President Donald Trump is signaling a new phase of American engagement in the Western Hemisphere, hinting that U.S. military installations in South America and potentially Venezuela could be on the table as Washington deepens ties across the continent.
Currently, there are no U.S. military bases in South America, but that posture may be shifting as the administration consolidates influence in a region long contested by hostile powers. According to The Center Square, when asked Thursday about the prospect of bases in Venezuela or elsewhere in South America, the president replied, "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."
"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," President Trump told The Center Square, underscoring a strategy that weds energy security to geopolitical leverage. His comments come as the U.S. has agreed to construct two bases in Greenland, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the Department of War will build a new domestic installation, calling it the "next great American base."
The presidents growing clout in South America has been reinforced by a slate of Trump-aligned candidates winning elections across the region, bolstering a bloc more friendly to U.S. interests and skeptical of socialist experiments. His assertive approach to the hemisphere has been dubbed the Donroe Doctrine, a deliberate echo of the Monroe Doctrines insistence on limiting foreign interference in the Americas.
Following the siege and arrest of Venezuela's former dictator, Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. has moved quickly to reset relations and assert leadership over one of the worlds most strategic oil markets. Until Maduro and his wife were detained at the start of the year, Caracas had cultivated deep ties with China, Russia, and Iran, effectively inviting some of Americas most aggressive adversaries into the U.S. backyard.
In 2022, Venezuela hosted joint military exercises with Russia, China, and Iran, a stark reminder of how far the country had drifted from the U.S.-led order. The Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that Latin America was increasingly vulnerable to such encroachment, noting, "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--vis the United States and the 'collective West,' which they rather successfully harness to advance their view of a multipolar world," according to CSIS.
Against that backdrop, the Trump administration has spent more than a year targeting narco-terrorist networks in the Caribbean and South America, pairing law-and-order priorities with a broader effort to roll back authoritarian and anti-American regimes. Whether or not new U.S. bases ultimately appear on South American soil, the message from Washington is clear: the era of ceding the hemisphere to Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran is over, and American power military, economic, and moral is once again being asserted close to home.
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