Welcome to “The New Monroe Doctrine,” where I give you an update on what’s going on in the Western Hemisphere, south of our border, especially as it relates to the United States.
A Dancing Buffoon
I debated skipping this column this week because it’s the day after Christmas and I’m in some sort of cookie and cheesecake-induced state of brain fog, but when I saw how Nicolás Maduro was celebrating the holiday, I had to come share it with y’all.
To recap, the Donald Trump administration has:
- A $50 million bounty on this man’s head.
- Blown up all of his little drug boats.
- Issued sanctions upon sanctions upon sanctions on him and his family and his business interests.
- Declared his government a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
- Surrounded him with the largest military build-up the Caribbean Sea has ever seen.
- Seized his oil tankers with plans for more to come.
- Verbally threatened him on more than one occasion.
- Imposed secondary tariffs on countries importing Venezuelan oil.
You get the idea. If I was Maduro, I’d probably take things a little more seriously, but instead, this buffoon is dancing his final days away. To celebrate Christmas this week — for the second time this year; don’t forget that he instructed Venezuelans to celebrate it the first time in October, hoping to distract them from the fact that their country is in ruin — he danced. I don’t have much else to say about it that I haven’t already. Let’s just roll the tape, or, um, X embeds:
🇻🇪🎄 Let’s check in on Christmas with Maduro…. pic.twitter.com/0iOJpnIuvp
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) December 25, 2025
🇻🇪 | Maduro celebra la llegada de la navidad en Venezuela.pic.twitter.com/IyZ7KutIqz
— Mundo en Conflicto 🌎 (@MundoEConflicto) December 25, 2025
(VIDEO) El Presidente Maduro y Nahum Fernández en competencia de baile durante la cena navideña que se realiza en el Palacio de Miraflores.
Y se comieron las hallacas con Maduro… una vez más pic.twitter.com/5F54Y3JXXp
— Luigino Bracci Roa (@lubrio) December 25, 2025
At another pre-Christmas event, he danced with a robot:
🇻🇪 | Maduro se arranca a bailar con un robot a ritmo navideño. pic.twitter.com/bjUJmfDwl1
— Alerta Mundial (@AlertaMundoNews) December 23, 2025
When he was younger, Maduro wanted to be a rock star. Music is very much his thing. In the last few months, he’s also compared his level of fame to musical artists like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, and he had his attempts at speaking English to United States audiences, begging for “more peace, no war,” turned into a techno song, which he can often be seen dancing to, as well. He’s also publicly karaoke’d his way through songs like “Imagine” and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Part of me thinks he’s still trying to keep up the charade. It’s all an act of defiance, a show to convince Donald Trump and the Venezuelan people — assuming any still pay attention to him — that’s he’s not scared of the United States at all, even though multiple media outlets have reported that he’s so terrified that he doesn’t sleep in the same place twice, has bulked up his personal security, and constantly changes out his cell phone.
Another part of me thinks he knows his political career and maybe even his freedom are on life support, and he’d rather spend his final days dancing and having fun than lying around in a hospice bed. It’d be somewhat admirable if most of the people in his country weren’t either a) broke b) starving c) rotting away as political prisoners or d) living in exile.
Either way, if I was Trump, I think it would piss me the hell off. I know the administration is making very calculated moves against Maduro and his regime for numerous important reasons, but if I was the president, and I went on social media and saw those Christmas moves, I’d call up Pete Hegseth and tell him to just drop a bomb on the merry bastard and get it over with so I don’t have to see him dance like this anymore anymore. Put him out of his misery.
Christmas Celebrations
What struck me about Christmas celebrations in Latin America this year is how much they reflected their leadership, but not just the crazy in Venezuela.
In El Salvador, for example, you didn’t celebrate Christmas publicly at one point in time because gang violence was so bad that you couldn’t without consequences. This year, the holiday scenes from the country looked like something out of a storybook. Earlier this week, I wrote a little bit about that and how the atmosphere compares to many Christmas markets in Europe where security is a much bigger theme than joy, due to past thwarted and carried out terror attacks: A Tale of Two Christmas Markets.
Here’s a video from El Salvador:
10 years ago, people didn’t dare to celebrate Christmas in El Salvador because of the rampant gang crime.
A few years later, @nayibbukele declared war on the gangs and this is how they celebrate Christmas now.
🇸🇻✝️🎄 pic.twitter.com/p2CkC4ezYe
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 26, 2025
While Nayib Bukele was hosting a beautiful, safe Christmas event in his country, Claudia Sheinbaum was doing what she does best in hers: letting the cartels run the show. In the Mexican state of Guerrero, a local cartel put on a Christmas parade in which it drove through the streets carrying weapons like machine guns and handing out candy to the children. So wholesome.
But this is what the cartels and gangs do when they’re allowed to go unchecked — they take over communities, pretend to spread goodwill, all while not-so-subtly reminding the people who’s in charge now. That’s what El Salvador was like before Bukele. That’s what parts of Mexico will continue to be like under Sheinbaum.
🇲🇽 A Mexican drug cartel held a celebration in the state of Guerrero
Members of the Sierra Cartel (CDLS), also known as “Los Tlacos,” organized a Christmas parade in Guerrero, handing out candy and gifts to local residents.
The event was part of the cartel’s propaganda campaign… pic.twitter.com/lY3ZWJdL3U
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 25, 2025
Honduras Gets It ‘Right’
The last thing I want to point out in case you missed it is that after nearly a month of drama, Honduras finally has a president-elect, and it’s conservative, pro-U.S. Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the guy Trump endorsed. The Honduran military and current leftist president have promised a peaceful transition of power when he is inaugurated next month. If all goes as planned, look for our relationship with the Central American country to grow, much like it is with Bolivia and Chile currently. You can read more about that here: Another ‘Trump-Like’ Candidate Is Elected in Latin America.
Marco Rubio actually called Asfura today to congratulate him. He also commended him “for his advocacy of U.S. strategic objectives, including advancing our bilateral and regional security cooperation, and strengthening economic ties between our two countries.”
But I know only know that because the State Department sent out a press release.
As I say, Rubio isn’t handing me exclusives… yet. But my New Year’s resolution is to make it happen, although then I’ll have to come up with a new tagline. Either way, I can’t wait to see what 2026 brings. It’s gonna be an exciting time for the Western Hemisphere.
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P.S. As we close out the year, I want to say thank you for all the encouragement for this column and, really, all of my Latin American coverage this year. The region matters more to us than many people realize, yet it’s wildly under-reported, though I suspect that will change next year.
The MSM will do it only if it can find a way to stick it to Trump, and the conservative media will finally realize it matters. And I’ll sleep peacefully at night knowing I was on it before it was trendy. I’m kidding! Really, I’m just grateful it’s getting attention, and I plan to stay on it regardless.
Happy New Year!
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