Venezuela is where Trump aims to annihilate our adversaries

Venezuela is swiftly becoming ground zero of President Trump’s America First reshaping of US foreign policy.The United States seized the oil tanker Skipper off the country’s coast Wednesday, capping off months of heightened tensions.The sanctioned vessel has carried crude for Iran and had an estimated 1.1 million barrels on board.On the surface, the pressure’s been over ridding Caracas of illegitimate President Nicolás Maduro.Ditto ending government-sponsored narco-terrorists using Venezuela as a transit hub and safe haven to smuggle Colombian cocaine and other illicit drugs to North America and the Caribbean.But confronting Maduro is far more about Team Trump reasserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere.Trump’s intended recipients?Beijing, Tehran and Moscow.His message?Hands off.Trump signaled his reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine was coming just days before taking office in January.

While the mainstream media obsessed about his comments about Greenland and the Panama Canal, they missed his point.He was warning about China’s short- and long-term intentions to create economic and military strangleholds on the Americas.This includes President Xi Jinping’s designs to dominate the Northern Sea Route by declaring China a “Near-Arctic State” in 2018.Nominally, the declaration was about “developing shipping, carrying out scientific research and exploiting the region’s oil, gas, minerals, fisheries and other resources,” as the Wall Street Journal reported.But it’s really about Beijing boxing the United States out of the Arctic, especially as its sea lanes open up due to polar warming.

Hence Trump’s emphasis on the importance of Greenland in defending the NSR and his welcomed October announcement that the Coast Guard is purchasing 11 new icebreakers.Xi is playing the same strategic game in the Panama Canal.Chinese companies control the key Pacific and Atlantic ports of Balboa and Cristóbal.

Under the Trump administration’s aegis, a me...