During his first presidency, Donald Trump’s American First foreign policy was often attacked as naively isolationist by both Democrats and traditional non-MAGA conservatives. But ten months into his second presidency, Trump is taking a highly confrontational approach with Venezuela and its leftist president, Nicolas Maduro — one that critics, both left and right, consider a recipe for major instability in South America.
In an article published on November 26 — the day before Thanksgiving 2025 — Axios’ Zachary Zasu stresses that Trump’s Venezuela policy underscores huge divisions within the MAGA movement.
“President Trump is flirting with one of the most toxic ideas in American politics — a new foreign military intervention — at one of the most precarious moments of his second term,” Basu reports. “Why it matters: Trump’s push toward regime change in Venezuela threatens to deepen a MAGA rift that detonated last week with the resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). The tensions mark the most public fracturing of Trump’s coalition since he entered politics, unfolding against a backdrop of brutal polling for Republicans across the board.”
Basu adds, “For a president who has long sold ‘no new wars’ as his foreign-policy calling card, even a narrowly framed mission in America’s ‘backyard’ could shatter that promise.”
The Axios reporter notes that the “notion of deposing Maduro by force,” according to polls, “appears to be deeply unpopular.”
“70 percent of Americans say they’d oppose military action in Venezuela, according to a CBS News poll,” Basu explains. “MAGA activists are similarly uneasy — supportive of Trump’s crackdown on drug trafficking but wary of mission creep and the potential chaos of a new foreign conflict. For (former Fox News host) Tucker Carlson and the right’s ascendant isolationists, the Venezuela brinkmanship offers a ripe opportunity to hammer ‘neocons’ they accuse of betraying ‘America First’ principles.”
Read the full Axios article at this link.
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