Of the interminable obnoxious comments by the U.S. president, one that particularly galled us Canadians was his threat to make Canada the 51st state. No doubt he had his eye on our natural resources, particularly our generous reserves of fossil fuels of which he is inordinately fond.

Well, maybe we’re getting a breather. He decided to look south rather than north, at least temporarily, for his 51st state, at another country also generously supplied with fossil fuels—Venezuela. 

After a spate of murder on the high seas and acts of piracy, the U.S. attacked the country and kidnapped its president and his wife. This plethora of crimes is consistent with America’s new security policy that calls for the revival of the Monroe Doctrine. Manifest destiny is back in all its martial glory.

The Venezuela adventure began with a campaign of lies, a common practice for preparing the American public for invasions. President Johnson justified his expansion of the Vietnam war with the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident, an attack on a U.S. warship by North Korean vessels that never happened. The American public was conditioned for the First Gulf War by a massive propaganda campaign that included an entirely fabricated story of Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of incubators in a maternity ward and looting the incubators. For the second Gulf War, the Bush administration told a tale, at the UN no less, about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Yet another lie. 

Trump, an habitual liar to begin with, has followed this tradition to justify his criminal attacks on Venezuela. He has claimed that President Maduro is a “narco-terrorist” cartel leader responsible for trafficking fentanyl and cocaine into the U.S. Counter-narcotics experts say that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in global drug trafficking, acting only as a transit country for cocaine that tends to be destined for the European, not the American, market. The fentanyl entering the U.S. arrives from Mexico after production from Chinese precursors.

The timing of the kidnapping was interesting, coming only days after Maduro stated that he was open for talks with Washington on drug trafficking and oil, one of which Trump claims is the issue, the other the one that more likely is. Trump, it appears, preferred a more dramatic approach than negotiation.

In any case, the ex-Venezuelan president is now a guest of the American justice system. Few Venezuelans will miss him. He was a brutal and incompetent dictator who reduced his country to a failed state. Many will dance in the streets, others … well, who knows. The U.S. has helped depose other dictators who were unpopular—Sadam Hussien, Muammar al-Qaddafi and Ngo Dinh Diem for example—and those regime changes still didn’t turn out well. 

Let’s hope this time it works out better for the people involved. The Venezuelans have suffered enough. Prime Minister Carney called for a “peaceful, negotiated, and Venezuelan-led transition process that respects the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.” That would indeed be a fine thing, but it may not fit Trump’s plans. He has said the U.S. will “run the country.” Like a 51st state, perhaps?

In any case, at the risk of sounding callous, I’m inclined to say better Venezuela than Canada. Better Maduro than Carney. However Trump’s easy victory here may well whet his appetite for further conquests, and we are still in his sights. The world’s most powerful military at the service of a narcissist is not a comforting thought.