Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s breathless criticism of President Trump’s strategic pivot toward Venezuela reveals everything Americans need to know about the establishment’s warped foreign policy priorities. The New Hampshire Democrat’s complaint that redirecting the USS Gerald R. Ford from Middle East patrol duty to Caribbean operations somehow weakens America exposes the globalist mindset that has drained our resources for decades while our own hemisphere burned.
For too long, the foreign policy establishment has treated America like the world’s unpaid security guard, stretching our military thin across distant conflicts while drug cartels operate with impunity just south of our border. Trump’s decision to focus naval assets on Venezuelan threats represents a long-overdue return to Monroe Doctrine principles—the idea that America’s primary strategic interest lies in securing our own neighborhood first.
Shaheen’s hand-wringing about reduced “firepower” in the Indo-Pacific and Europe perfectly captures the establishment’s addiction to endless overseas commitments. These are the same voices that gave us twenty years in Afghanistan, billions wasted in Iraq, and a foreign policy that somehow finds money for Ukrainian pensions while American cities crumble under fentanyl epidemics fueled by Venezuelan trafficking networks.
The strategic logic behind Trump’s Caribbean focus couldn’t be clearer. The Maduro regime has transformed Venezuela into a narco-state whose operations directly fuel America’s overdose crisis. Venezuelan-backed migration chaos has destabilized the entire region, creating the border security nightmare that American communities face daily. Yet Shaheen apparently believes maintaining traditional patrol routes in the Red Sea takes priority over addressing threats that kill Americans on American soil.
What’s particularly telling is Shaheen’s admission that classified legal opinions regarding Venezuela operations are now available to Congress—suggesting the Trump administration is following proper constitutional oversight procedures despite her political objections. This transparency stands in stark contrast to the secretive foreign entanglements that characterized previous administrations’ globalist adventures.
The senator’s dismissal of Venezuela’s threat level demonstrates the establishment’s fundamental disconnect from American realities. While Washington insiders debate abstract geopolitical theories, American families bury loved ones killed by Venezuelan cartel fentanyl. Border states struggle with migration waves that Maduro actively encourages as political warfare against the United States. These aren’t distant theoretical threats—they’re immediate dangers to American communities.
Trump’s willingness to challenge decades of foreign policy orthodoxy reflects the kind of strategic thinking that built American prosperity in the first place. The Founding Fathers warned against foreign entanglements precisely because they understood that America’s strength comes from securing our own interests first, then engaging with the world from a position of strength.
The establishment’s panic over this hemispheric focus reveals their true priorities. They’ve grown so comfortable with America serving as the world’s policeman that they’ve forgotten our military exists primarily to defend American interests, not to maintain globalist stability in every corner of the earth. Their criticism essentially argues that American naval power belongs everywhere except where it might directly benefit American citizens.
This strategic realignment toward Monroe Doctrine principles offers a template for rational foreign policy prioritization. Instead of spreading our forces thin across endless commitments, America can focus overwhelming strength on threats that directly impact our security and prosperity. Success in the Caribbean—measured through reduced drug trafficking, regional stability, and migration control—would validate this America First approach to military deployment.
Patriots should celebrate this return to constitutional foreign policy thinking. For too long, American power has served global elite preferences rather than American interests. Trump’s Venezuela focus represents exactly the kind of strategic pivot that puts American communities first, even when it challenges the foreign policy establishment’s comfortable assumptions about how our military should be deployed.
The choice couldn’t be clearer: continue the globalist approach that spreads American power thin across distant conflicts, or focus that power on threats that directly endanger American families. Trump has chosen America first—and the establishment’s panic proves he’s on the right track.
