Here’s a ten-point guide to watching Trump’s foreign policy

Pass the popcorn. Just when the world thinks that it has Donald Trump’s measure, the man manages to make dictators, commentators, and the rest of humanity spit out their collective coffee — yet again.

In the long list of the outlandish and outrageous of which the 47th president is the author, snatching Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from his bed while he enjoyed a few hours of well-deserved rest after a day’s autocratic labor, might well justify a category of its own.

Illegal? Perhaps.

Disastrous? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, the weekend raid was — to adopt a British tabloidism — just plain Caracas.

In one fell swoop, the theater-loving Trump got his own Bin Laden moment, complete with guns-blazing special forces action to be endlessly retold at rallies down the line.

He simultaneously reset the politics of America’s Near Abroad, checked Iran, Russia, and China in the global game of geopolitics — and then elected himself the boss of the Great State of Venezuela.

Totally overshadowed in Saturday’s regime change effort was the small matter of Friday’s tweet all but saying that Trump was backing regime change efforts in Iran.

Yet the protests unfolding across Iran threaten to overtake the events in Caracas as the Ayatollah’s regime totters. Tehran watchers sense that this is the most serious threat to the regime since 1979.

Boosters see a grand design cooked up by Trump and Bibi et al. to checkmate the ayatollahs and ensure American primacy against its challengers.

Naturally, there are detractors aplenty. Democratic senators and New York Times editorial writers are lining up to warn of the perils of regime change and endless foreign adventures (a possibility that seems to have escaped them when it comes to supporting Ukraine).

Regardless of which is right, Trump is giving us all whiplash. He’s firmly against foreign interventions… until he isn’t. He’s the Peace President, who blows things up every six months or so.

So what’s it all about? The big picture is Trump challenging an anti-American coalition which has in turn upended the liberal world order. More than any president for generations, the current White House occupant is acting decisively to shape a new world order. In his sights are big actors like China, strategic zones like Greenland, and relative minnows like Cuba.

With events moving so fast, details are less important than dynamics, and the latest news flash is less significant than context and connecting the dots. Here’s a ten-point guide to watching Trump’s foreign policy.

1

Key Term: Donroe Doctrine
Context: Venezuela Heist

Observers were quick to point out that Nicolás Maduro isn’t the first Latin American leader to be snatched by the American justice system. As recently as 1989, Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega was whisked off by George H.W. Bush.

America’s long-standing meddling in the affairs of its southern neighbors is known as the Monroe Doctrine, an 1823 declaration by President James Monroe that the United States would oppose European colonialism in the region.

More broadly, it declared the right to assert influence among America’s neighbors. That underlay the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when John F. Kennedy flatly declared that while America could site nukes in Turkey — a USSR neighbor — the Soviets couldn’t return the favor mere miles from Miami.

In the aftermath of last weekend’s attack on Caracas, talk of a so-called “Donroe Doctrine” — a Trumpian twist on the original — has spiked. Latin American countries inimical to America are on notice that they could be next. “Today it’s Venezuela, tomorrow it could be anyone else,” Chilean President Gabriel Boric said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio served notice to Cuba: “They’re in a lot of trouble,” the US secretary of state told NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s not a mystery that we’re not big fans of the Cuban regime”.

With the smash-and-grab raid on Caracas, it’s clear that a new stage has arrived in Donald Trump’s foreign policy that combines Mossad-like daring with Trumpian chutzpah. The new doctrine also factors in financial implications like flooding the world oil market with Venezuela’s abundant crude which will further reduce the leverage of oil-dependent Russia. The results of Trump’s assertiveness will first and foremost be felt in America’s backyard.