Donroe Doctrine: How Donald Trump's Power Politics, From Venezuela To India, Reshapes Global Order

Donald Trump has never been famous for telling the whole truth. Which is another way of saying that the President of the United States is not a total liar. Often, he may come up well short of the truth, sometimes just shy of it. We, mere mortals, don’t know if he has missed by a mile or by a whisker, and no political scientist has yet come up with a credible measure.

On truth, lies and small hands

However, Donald Trump is famous for, among other things, disproportionately small hands. His current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, whom Trump referred to as “Little Marco”, doesn’t think much of his boss’s hands either. Don’t let that submissive, obsequious, fawning, puppy-dog air in Trump’s presence fool you. Nine years before the real invasion of Venezuela, Marco Rubio taunted Trump, among other things, over his small hands.

“He is taller than me; he’s like 6’2”, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’2”,” Rubio ridiculed. “Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands…” Rubio paused before delivering the punchline, “…You can’t trust them.”

Trump repeatedly punched back, famously: “I’m actually 6’3”, not 6’2”, but I’ve always heard people say, ‘Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.’” And, “Look at these hands. Are they small hands? If they’re small, something else must be small; I guarantee you there’s no problem.”

In slam-dunk politics, unlike in real life, dear reader, every inch counts. Stormy Daniels had another memorable take on that, but that’s another story, and Epstein is no longer among us. This is only a partial disclosure story.

Counting untruths

It took The Washington Post half a decade, after Rubio’s realisation of the connection between small hands and trustworthiness, to fact-check and catalogue Trump’s false and misleading claims. On January 23, 2021, the Post determined that Trump had uttered as many as 30,573 untruths in the course of his first presidency, at an astonishing average of 21 a day. Which works out to roughly the speed of one Trump lie per hour. The speed would increase if we parse it per waking hour, but we know Trump doesn’t sleep much. Unfortunately, The Washington Post hasn’t updated its study, so we do not know if Trump has increased his rate and by how much.

Venezuela and the graduation to global bullying

All we know is that Venezuela has brought out the best in Trump. While he was toying with the idea of invading Venezuela during his first term, we can only conclude that the size of his hands, among other things, prevented him from going ahead and grabbing it. Either that, or he was too busy firing people whom he found disagreeable within his handpicked administration or who disagreed with his real estate shark ways of handling the presidency.

In his second term, a qualmless Trump has graduated to firing presidents of other countries. He has dangerously come into his own after Venezuela, which in real terms is akin to a turkey shoot in which the turkeys surrounding the Chief Turkey had already been brought over by the American intelligence agencies in a transaction dressed up in gunboating.

After Nicolás Maduro, Trump is plainly targeting Claudia Shinbaum Pardo (Mexico), Miguel Díaz-Canel (Cuba), Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (Colombia), on whom he applied sanctions last October on the charge of running drugs to America, and José Raúl Mulino (Panama). Trump has already imposed sanctions on Brazil and made it clear he supports the opponent of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Jair Bolsonaro, now sentenced to 27 years for plotting a coup.

Enter the Donroe Doctrine

Now, a word about the hottest strategic neologism out so early this year: the Donroe Doctrine. Charles de Gaulle often referred to himself in the third person. He suffered from a rare condition known in literary circles as ‘illeism’. ‘Mogambo khush hua’ is an example. As is Gollum’s “We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious,” in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine,” Trump exclaimed, proudly referring to his own clumsy and geographically misleading literary Frankenstein’s Monster (handiwork?). Sadly, the court of King Trump extends far beyond the Western Hemisphere.

The Indian connection

This is where the Indian connection comes in. While Trump was grandstanding, bragging about Venezuela and threatening other countries with the same treatment, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina let slip, in that moment of Air Force One hubris, that “I was at the Indian ambassador’s house about a month ago, and all he wanted to talk about is how they’re buying less Russian oil. Would you tell the President to relieve the tariff? This stuff works.”

Trump was standing right there next to the righteous senator, looking pretty happy with the world, which means, essentially, with himself. He interjected, “They (India) wanted to make me happy.” Then he clarified, most specifically, “Basically he wanted to—[Prime Minister] Modi’s a very good man. He’s a good guy. He knew I was unhappy, and it was important to make me happy. They do trade, and we can raise tariffs on them very quickly, and it would be bad for them.”

We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. Or, Mogambo khush hua. Go on, take your pick, and you will come up trumps. My humble guarantee.

Tariffs, diplomacy and petulance

In defence of Our Man in Washington, poor chap Vinay Kwatra was only doing his job, which, in Washington these days, is all about special pleading. Remember, we send out only our best people to Washington. Never, ever otherwise. Kwatra went in August. The continuance of the tariffs is not so much a failure of his diplomacy as it is a success of Trump’s petulance and idiosyncrasy.

Look at the way he is baulking at ushering Maria Corina Machado into the throne in Caracas, just because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. Selfish! Selfish! Selfish!

Some would call what Trump has madness, but your reporter is no shrink and he, therefore, shrinks from that conclusion. Yet, there is no shrinking from the fact that the tariffs came in August; the Senator Graham cajoling scene, if it is to be believed, took place in early December. Since October, our folks have been braying that the trade deal is in the bag, almost. If so, where is the announcement? Are we, inexplicably, also in the Donroe doghouse? Woof, woof!

V Sudarshan is the editor of The Free Press Journal

V. Sudarshan is Editor, The Free Press Journal.