WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 As the United States ramps up its pressure campaign on Venezuela, it’s generating a lot of questions about President Donald Trump’s plan for the Western Hemisphere. <\/p>\n
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked directly on Thursday if the current U.S. military campaign, dubbed “Operation Southern Spear,” is about drugs or oil.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is focused on doing many things in the Western Hemisphere. The President has taken a new approach that has not been taken by any administration for quite some time,” Leavitt said.<\/p>\n
Leavitt added that the new approach focuses on what’s going on in our own backyard. Keeping drugs out and seizing assets, like the oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The DOJ requested and was approved for a warrant to seize a vessel because it’s a sanctioned shadow vessel known for carrying black market oil,” said Leavitt.<\/p>\n
Founder & CEO of Tower Strategy, Rick de la Torre, told The National News Desk that the military action being taken is all part of Trump’s plan to reshape the Western Hemisphere. Similar to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which aimed to keep European power out of the United States backyard.<\/p>\n
The doctrine is (a) political announcement by this administration that’s going to claim that this hemisphere is going to be stewarded by the U.S. and its interest,” said de la Torre.<\/p>\n
Trump’s version, dubbed the ‘Trump-Monroe Doctrine,’ also has a goal of managing influence in the hemisphere. With a specific focus on countering China and Russia. <\/p>\n
The countries in our hemisphere are free from Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and other state actors from carrying out what they want to do that could ultimately hurt the U.S.” de la Torre said.<\/p>\n
While testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also linked the tanker seizure to the administration’s counterdrug efforts in Latin America.<\/p>\n
It was a successful operation directed by the President to ensure that we’re pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs and killing our next generation of Americans,” Noem said.<\/p>\n
But Venezuela’s government called the seizure an act of international piracy. Something de la Torre said is not the case since the ship had been sanctioned for years.<\/p>\n
The owners of that ship, the ones who put this oil deal together, they’re going to have to think twice if they’re going to want to do business with the Maduro regime,” de la Torre said.<\/p>\n