President Trump has fully embraced the Monroe Doctrine, and after the raid to arrest former dictator Nicolas Maduro, he is letting the rest of the world know it.

And being President Trump, he wasn’t shy about naming names.

The comments made aboard Air Force One as the president returned to Washington came less than 48 hours after the American military conducted a brazen raid inside Caracas to arrest and detain Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

“Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall,” Trump said. “I don’t know if they’re going to hold out.”

The president waved off the possibility that the administration might use American forces to hasten the Cuban government’s demise, explaining that Venezuela was Cuba’s primary economic backer.

“Cuba only survives because of Venezuela,” Trump said.

“Colombia is very sick too — run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and sending it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.

And just hours after the Danish Prime Minister blasted Trump for threatening to annex Greenland, the president said the United States “needs” the autonomous Danish territory.

“We need Greenland from a national security situation,” Trump said. “The EU needs us to have Greenland.”

As we all know, President Trump has had Greenland on the brain since his first term, but he wants to make that deal politically. So let’s leave that aside for now. Cuba has long been a target of the United States for regime change, but there has not been overt or significant action against the Cuban government in decades. Obama was the friendliest possible president to Cuba, and pushed normalization with the communist nation before making his 2016 visit. Well, Cuba has long been a stopping place for bad actors like China to have a foothold in the Western Hemisphere, and now we are learning just how deep the ties between Venezuela and Cuba are. For example, the Cuban government has now confirmed that 32 Cuban security guards were killed when the United States grabbed Nicolas Maduro and his wife. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump, these Cuban guards were part of Maduro’s personal security force. Now, why would Maduro need Cuban security??

It’s a very revealing that Maduro was being guarded by Cuban security because he didn’t trust Venezuelans. He was being propped up by various American adversaries.

Also impressive that our guys (the best in the world) managed to take out his security without any American deaths. https://t.co/ur8RxQZsXh

— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 5, 2026

It seems like a simple exchange – Cuba gave Maduro security (with loyalties that can’t be bought off as easily), and Maduro gives Cuba the power to keep the lights on, which is something they need desperately.

For over two decades, the single most important pillar of the Cuban economy has been the “Barrio Adentro” agreement, which saw Venezuela ship roughly 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Havana essentially for free. With the US military now securing Venezuelan ports and oil fields following yesterday’s operation, these shipments have hit zero overnight. Cuba, which is already cash-strapped, simply does not have the foreign currency reserves to buy this amount of oil on the open market at global prices, meaning the island’s energy supply has effectively been cut in half instantly.

Few people realise that the Castro regime didn’t just use Venezuelan oil to keep the lights on; they used it as a major source of income by selling the surplus. Venezuela often sent more refined fuel than the island needed, allowing Havana to sell the excess on the international market to generate hard currency. The fall of Maduro wipes out this “middleman” profit entirely, removing one of the few remaining sources of US dollars the government used to import food and medicine, which will accelerate the humanitarian crisis to breaking point.

The collapse in Caracas creates a dangerous logistical and political crisis involving the estimated 15,000 Cuban intelligence agents, military advisors, and doctors stationed in Venezuela. These operatives, who were essentially leased to Maduro to protect his regime, are now fleeing back to the island in a panic. They are returning to a country with no food, no power, and crucially, no money to pay them. A disgruntled, unpaid security apparatus returning from a failed war is a classic recipe for instability and potential coups inside Havana itself.

This all points to Cuba, at long last, being the next domino to fall. Russia is in no position to rush in to help, and China probably won’t either. The Trump administration’s position is being made starkly clear – the Western Hemisphere is the purview of the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a sharp warning to Russia, China and Iran Sunday, declaring the Western Hemisphere off-limits to foreign adversaries.

Rubio made the remarks during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” one day after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a military operation. The secretary pushed back when asked why the U.S. needs Venezuelan oil.

“Why does China need their oil? Why does Russia need their oil? Why does Iran need their oil? They’re not even in this continent. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live,” Rubio said.

“They are not going to come from outside of our hemisphere, destabilize our region in our own backyard and us have to pay the price for it. Not under President Trump,” Rubio said.

Meanwhile, Maduro and his wife have been formally arraigned in New York district court. If he thought that there was going to be any sympathy for him, it wasn’t in the courtroom.

Toppled Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, shackled at his feet and wearing orange prison garb, defiantly claimed he had been “kidnapped’’ during his historic first appearance in Manhattan court Monday on narco-terrorism charges — and then declared himself a “prisoner of war.”

Upon entering the courtroom, Maduro said, “Happy New Year” in English to the audience before greeting his lawyers.

He then almost immediately interrupted his court appearance with a proclamation of his innocence.

“I’m the president of the republic of Venezuela. … I am here kidnapped … I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela,” the 63-year-old fallen despot proclaimed in Spanish before Judge Alvin Hellerstein stopped him.

During the hearing, Hellerstein had read off the charges contained in the indictment against the deposed socialist dictator, which date back to 1999.

“Mr. Maduro … is charged in one count of narco-terrorism conspiracy, specifically from 1999 to 2025, he knowingly conspired with others … and intentionally provided something of pecuniary value to a person or organization engaged in terrorism and terrorist activity,” the 92-year-old jurist said from the bench.

Maduro, clad in prison-issued orange shoes, beige pants and an orange shirt — with his hands left unshackled — was asked by Hellerstein if he understood he had the right to legal counsel.

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,” Maduro said.

Maduro, who furiously scribbled notes on a white piece of paper during the proceedings, denounced the indictment against him.

“I am not guilty of anything that is mentioned here,” he said.

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His wife Cilia Flores, who also faces a rash of charges, said at the same proceeding that she is “completely innocent” when asked by Hellerstein for her plea.

Best of luck with that argument – even Democrats who are busy screeching about Trump’s actions in Venezuela have little interest in defending Maduro or affirming his delusion that he is the legitimate president of Venezuela.

It’s high time that the United States started paying attention to the Western Hemisphere. With Maduro out of Venezuela, it remains to be seen how long Cuba will be able to keep their lights on and still be a communist nation. It would be absolutely priceless and poetic if the Cuban government, which lost Fidel Castro right after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, now collapsed completely during Trump’s second term.

Featured image: official White House photo by Daniel Torok from June 21, 2025, cropped, public domain