America is finally seeing the kind of backbone on foreign policy too many in Washington used to only talk about and never deliver, and Jesse Watters ripped into the growing showdown with Venezuela on last night’s program with the bluntness hardworking Americans appreciate. The White House — rightly — has ramped up pressure on Nicolás Maduro’s kleptocratic regime, calling out narco-state activity and moving beyond empty diplomatic gestures. This isn’t theater; it’s a clear, necessary push to protect our streets and reclaim leverage in the hemisphere.
Last week the Trump administration even seized a sanctioned oil tanker tied to illicit shipments, a bold move that sent a message to Caracas that America will not look the other way when regimes prop up criminal enterprises. New targeted sanctions against Maduro’s relatives and shipping networks followed, choking off the corrupt pipelines that bankroll tyranny and drug runs into our neighborhoods. These actions are the practical enforcement that serious national-security policy requires, not the hand-wringing appeasement we saw from the other side of the aisle.
The administration hasn’t stopped at sanctions: it has moved naval assets into the Caribbean and authorized strikes on narco-trafficking vessels, a necessary escalation to stop the flow of poison into American communities. Critics screech about saber-rattling while cartel boats continue to cross the Caribbean with impunity; the people most often ignored in those debates are the drug-addicted and grieving families back home. If projecting force stops even one shipment of fentanyl and saves one life, it’s the right call.
Washington also raised the stakes by doubling the reward for Maduro’s capture and designating key Venezuelan criminal elements as terrorist organizations, moves that strip away the diplomatic niceties used for years to shield dictators. Maduro’s regime has long trafficked in lies and corruption, and it’s past time the world treated him as the criminal he is rather than a state actor deserving of normal relations. Those who fret about precedent should explain why they weren’t this worried when Americans were dying of overdoses tied to his patronage networks.
Let’s be honest: this escalation exposes the left’s double standard. When soft-on-crime politicians whine about intervention, they conveniently forget who’s paying the human cost — our children, our neighbors, our police. A conservative approach is about preserving life and liberty; if that means cutting off the cash that props up drug cartels and corrupt dictators, so be it. We don’t cower while foreign kleptocrats bankroll violence that washes up on American shores.
Moscow’s quick offers of “solidarity” with Maduro only underline what realists have warned for years: authoritarian regimes circle the wagons when exposed, and their support must not deter decisive action. Putin’s posturing is predictable, but America’s first loyalty is to its citizens, not to coddling client states that traffic poison. We should meet Moscow’s rhetoric with strength and clarity, not timid counsel from career diplomats more worried about optics than outcomes.
Now is the time for patriots to stand behind a policy that defends our borders, backs our law enforcement, and confronts foreign regimes that export crime. Support for the administration’s tough stance is not warmongering; it is solidarity with victims of drugs and with Americans who expect their leaders to secure the nation. If Washington refuses to act, the streets will pay the price — and conservatives will not be quiet while that happens.
