Currently, there are no U.S. military bases in South America as President Donald Trump looks to cement U.S. relations on the continent.
President Donald Trump appeared to the leave the door open for the possibility of military bases in Venezuela or South America after The Center Square asked him about it Thursday afternoon.
“We’re looking at doing a lot of things. We’re getting along very well, as you know. And Venezuela has been a great situation,” the president told The Center Square. “We’re taking a lot of oil, and we have a great relationship. And Venezuela’s making a lot of money, and so are we. We’re going to start filling up our national strategic reserves with the Venezuelan oil for very little money, and it’s going to be great.”
The question comes as the U.S. reached an agreement to build two bases in Greenland, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the Department of War will build a new base in the U.S. for the first time in 40 years, calling it the “next great American base.”
The president’s influence in South America has been felt after a group of Trump-backed candidates on the continent has successfully won elections, further strengthening his influence in the region.
Trump has sought to dominate power in the Western Hemisphere, being called the Donroe Doctrine, a play on the Monroe Doctrine.
Following the siege and arrest of Venezuela’s former dictator, Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. has seized an opportunity to build relations and take charge of one of the world’s oil markets.
Up until the arrest of Maduro and his wife at the start of the year, Venezuela built relationships with China, Russia, and Iran, placing some of America’s greatest adversaries at its back door.
In 2022, Venezuela hosted military drills with countries including Russia, China, and Iran.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that Latin America was ripe for U.S. adversarial influences.
“While Western observers have focused their attention on joint connivances of Russia and Iran in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East, where Russo-Iranian military-security operations directly affect U.S. and European interests, the Western Hemisphere is not isolated from the two countries’ quests for global influence. In fact, in many ways it is an essential piece of the puzzle. First, both Iran and Russia perceive Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as a fertile ground for exploiting popular resentment vis-à-vis the United States and the ‘collective West,’ which they – rather successfully – harness to advance their view of a multipolar world,” according to CSIS.
In addition to keeping global adversaries in check, the Trump administration has been targeting narco terrorists around the Caribbean and South America for over a year.
