“The Congress shall have power … To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,”
U.S. Constitution – Article I Section 8
In 2024 Donald Trump campaigned on (a) an explicit repudiation of prior administrations’ efforts to affect regimes-changes or engage in subsequent nation-building and (b) a doctrine respecting the sovereignty of other nations and avoiding interference in their domestic affairs.
Craving a Noble Peace Prize, the president repeated misleading and/or inaccurate claims he settled eight wars, anointed himself “The President of Peace” and renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.”
Like other promises, Trump quickly abandoned those principles, interjecting himself in the elections, judicial systems and economies of several foreign nations from Brazil to Argentina to Honduras. He has used the U.S. military and taxpayer dollars to launch unprovoked military attacks on Iran, Nigerian ISIS-backed rebels, and last week Venezuela, adducting its president and his wife in the process which by any measure are acts of war … a power reserved solely to Congress.
He has used threats of unilaterally imposing huge tariffs and military intervention against other countries who refuse to comply with his demands, again usurping Congressional powers.
Absent credible evidence, Trump ordered the destruction of 36 alleged drug-smuggling boats operating in international waters, murdering of 115 so-called “narco-terrorists” in the process. Forgetting such actions violate well-understood and accepted international law, they represent a continuation of America’s misdirected and generally unsuccessful trillion-plus dollar, 52-year “war on drugs”.
Trump justifies his actions on his personal but unproven and highly-questionable contentions America’s national security interests have been at risk.
In Venezuela with Maduro gone the president asserted, “We’re going to run the country …” dismissing working with either Venezuela’s vice president Deley Rodríguez or opposition leader María Corina Machado and, despite the often repeated pretext of curtailing drug trafficking, Trump’s long-standing desire for the U.S. to benefit by securing access to the country’s oil reserves appears to be his primary goal, adding, “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” Again, the constitution empowers only Congress to dictate the disposition of seized property during wartime.
Potentially serious and untended consequences from the president’s military adventurism can justify Russia’s rationale for invading the Ukraine and could green-light China’s threats against Taiwan.
While Panama’s Noriega and Maduro were despicable autocratic and ruthless leaders, kidnapping sovereign nations heads of state sets another dangerous precedent. How would America react if its president or other high government official were indicted by a foreign government and then abducted?
While many will applaud and justify the president’s recent actions based on the immediate, short-term results, doing so unilaterally flaunts the constitution, weakens our democracy and can desensitize Americans to the dangerous amassing of unitary power in the Executive.
The Signors of the Declaration of Independence who pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” would be dismayed to witness Congress allowing an autocratic, self-serving narcissists to transform our representative democracy into nation of one-man rule reminiscent of how England’s King George III once dominated the American colonies.
