Trump’s New World Order
If you think he’s an isolationist, you’re wrong. He aims to reshape the globe.
Nov. 3, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
“On Venezuela in particular,” CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell asked President Trump on “60 Minutes” Sunday, “are Maduro’s days as president numbered?”
“I would say yeah. I think so, yeah,” he replied.
“And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true?”
“I don’t tell you that. . . . You know, you’re a wonderful reporter, you’re very talented, but I’m not gonna tell you what I’m gonna do with Venezuela, if I was gonna do it or if I wasn’t going to do it.”
And that’s where matters stand. With a carrier strike group joining eight warships already in the region, a squadron of F-35s in Puerto Rico, and assorted elite military units in the area, the Trump administration has ramped up its standoff with Venezuela. Regime change is clearly the goal; the timetable and means are unspecified.
In normal times, a crisis of this magnitude would dominate world news, but in our era it struggles to stay on the front page. The Venezuela crisis escalated to the brink of war the same week Mr. Trump’s lightning Asia tour concluded with a summit with Xi Jinping. While senators such as Kentucky’s Rand Paul denounced what they called illegal American strikes against alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, lawyers on both sides were prepping oral arguments for the historic Supreme Court showdown over the legality of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which have upended world trade. Russian troops ground out more gains in Ukraine even as the air war between Kyiv and its nuclear-armed neighbor raged. Scenes of horror unfolded in Darfur as Sudan descended deeper into civil war. The fragile cease-fire in Gaza hung by a thread.
Meanwhile, on Truth Social, Mr. Trump threatened to attack Nigeria if that country doesn’t do a better job of protecting Christians.
Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt has an American president been this powerful or this busy. In his hyperactive second term, Mr. Trump doesn’t merely walk and chew gum at the same time. He dances on tightropes while juggling chainsaws. This blizzard of activity keeps him at the center of the world stage, throws his opponents off balance, makes it relatively easy to drown out failures in the flood of events, distracts attention from any conflicts of interest, and provides enough successes (real or apparent) to burnish his image.
But while the storm Mr. Trump unleashes is chaotic, there is a certain logic to his path. He really does believe that the U.S. is in trouble. From his perspective, stupid Democratic and Republican policies since the end of the Cold War have left the country divided and exposed to dangers overseas. A poorly designed globalization strategy hollowed out the middle class, gutted the defense industrial base, and fueled China’s rise. Clueless elites alienated Americans in pursuit of nonsensical utopian goals. An incompetent American foreign-policy cadre failed to win wars, advance democracy or build peace.
That leaves Mr. Trump with a difficult task. On the one hand, decades of failure, foolishness and shortsighted elite greed have eroded the trust between Americans and the political and administrative mandarins. On the other, the immense efforts required to address the internal challenges and the external threats to the U.S. can be mobilized only on the basis of renewed trust between the national government and the public at large.
Setting the domestic agenda aside, to build that trust and public support for the global struggle, Mr. Trump needs to educate his base without directly challenging some of their core beliefs. Venezuela is a godsend from this point of view. As a leading source of both drugs and illegal migrants, it represents the kind of threat that the Trump base most worries about. And even most isolationists applaud strong American action in the Western Hemisphere.
But Venezuela is also part of the global contest. During World War II and the Cold War, America focused on foreign rivals’ efforts to challenge Washington’s power in the hemisphere. Today, Russia, China and Iran are all active in Venezuela and seek to use the country as a base to undermine America’s regional position.
And there’s more. Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia’s. Flipping Venezuela from the Axis of Revisionists to Team America would have lasting consequences on the global balance of power—and would reduce the ability of countries like Russia and Iran to use energy as a weapon against the U.S.
Those who still think of Mr. Trump as a restrainer or isolationist should watch his “60 Minutes” interview. This president isn’t retreating from the world. He aims to reshape it.