Venezuela and Beyond: Trump’s ‘America First’ Rhetoric Masks a Neo-Imperialist Streak

Charles Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Georgetown University.

As Donald Trump’s America First grand strategy evolves, it confronts a mounting tension between rhetoric and reality. Trump’s instincts, as well as those of his MAGA base, are neo-isolationist—yet his policies are anything but.

American forces remain on station across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Trump has bombed Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and attacked alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. He recently attacked Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and then vowing the United States would “run” the country. Trump has suggested that Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, or Greenland could be next. In practice, the president’s policies smack of neo-imperialism, not neo-isolationism.

Trump’s America First doctrine emerged primarily as a response to economic and strategic overreach. Free trade, automation, and immigration took a heavy toll onworking Americans and thinned out the middle class. And in the aftermath of a series of “forever wars” in the Middle East that produced little good, many Americans felt that Washington was squandering blood and treasure abroad at the expense of prosperity and well-being at home. Compelled by public clamor for an inward turn, Trump’s impulses have been to turn back the clock and reinstate the isolationist, unilateralist, protectionist, and anti-immigrant playbook that the United States embraced before it entered World War II.

But Trump can’t deliver; the world has become too globalized and interdependent. A grand strategy that may have been fit for purpose in the nineteenth century won’t work in the twenty-first century. Trump may want to pull out of the world, but the world won’t let go. He’s resorted to oscillating between playing the grand peacemaker and lashing out; hence, the inconsistent and inconstant nature of America First.

The Monroe Doctrine Redux

Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) explicitly calls for returning to an earlier era in U.S. foreign policy. The NSS endorses a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, which was promulgated in 1823 as an early articulation of the United States’ quest for hemispheric hegemony. The NSS boldly states that “after years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” The “Trump Corollary” coerces neighbors to prevent mass migration to the United States and to cooperate in the fight against “narco-terrorists.” It envisages a hemisphere “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets.”

Trump also wants to annex Canada, which the United States tried to do repeatedly in the nineteenth century. He wants to own Greenland, which Secretary of State William Seward eyed in 1867. He wants to control the Panama Canal, as the United States did after it opened in 1904. And Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela harkens back to 1898, when the United States wrested control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other Spanish possessions, turning the American republic into an empire.

Consistent with U.S. strategy during the nineteenth century, Trump’s effort to reinstate the Monroe Doctrine and focus U.S. strategy on its own backyard coincides with a desire to detach the United States from entanglements farther afield. As the NSS states, “the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” Trump seems to long for the strategic immunity of an earlier era, when hemispheric isolation was about preserving the natural security that came with wide, flanking oceans.

As George Washington put it in his farewell address of 1793, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Noting the nation’s “detached and distant situation,” Washington pointedly asked, “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?” Thomas Jefferson’s formulation was similar: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

Enter Reality

A return to hemispheric isolation might seem appealing, but times have changed, and there is no going back to the past. A U.S. occupation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines may have been in keeping with the times in 1898, but the age of empire is long over. Even if hemispheric isolation did provide the United States a measure of strategic immunity in the nineteenth century, geographic detachment now does little to protect the United States from ballistic missiles, cyberattacks, or climate change.

Trump may well want to pull out of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and his MAGA base is certainly keen to limit foreign entanglements. But Trump is making little headway in paring back foreign commitments. Not only has he resorted to the use of force in Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and the Caribbean and Pacific, but the NSS contradicts its own call for a sharp strategic pullback by setting forth a quite conventional assessment of the nation’s ongoing commitments beyond the Western Hemisphere.

The NSS says the United States must continue balancing against China: “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” To do so, “we will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain.” Sounds quite familiar. The NSS calls for Europe to take “primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any adversarial power.” That’s a rebalancing, not a withdrawal. There are still around 80,000 U.S. troops in Europe, and Trump’s earlier talk of quitting NATO has evaporated. Such continuity seems prudent, if not obligatory, given that Russia shows no readiness to end its aggression against Ukraine despite Trump’s determined diplomatic efforts.

In the Middle East, Washington is emphasizing the need for diplomacy in the aftermath of Israel’s debilitating military campaign against Iran and its “axis of resistance.” But the NSS offers a standard summary of U.S. objectives in the region: “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable, that the region not be an incubator or exporter of terror against American interests or the American homeland, and that Israel remain secure.” Given those objectives, the United States is not about to close its airbase in Qatar, shut its naval base in Bahrain, and start dismantling the Central Command. Steady as she goes.

Trump’s yearning to turn back the clock—but inability to do so—manifests in other policy areas. His administration seems to pine for the days when the United States was populated principally by white Christians. His policies resonate strongly with the anti-immigrant legislation of 1924 and the mass deportations that occurred during the interwar era.

To be sure, Trump’s electoral appeal stemmed in part from his promise to fix a broken immigration system. But he has gone way too far. The administration’s draconian crackdown on immigration and inhumane deportation of undocumented migrants has led to labor shortages and rising consumer prices in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and other economic sectors. Some two-thirds of the U.S. public now oppose his immigration policy. Like it or not, the United States needs immigrants.

Trump’s tariffs are similarly retrograde. He wants to reinstate the industrial era and turn the nation back into a manufacturing powerhouse. Working Americans will return to the production line and make things again. The country will pump more oil and do what it needs to get raw materials from Venezuela, Canada, Greenland, Ukraine, and other countries.

But here too, Trump’s aspirations are running up against reality. The United States needs more balanced foreign trade—especially with China—and efforts to repatriate select production lines and supply chains make sense. But Trump’s protective overkill is only exacerbating a national affordability crisis. The promised manufacturing revival, if it occurs, will fall far short of employing a sizable portion of the U.S. workforce, most of which is already in the service sector. Indeed, since Trump took office last January, the country has lost an additional 50,000 manufacturing jobs.

In the meantime, Trump’s plans for U.S. companies to control Venezuela’s vast oil reserves will likely come to nought, as will his talk of annexing Canada and Greenland. Yet the mere mention of taking Greenland by force is understandably rattling allies. Were Trump to act on such rhetoric, the consequences of a U.S. attack against a NATO ally would be disastrous. The United States and its European allies could go back to being adversaries—just as they were during the nineteenth century.

In Search of a New Grand Strategy

The U.S. electorate understandably soured on the hyperglobalization and strategic overreach that set in during the 1900s, clearing the way for the Trump era. But Trump has dramatically overcorrected. His America First foreign policy is out of step with geopolitical realities, opening up a wide gap between his neo-isolationist rhetoric and his neo-imperial policies. His immoral crackdown on immigration is disrupting labor markets, while his tariffs only exacerbate economic insecurity for working families. Not surprisingly, Trump’s political support is cratering.

The United States needs a new grand strategy fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. We are not there yet.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.