Miller articulates power doctrine behind Venezuela operation, Greenland ambitions

WASHINGTON — Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, told CNN in January that world affairs are “governed by strength, governed by force, governed by power,” articulating the ideological framework the Trump administration has applied to its military operation in Venezuela, its push to acquire Greenland, and its domestic immigration enforcement crackdown.

“These are the iron laws of the world,” Miller told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

Miller’s statements, compiled by the Associated Press from social media posts and television interviews spanning December and January, trace the public case his office has built for several of the administration’s most consequential foreign and domestic policy moves. A joint statement from Spain and five Latin American countries responded to the Venezuela operation by calling for “mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and nonintervention.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the administration’s Venezuela policy “old-fashioned imperialism.”

Venezuela: oil and control

Two weeks before the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Miller wrote on social media that American “sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela” and that its expropriation was “the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”

After the operation that captured Maduro, Miller told reporters that the United States held economic and military control over Venezuela’s future. “We have an oil embargo in Venezuela for them to do any kind of commerce. They need our permission. We have our massive fleet or armada still present there. This is an active and ongoing U.S. government military operation, and so, of course, we set the terms and conditions,” Miller said.

He added that the administration was receiving “full, complete and total cooperation from the government of Venezuela,” and that “the people of Venezuela are going to become richer than they ever have before” as a result.

Shortly after the operation, Miller wrote on social media that Western nations dissolved their empires after World War II but then sent “colossal sums of taxpayer-funded aid” to former territories and opened their borders — what he called “a kind of reverse colonization” — while extending “preferential legal and financial treatment over the native citizenry” to newcomers. He characterized this period as “a long self-punishment of the places and peoples that built the modern world.”

Greenland

In the CNN interview, Miller dismissed concerns that President Donald Trump’s stated aim of acquiring Greenland from Denmark — a fellow NATO member — could produce military conflict with Europe.

“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Miller said.

Monroe Doctrine

When Tapper pressed Miller on whether Venezuela had the right to hold elections, Miller invoked both the Monroe Doctrine and what he called a “Trump Doctrine.”

“The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” Miller said.

He called for an end to what he characterized as the post-World War II era when “the West began apologizing and groveling and engaging in these massive reparations schemes.”

Minneapolis and domestic enforcement

Following nationwide protests after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minnesota, Miller wrote on social media that Democrats had supported and orchestrated “violent resistance against federal law enforcement.”

In a separate post, Miller wrote: “In case it isn’t clear by now, if Democrats won they would have made every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince.”

Reaction

Critics have argued that Miller’s rhetoric about foreign nations and immigrants echoes ideas that have historically underpinned U.S. military actions abroad. Spain and five Latin American governments issued a joint statement calling on countries in the region to engage in “mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and nonintervention.” Sanders said the Venezuela policy amounted to “old-fashioned imperialism.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “Advocating for policies that put American citizens first isn’t racist. Anyone who says so is either intentionally lying or just plain stupid.”