Since returning to the White House in January 2025, United States President Donald Trump has ordered specific interventions in several countries: American forces bombed Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Nigeria, but the action with the greatest repercussion was the offensive that captured the then Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, last weekend.
This willingness to use American military power, the greatest in the world, generates speculation about where the United States might intervene next.
Since his election in November 2024, the Republican has talked a lot about regaining control of the Panama Canal and transforming Canada into the 51st American state, but his foreign policy priorities have changed in recent months.
In addition to Venezuela, see which countries he and members of his administration have recently signaled that they could become targets of US interventions:
Mexico
Trump has already applied tariffs to Mexico due to the entry of fentanyl into the United States across the border between the two countries and designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, to provide a legal basis for possible attacks on these groups within the neighboring country.
On Sunday (4), in a conversation with journalists aboard Air Force One, the official plane of the American presidency, Trump once again said that “something needs to be done with Mexico”.
“Mexico needs to organize itself, because [as drogas] are leaking [para dentro dos EUA]and we’re going to have to do something. We would love for Mexico to do this. They are capable of doing this, but, unfortunately, the cartels are very strong”, said the Republican.
Greenland
Trump has been talking since his first term (2017-2021) about the idea of annexing Greenland, claiming that the island, an autonomous territory of Denmark rich in natural resources, is essential to the security of the United States.
“We need Greenland, it’s very strategic right now. Greenland is full of Russian and Chinese ships,” Trump said on Sunday. “We need Greenland from a national security point of view, and Denmark will not be able to do that [garantir a segurança da ilha].”
On Monday (5), in an interview with CNN, the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, reaffirmed the American intention to annex Greenland.
“The United States is the powerhouse of NATO. For the United States to guarantee the security of the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and its interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States, and that is a conversation that we will have as a country,” said Miller, whose wife, Katie, drew criticism from authorities in the territory and in Denmark when she posted on social media an image of a map of Greenland with the American flag and the message “Coming soon.”
In December, Trump named Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy for Greenland. On social media, Landry said that one of his goals in the new role will be “to make Greenland part of the USA”.
Colombia
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, was the target of economic sanctions by the Trump administration last year and had his American visa revoked. The US president also withdrew aid to Colombia.
Before Maduro’s capture, Trump had called Petro a “drug trafficker” and said that, after the then Venezuelan dictator, the Colombian president would be “the next” target of American actions against drug trafficking in Latin America.
On Sunday, Trump spoke again about Petro, describing him as “a sick man who likes to produce cocaine and sell it to the United States, and he’s not going to keep doing that for long.”
When asked by a reporter if this meant that there could be an operation in Colombia soon, the Republican replied: “To me, it sounds great.”
Iran
Last year, during a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in June, the United States carried out targeted bombings of the ayatollahs’ regime’s uranium enrichment plants.
Since last week, Trump has signaled another intervention in the Persian country, this time in response to the Iranian regime’s crackdown on protesters.
“If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they will be hit hard by the United States,” the American president said on Sunday.
Cuba
Although Trump said over the weekend that he does not plan an intervention in Cuba, because, according to him, the communist regime allied with Venezuela was “about to fall”, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested to NBC that this hypothesis has not been ruled out.
“I’m not going to talk about what our next steps will be and what our policies will be at this point in this regard,” Rubio said. “But I think it’s no secret that we’re not big fans of the Cuban regime, which, by the way, was the one that supported Maduro.”
On Saturday (3), after the press conference in which Trump detailed the operation that captured Maduro, the secretary had been more explicit. “If I lived in Havana and were part of the government, I would be at least a little worried,” he threatened.
