Self-proclaimed “peace president” Donald Trump is openly flirting with military action against yet another nation.
After striking Venezuela’s capital and sending U.S. forces to extract President Nicolás Maduro from the country over the weekend, Trump appears to have developed an appetite for forcing regime change by military means.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, the 79-year-old president rattled off other targets in his crosshairs—including Colombia and its democratically elected president, Gustavo Petro.
“Colombia is very sick,” he said. “Run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. He’s not going to be doing it very long.”
NewsNation’s Libbey Dean pressed, “So there will be an operation by the U.S. in Colombia?”
“Sounds good to me,” replied Trump, who regularly brags about the number of wars he has “solved” and openly angled for the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Petro, 65, was elected in 2022 in elections that the State Department’s website notes were deemed free and fair by observers. He has been described as Colombia’s first left-wing leader in its modern history.
But Petro, who compared Trump to Adolf Hitler at the United Nations last year, has frequently clashed with the president, who has accused the Colombian leader of being an “illegal drug leader” funneling drugs into the United States. Petro has denied Trump’s claims.
Trump had already lobbed a threat at Petro while addressing the Venezuela attack during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago Saturday morning.
“He’s making cocaine,” Trump said. “They’re sending it into the United States, so he does have to watch his a--.”
Dean asked Trump to explain his reversal on American intervention abroad, noting that at the 2016 Republican National Convention, he had urged the U.S. to “abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change.”
Trump pushed back by arguing that Venezuela “isn’t a country on the other side of the world,” calling it part of “our area.”
Asked if that meant the U.S. was in the “business of nation-building,” the president said, “Well no, no. We’re in the business of having countries around us that are viable and successful, and where the oil is allowed to freely come out because that’s good—it gets the prices down. That’s good for our country.”
While the Trump administration has sought to frame Maduro’s kidnapping as a bid to bring him to justice for alleged narco-terrorism, the president has repeatedly let the other motive slip: Venezuela’s oil reserves, which he said would be seized by the U.S..
Trump has named his new interventionist foreign policy, which has sparked backlash among his MAGA base for clashing with his “America First” mantra, the “Don-roe Doctrine.” It riffs on the “Monroe Doctrine”: a two-century-old policy of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Trump has signaled that, along with Colombia, he’s eager to meddle in Cuba and Mexico’s affairs. He also reiterated to reporters on Sunday, “We need Greenland!”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
