A New American Export
The MAGAfication of the Western Hemisphere
By Charles A. Ray - November 29, 2025
There’s been a lot of focus on what the Trump administration is doing domestically, particularly with the aggressive, often inhumane anti-immigration raids, and internationally with his threat to invade Venezuela, using the ‘made-up’ excuse of a war on drug trafficking. But, there is another campaign currently underway that hasn’t gotten nearly the media coverage or congressional oversight that it deserves, and that is the MAGA effort to manage the outcome of political contests in the Western Hemisphere, and, whether intentional or not, to create a Union of MAGA-aligned kleptocracies stretching from the North Pole to the South.While the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and the attacks on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific get extensive coverage, other actions get scant mention. In terms of long-term impact on democracy, peace, security, and stability in the hemisphere, they probably have as significant an impact as the military actions.Good buy, Argentina
In October, Trump announced a $20 billion bailout for Argentina’s troubled economy, provided the ruling party of his ally, President Javier Milei, won the November legislative election. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous to Argentina,” Trump told reporters at an October 14 White House meeting with Milei. In addition to having a government in the Southern Hemisphere that would spread pro-Trump ideology in Latin America, it financially benefits major American hedge funds, including those led by friends of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. This generous support is also despite the fact that, from the start of the year, China was buying soybeans from Argentine farmers rather than American soybean growers, causing significant financial hardships for Americans and blowback from Democrats in Congress.
Hail Honduras
Trump has also put his finger on the scale of Honduras’s November national elections by openly endorsing the right-wing candidate and by announcing on November 28 that he would pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted by an American jury in late 2024 of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and sentenced to 45 years in prison.The Donroe Doctrine
Other MAGA machinations in the Western Hemisphere have been in and out of the media in a dizzying whirlwind of actions that are so fast and furious that before the public can digest one, another is in the headlines.At the start of his administration, Trump threatened to take the Panama Canal by force, take control of Greenland, and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, despite Mexico, with 1,743 miles of Gulf coastline, having more than the U.S. and Cuba combined. In addition, his on-again, off-again tariff war has included Canada and Mexico, as well as sanctions and pressure campaigns across the Americas. While White House announcements and Trump’s social media posts frequently claim he aims to stop drugs and migrants from entering the U.S, and redressing unfair trade imbalances, at times, other administration officials have let slip that the overarching goal is to assert American dominance over ‘our neighborhood.’The new American Empire
Trump’s admiration for strong men like Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi is well known and is on display with the Walmart gold glitter decorating the White House, making it look like a knock-off of Saddam Hussein’s palace, or his obsession with grand military parades, oversized ballrooms, or Arch de Trump, when one takes a closer look at the actions mentioned above, and who knows what else is going on behind the scenes, we can see something ominous. He appears to be building an American Empire in the Western Hemisphere that will rival Putin’s dream of reviving the Soviet Empire of the czars or Xi’s global Belt and Road Initiative. The MAGAfication of the Western Hemisphere is taking place right under our noses, and the media, obsessed with the hot sound bites of the day, appears to be asleep at the switch.If we continue to sleep, one day we could wake up and find ourselves residing in the Union of American Autocratic States. I shudder at the thought.