Trump’s Pirate Pretensions Reveal an Ugly Truth |
Trump’s Pirate Pretensions Reveal an Ugly Truth
The president likes to joke about how his high-seas hustles have Blackbeard swagger, but they bear all the hallmarks of a wheezing empire.
Back on May 1, at an event in West Palm Beach, President Donald Trump quipped that the U.S. Navy was acting “like pirates” while seizing ships as part of the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. “We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump bragged. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates, but we are not playing games.”
As someone with a 2-year-old son who likes to play pirates—and who spends a lot of time writing about the shifting maritime order under the Donroe Doctrine—I decided to take the president at his word. Let’s review what has happened over the past nine months in foreign policy through the lens of piracy.
On September 1, 2025, the Pentagon launched “Operation Southern Spear,” a campaign of airstrikes and interdictions in the Caribbean Sea—ostensibly targeting drug cartels and smugglers from Venezuela. It has since expanded to Ecuador’s Pacific Coast, where local fishermen have been killed, kidnapped, and tortured. The death toll is over 170 people so far.
Then, on January 3, 2026, U.S. Special Forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in an operation that killed over 100 people,........