Vance contrasts Venezuela with other US military campaignspublished at 20:38 GMT
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House
JD Vance has just explicitly taken a moment to contrast the operation in Venezuela with the “endless” military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan during the “War on Terror” that began in 2001.
This is a nod to Trump’s MAGA base, and to the fact that Trump campaigned on a vow to avoid long-running, bloody and costly “nation-building” missions overseas, with limited success.
Since last Saturday, administration officials have repeatedly pointed out that the Maduro raid was conducted quickly, with no US casualties, and took place in this hemisphere, which Trump has vowed to protect from adversarial nations abroad.
This has been dubbed the “Don-roe doctrine”, a play on the Monroe Doctrine first unveiled in 1823.
Broadly, this is an argument that seems to have landed with Trump’s supporters, very few of which have come out openly to criticise the mission.
I was in Florida a few hours after the Maduro raid was announced, and I also found it to be one that resonated with everyday voters.
One man, a Florida resident who once sold “Trump dogs” – enormous hot dogs – to other supporters near Mar-a-Lago, told me he believes the US is “behaving like a super power again” at little cost in blood and treasure to the US.
Several speakers, including Vance, Rubio and Burgum, have also characterised the Venezuela operation as an anti-narcotics move – an assessment which is disputed by many observers.
