Geoeconomics in America, first

Although if you watch Donald Trump at the press conference following the military operation to capture/extract/detain Maduro, you won't need to read it. Because the reality of words and deeds surpasses the strategists' predictions, as is often the case.

The document clearly states:

1.- that the geopolitical vision of the United States is shifting toward control of the Western Hemisphere to secure the supply chains of its economy, access Latin American markets, and displace China from them.

2.- that drug trafficking is the main enemy of American society, drugs weaken the present and future of the United States, and drug traffickers are located at the country's national and regional borders.

3.- that to combat these threats, comprehensive internal and external action is necessary, combining all security, defense, and intelligence forces.

The action in Venezuela is, therefore, a planned episode that also serves to show troublesome neighbors and criminal actors that this strategic issue is serious.

What the strategists did not foresee was that Donald Trump would announce that he would take over the country, temporarily, to get the Venezuelan oil industry up and running, with the (US) companies he chooses and the (Venezuelan) collaborators he considers appropriate (from the government or the opposition). This strays somewhat from the script and enters a more complex geo-economic territory: that of identifying the American national interest with the interests of specific companies, and not other companies, also American.

Rex Tillerson, to stay within the Trumpist context, was the first Secretary of State in 2017. He came from Exxon Mobile, managed the US withdrawal from the Middle East, and ended up falling out with Donald Trump, who fired him.

First problem. To manage a new geo-economic order, competitive with China, where there are no corporate interests, but only a single national interest, Donald Trump has to see what the Democratic opposition, Congress, and public opinion think about this unwritten idea of establishing a transitional protectorate in Venezuela. In addition to assessing, in the longer term, whether allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East may consider, if necessary, that the benefits of a zone of influence strictly reserved for the United States in America do not offset the shared costs of maintaining security in the various regions where all the powers also have their interests.

The 2025 security strategy is a script that sets out the priorities of the United States, and Donald Trump is prepared to execute them in order to regain leadership in the new geo-economic and competitive order. However, it does not identify the priorities of the revisionist powers (China, Russia) or others.

Therefore, the risk of following the planned script is that rivals are aware of it. However, the second problem is that the even greater risk of deviating from the script (of an order, after all) is that the rest will also deviate when they see fit. If Donald Trump's vision is to build a Greater America, managed from Washington as a zone of influence, integrating North America and the Caribbean territorially, self-sufficient in energy and strategic minerals, interconnected through the Panama Canal and its allies in the Southern Cone, and expandable to Greenland and the Arctic, the strategies of rival powers will be comparable and threatening in other regions.

Tactical error is one of the risks in any strategic decision, but not necessarily the main one. The tactical operation to capture Nicolás Maduro has been a success. As was the arrest of Panamanian dictator Noriega in 1989, accused of drug trafficking. But an approach to crisis management that goes beyond the planned strategic objectives would now be a much greater risk.

The geo-economic order is not an imperial order. Nor does Donald Trump have the capacity to build it, although he does have the capacity and the will to strengthen the United States and America. But neither the United States nor America are a historical consequence of the Monroe Doctrine.

They are a consequence of various processes, two of which stand out: the liberal revolutions that opened the doors of all the countries in the hemisphere to a political future based on freedoms and equality before the law, which led to today's democracies; and a past linked to Europe (especially Spain) that laid the foundations for what we now know as Western civilization. Trump should include this in his strategic script.