Trump Drops in a Hemi

People are getting frustrated with President Trump and the progress of his agenda. I understand that the nearing mid-term elections are part and parcel of the agitation, but there are also some Doomers out there who, like the old Never Trumpers, think if they can just rid themselves of this troublesome priest, they can take control and get back to their business of…well, whatever they think their business was.

Even if they were successful at expelling Trump or shutting down his progress, there is too much divergence on in the DNT (Doomer Never Trump) alliance to get anything moving in the same direction. There is no way the anti-Israel isolationists and the neocon war forever grifters will agree on anything other than, just like the left, they just hate Trump.

Let me lend some insight into what I have been thinking and seeing. I’ve laid back and haven’t said much until now, but I was waiting until I could see enough to reason through events with enough clarity and gravitas to form a cogent opinion.

First, understand that the mistake people are making is to look at events in isolation. They assume the Iran action is one thing, Cuba and Venezuela is another thing, tariffs are another thing, Canada and Mexico and the Lake America and Gulf of America are another thing, shutting down the Democrat boomerang funding mechanism of foreign aid another and rebuilding manufacturing is yet another thing.

But they are all really just one thing, and it is a hemispheric thing.

1. Manufacturing is reshoring to America and to the Western Hemisphere, and that is not just an economic boost but a national security one as well.

2. Allies are being manufactured by the 800-pound gorilla process. They may not love us but they need us.

3. International threats are being dealt with. Global terrorism is still a threat to the US and its allies.

4. Europe is being prepared to provide its own defense. The post WWII free ride is over.

5. Iran is defeated and this conflict is giving our military a chance to train, to test new weapons, and to use up antiquated ordnance.

We all joked about the “Donroe Doctrine” months ago, but I believe it is real and President Trump clearly sees 1) the next conflict will be West vs. East, 2) past presidents have done little to protect America’s security within the hemisphere, and 3) is now securing America in the best way he knows how. He knows that China, Russia and Iran oppose the US, all have meddled in our backyard, and that a global war that united those three is unwinnable, or if it is winnable, at a catastrophic cost. He knows it is best not to have enablers of your enemies sitting in your back yard.

So, he is solidifying America’s own productive capacity, the raw material to feed it, cleaning up our back yard, and letting the rest of the area to take care of their own lawns to our established standards, or we won’t hesitate to come in and cut your grass if you don’t.

We learned during Covid, in vivid IMAX and THX surround sound, just how much of our national security and future we had given up. American businesses, from small to gigantic corporations, offshored so much critical manufacturing that we couldn’t make basic, but critical drugs (we don’t even make simple antibiotics), we lost the ability to build gyroscopes for our missile guidance systems (we are buying them from Japan), and even some household, everyday items were sourced via supply chains that crossed as many borders every day as the sun.

Trump may not be able to bring everything back to the domestic American market, but is at least bringing it back to this hemisphere, much of it to North America, and much of it in support of American companies – and he is reminding American companies of their necessary allegiance to America.

He is also working to capture raw materials and energy production.

This is a true capture by trade and contract; it is not about nation building or expecting a country that has been socialist for half a century to adopt being a representative republic overnight. His process is not dependent on what kind of government any country has or wants to have, he is putting America in the position of being the 800-pound gorilla of the Western Hemisphere and implementing a “no better friend, no worse enemy” program by taking out the brutal, despotic leadership (Maduro) and working with what is left. He is allowing the remaining leadership to run their country but letting them and every other regime across the region understand they are being watched.

And the simple standard used is this: Do you help America or hurt America?

Very similar to Rush Limbaugh’s excrement list, if you don’t help America, you go on the list – and there are penalties. You can get off the list by not being our enemy, not working to harm us, or supporting those who want to. Simple as that.

Like him or not (and I could do with less bombast) but President Trump is a rare breed of someone who tells you what he is going to do and then does it. He may change directions a thousand times on the way there, but the destination is always the same.

Venezuela comes as close to an example of a single strategy as any so far. Maduro and his regime were our enemy, supporters of terrorism, an exporter of drugs and gangs to America. They were begged by former presidents to stop, but there never were consequences to not stopping – until Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth started blowing up drug boats headed for the US. Even then Maduro didn’t get the message. When it was clear that he wasn’t getting it, Trump sent the US military to get him.

Now that the driving force behind those efforts is gone and the region saw how he was removed, Trump has held out an olive branch. No nation building, no regime change, no massive American aid package to buy their love, just the reminder that American power still exists, it will be used to create a buffer of safety, the demonstration of the necessity to cooperate for the good of the hemisphere, and the consequences if you don’t.

America will help you if you help us.

Over the past thirty years, Venezuela’s oil and gas industry production has dropped to a third of what it once was because socialism does what socialism does and their entire hydrocarbon infrastructure is crap and they don’t have the money or knowhow to fix it. We do, and I think he just offered to invest and get them back up to where they were those many years ago, for a price. My guess is that he showed them a plan to raise their production 3X with two thirds going to them and a third coming to the US – that allows Venezuela to double their oil revenues so the one third of the oil that comes to the US doesn’t cost them a cent. It is a win-win-win, with Venezuela falling under the US umbrella and away from China, Russia, and Iran.

Same message to the moribund, disrespectful, freeloading NATO/EU – we love you guys, but damn son, time to stand up and be counted.

And they are.

They are bitching about it, but like a petulant teenager, they are doing their chores.

I’m sure there is plenty to disagree with in this assessment, but in my estimation, it all fits together, and like a 5000-piece puzzle, you can’t see the big picture until enough of the pieces are linked together.

This is that.

President Trump and his administration have pulled America’s wheezing little 2-liter four cylinder and dropped in an American made Dodge Direct Connection 1500 horsepower HEMI V8.

It ain’t cheap (it retails for 60 grand), but anything good has a price.

I gotta admit that even with the cost, it feels pretty good.