Given his rise during the ego joyride of the 1980s, it’s no shock that Trump’s foreign policy is to emulate that decade’s belligerent cinema
T
he box office barnstormer of 2026 arrived early this year. A sleazy banana-republic dictator flooding the American streets with blow. The over-the-border Delta Force extraction squad sent to pluck this schmo out of his impregnable fortress. The bronzed tough-talker who’s firing an RPG up the tailpipe of the international rules-based order – but who gets the job done. Call it: Caracas Thunder.
Sounds like a bit of a throwback, you might be thinking. But, judging by his press conference after the US military’s abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump seemed to have finally achieved his dream of directing his own 80s action movie.
Trump packed in the important tropes. It had been “dark and deadly” out there in the field – but American kickassery prevailed easily. Why settle for just one staple 80s action bogeymen – the tinpot authoritarian (Commando; Missing in Action) or the cartel kingpin (Lethal Weapon; Cobra) – when Maduro, now perp-walking for global audiences, could double up as both? And we never knew it, but it turns out Operation Absolute Resolve is part of a franchise brought to you by Donald J Trump Productions: “We’ve done some other good ones, like the attacks on Soleimani and al-Baghdadi, and the obliteration and decimation of the Iran nuclear sites,” the US president pointed out.
