2025-12-06
49 分钟The policy was announced at the Minnesota State Fair, and it was the vice president who made it.
America, in its foreign policy, would speak softly and carry a big stick, Teddy Roosevelt said.
It was 1901, and the country was fresh from victory in the Spanish-American War.
a conflict that ended Spain's empire in the Western Hemisphere and led to a greater role for America in it.
Now, more than a hundred years later,
a different president has blown suspected drug boats out of the sea,
sent an aircraft carrier to South America and threatened regime change in Venezuela.
President Trump is speaking loudly and waving that big stick.
I'm John Prado and this is Checks and Balance from The Economist.
Each week we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in depth.
Today, what are President Trump's aims in Venezuela and the Caribbean?
He's come under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans for the killings of suspected drug traffickers.
What's the connection between those attacks and the pressure Trump is putting on Venezuela's dictator?
And is the America First president really preparing a military intervention in South America?
With me this week to try and make sense of the Trump administration's policy towards Venezuela and to talk about what might happen next are James Bennett who's in Washington DC and Charlotte Howard who's in New York James what's going on in DC another huge week of news here in DC John not least the uproar over whether or not American forces possibly the Secretary of Defense himself might have committed a war crime with one of these missile strikes in the Caribbean and signs of at least a minor insurrection against the speaker of the house,
Mike Johnson, within his own party.
Yeah, we'll be talking about the strikes on fast boats and the Caribbean on this episode.
It never lets up in DC.
Charlotte, how about you?
What's up in New York?