This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States,” Rubio said in a media interview. The past few administrations appeared to forget why allowing hostile governments to spend billions of dollars on developing influence in America’s backyard was a bad idea, but President Trump remembered, and in the small hours of January 3, he explained it to Nicolás Maduro in unmistakable terms. Mao’s comments must have baffled Taiwan, which recently enjoyed the spectacle of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) conducting a dress rehearsal for a massive blockade of the island, precisely because the Chinese think they should be allowed to carve out spheres of influence and create geopolitical confrontations.
Author: John Hayward
Published at: 2026-01-07 21:42:49
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