"This is our hemisphere." The day after the abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, this was how US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio justified the operation. "This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live – and we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States." The Trump administration made no secret of its intentions: China, and to a lesser extent Russia, were its primary targets to expel from what it considers its own backyard.
"We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere," reads the national security strategy presented by President Donald Trump and published in December 2025. "We want other nations to see us as their partner of choice and we will (through various means) discourage their collaboration with others." Washington turned words into action in Caracas on January 3, after already issuing substantial threats to Panama in the spring of 2025 over its ties with China – specifically, the two ports at either end of the canal operated by Hong Kong-based company CK Hutchison.
