US administration seemed to prefer isolationism (at least up until today)

This is an interesting claim, what did you see to suggest this?

The tariffs are not isolationist, they are leverage held over trading partners used to coerce them.