‘America First’ Starts in our Own Hemisphere

Originally published by The Hill

There’s a reason American airmen, sailors, and Marines are putting themselves into harm’s way in the southern Caribbean. It’s not because Washington suddenly returned to neoconservative adventurism. It is because a narco-state ruled by a corrupt leftist dictator has become the latest frontline in defending the American people.

That might surprise some who still believe President Trump’s “America First” ideal means “America only.” But what’s happening off the coast of Venezuela tells a different story. The fight against Nicolás Maduro’s criminal regime isn’t about foreign crusades, but about keeping poison off our streets and chaos off our shores.

For a generation, U.S. national security policy wandered the earth, guarding oil fields in Syria while leaving American towns in Texas undefended. We policed deserts halfway around the world but let narco-fleets cruise the Caribbean, ferrying the chemicals that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. Something had gone badly wrong.

Trump came back to fix it.

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