Sunday Times 2
Trump’s Hobbesian world order
View(s):By Shlomo Ben-Ami, PROJECT SYNDICATE, EXCLUSIVE TO THE SUNDAY TIMES IN SRI LANKA
TEL AVIV – One year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has established himself as the most revolutionary US president in recent history. Whereas “America First” once seemed like an isolationist posture (not least to Trump’s MAGA base), it is now clear that it embraces a Hobbesian worldview, in which the powerful United States extracts whatever it wants from those it deems weak.
In the world this view describes, the US is unlikely to engage in direct military clashes with “peer” powers, such as China, or with nuclear states, such as Russia and North Korea. It will compete with other superpowers over resources and advanced technologies, lest they become more “super” than the US. But, for the most part, Trump will probably limit his involvement in their “spheres of influence” – as long as they stay out of what he considers to be America’s.
But, in Trump’s view, they are not; China’s presence in Latin America is increasingly seen as a strategic threat. It invested billions in Brazil, brought Colombia into its global Belt and Road Initiative, and invested generously in Argentina’s production of lithium chloride, a key component in battery production. China also replaced American soybean exporters by doubling its purchases from Brazil (up to $50 billion), from which it also buys iron ore, and has made Peru’s Chancay Port the centrepiece of its physical logistics in the region. Its e-commerce with Latin America also surged by some 50% in 2025, while tying digital infrastructure to China’s goals of data sovereignty, control over cybersecurity, and expansion of its surveillance capacity. If this were not enough, China has also significantly expanded its military presence across the continent through arms sales, training programmes, and strategic partnerships, notably with Venezuela.
The view that China’s presence in Latin America is a threat to the US rests on an old idea. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine effectively established US dominion over the Western Hemisphere, asserting that any foreign intervention in the Americas would be viewed as a hostile act. Since then, almost a third of the nearly 400 US interventions that have taken place worldwide occurred in Latin America, where the US has toppled governments it deemed unfavourable to its interests, often using tactics that international courts later ruled illegal.
In 2013, President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, announced that the “era of the Monroe Doctrine” was over: the US would treat Latin America as a partner, rather than a sphere of influence. But that position has now been reversed: in its 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), the Trump administration pledged to “reassert and enforce” the Monroe Doctrine. The stage for the recent US attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro, was set.
Maduro was a dictator who stole the 2024 presidential election, decimated the Venezuelan economy, and violated its people’s human rights. But the US intervention had little to do with “liberating” Venezuela from Maduro’s “tyranny”. By that logic, there are many more dictators the US would have to remove, yet Trump is more interested in threatening to annex Greenland.
Trump is not even particularly interested in regime change in Venezuela. Two opposition leaders, Edmundo González and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, have won elections, but the Trump administration has refused to let either take power. He presumably considers them too weak and too liberal to serve as effective lackeys. Instead, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez—whose extensive experience bowing to China and Russia can presumably be transferred to the US—has stepped in as interim president.
While the NSS does not mention Venezuela, it leaves no doubt as to Trump’s intentions in the country. The US, it states, will not allow “non-Hemispheric competitors” to “position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.” In other words, Trump wants to ensure that the US, not its adversaries, controls Venezuela’s vast resources, beginning with the world’s largest oil reserves.
Until now, China has accounted for about 80% of Venezuela’s annual oil sales. Among the buyers of the other 20%, sold at reduced prices, is Cuba, which has been a thorn in the side of the US since 1959. The US takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry thus offers multiple prizes: opportunities for American oil companies, denial of an energy source for China, and the already-battered Cuban economy.
Trump would certainly relish being the US president who finally took down the Cuban regime, not least because it would score him plenty of political points with America’s large Cuban community. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has hinted that Trump might even target Cuba directly. (Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, has also faced threats from the Trump administration, owing to his harsh criticism of its interventions in Latin America.)
Beyond oil, Venezuela might possess significant stores of critical minerals, including rare-earth elements, which are vital to numerous high-tech industries, including semiconductors. Controlling them would enable the US to erode Chinese dominance over critical mineral supply chains.
Trump’s obsession with seizing others’ mineral wealth—key, in his view, to sustaining America’s industrial hegemony—extends far beyond Venezuela. Last year, the US strongarmed Ukraine into signing a deal to share profits from the future sale of its mineral and energy reserves, supposedly to reimburse the US for supporting Ukraine’s defence. Greenland is in Trump’s sights because it has the world’s largest untapped reserves of rare-earth elements.
Trump claims that the US is projecting strength so that it is “respected again”. And plenty of leaders are willing to go along with the charade, in the hopes that they will benefit. Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei—who owes his victory in last year’s midterm elections to a $40 billion US bailout—applauded the US attack on Venezuela, as did leaders in Chile, Ecuador, and Honduras. Europe’s far-right “patriotic” parties, which the NSS praises, also welcomed the move.
But it should be clear by now that Trump cannot be trusted. America’s European allies are finally coming to terms with this, as they confront the possibility that they will have to defend Greenland from the US. So is Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, hoping that he would bring down the Maduro regime and allow her to take power, only to be sidelined. Fear, hatred, and distrust do not add up to respect.
With the Venezuela operation, Trump has effectively given China an open invitation to invade Taiwan while vindicating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has also set the stage for more illegal US military actions in Latin America and beyond. If the world is to prevent the dawn of a new Hobbesian age of international relations, condemnations will not be enough. Large and rising powers—such as Germany, India, and Japan—must work together to affirm and enforce rules of conduct.
(Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and the author of Prophets Without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution – Oxford University Press, 2022).
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026. www.project-syndicate.org