Winter: Trump Sees Venezuela Win, Cuba May Be Next
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Brian Winter, chief editor of Americas Quarterly, argues that US foreign policy toward Latin America is driven by three factors: immigration, drug flows, and competition with China.
- Winter told host Steve Clemons the US historically treated the region with "a big stick," but Latin America fell off Washington's radar over the past few decades.
- The Trump White House is now resuming efforts to dominate its "backyard," already pursuing a military intervention in Venezuela and a "maximum pressure" campaign on Cuba.
- Winter frames the Venezuela operation as a foreign policy success for Trump and identifies Cuba as the likely next target.
- The administration is also providing overt political support for politicians in Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere in the region.
Why it matters: Winter lays out a coordinated hemispheric strategy linking Venezuela's military intervention, Cuba's economic squeeze, and political interference in South American elections to a single driver: containing Chinese influence alongside managing migration and drug flows. If the administration applies the Venezuela template to Cuba, the "maximum pressure" approach would extend across two of the hemisphere's most prominent US adversaries, reshaping regional alliances and trade patterns for years.
