Scotland, Caracas and the Trump Corollary

It has the same feeling as reporting the loss of the Titanic with the apocryphal headline attributed to the Aberdeen Press and Journal: “North-east man lost at sea”, to report on events in Caracas in relation to Scotland, but here we go.

Trump’s emboldened gangster regime is fundamentally changing the entire orientation of Western politics. Britain appears completely incapable of distancing itself from the US administration, never mind condemning the flagrant breaking of international law, or even condemning plans to invade Greenland.

The American far-right, which have been festering since at least 1963, are operating here, gunning not just for Venezuela, but for Cuba and Colombia too.

The Trump Corollary

Added to this the Greenland fiasco, whether it was the idea of Russia via Senator Tom Cotton, as some have claimed, and you have the ‘Trump Corollary’ the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) announced at the beginning of December 2025.

According to Chatham House:

“The strategy states that the Western Hemisphere must be controlled by the US politically, economically, commercially, and militarily. It is the ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine – an 1823 policy which established that European powers should not intervene in Latin America. This paved the way for US preeminence in the region until well into the 20th century. However, Washington neglected it in the last three decades.”

“According to the Trump Corollary, the US has the right to resuscitate the Monroe Doctrine. To that end, it will readjust its military presence in the region, increase naval forces to control migrant routes and illicit trafficking, and carry out deployments at borders. In addition, it will use ‘the military system superior to any other country in the world’ to gain access to energy and mineral resources in the region.”

“Linked to drug crime and border control is migration. Migration flows, the NSS warns, will lead to ‘civilisational erasure’ in Europe. That reflects the views of ideologues of Make America Great Again (MAGA), such as the deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance who posted on X on 7 December that mass migration ‘is theft of the American Dream’. In this respect Kori Schake describes the NSS as part of ‘a cultural war’.”

We covered some of the origins of this here, where we explored the fact that Elon Musk’s Nazi grandfather was a Canadian leader of the pro-Hitler movement “Technocracy Inc” which wanted to take control of society and give it to “technocrats”.

One of their goals was a North American “Technate” stretching from Greenland to Colombia. This is the map they envisaged and this is the template they are working towards:

It’s into this wild mix that the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife are thrown. We now have a gangster state, operating around a new set of ‘principles’ which don’t make any sense, even on their own terms. It cascades down from a set of misplaced assumptions and ideologies down and down to a series of bizarre policies and ideas.

Having become motivated by a series of imaginary threats: foreigners, drugs, migrants and a threat to White Christian America, the regime ignores a number of very real threats: the climate crisis, internal division and social disorder, and the US chronic health crisis, among them. Further, as a Chatham House briefing has noted:

“This disordered, contradictory and vague plan has several problems – not least of which, as Juan Gabriel Tokatlian points out, is that ‘hegemony is not the same as domination’.

Whether the Trump regime has the staying power to last long enough to put together this bizarre imperial escapade remains to be seen, but it has already done enough. In the last year alone the US has bombed or invaded seven countries, none of which were authorised by the UN security council and none of which were undertaken in lawful self-defence under the UN charter including: Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Venezuela.

And, as Jeffrey Sachs pointed out in a speech to the UN (5/1/2026) Donald Trump has also issued direct threats to six UN member states including: Columbia, Denmark, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria and of course, Venezuela.

Image as tweeted by Stephen Miller’s wife. Katie Miller with the caption ‘Soon’:

Scotland, Geopolitics and Holyrood 2026

It’s into this bizarre, nightmarish world that Scotland steps in January 2026.

Today the three ‘main’ parties (if they can still be called that) laid out their stalls for the coming elections. In Edinburgh, the Scottish Conservatives, facing electoral extinction, have chosen to make the ‘cost of living’ their main theme for the election. Their leader, Russell Findlay said: ““Voters face a simple choice in a few months’ time. Either five more years of the SNP and other left-wing parties hitting them with more tax rises, or our positive plan to bring down bills by focusing on growing the economy.”

Also in the capital, Labour’s Anas Sarwar, presenting behind a giant saltire, attempted to resurrect his old theme, that he was uniquely poised to protect Scotland from – wait for it – his own party leader. In an event at Murrayfield Sarwar said:

“I know that across Scotland people are angry, frustrated and impatient with the pace of change at Westminster,” he said.

“The UK Labour Government has many meaningful achievements which they need to shout louder about, but it is also fair to say that they haven’t got everything right. And there are still many challenges they still must confront. I get it. I don’t just feel it, I don’t just see it, I hear it across Scotland.”

“I know the Prime Minister and the UK Labour Government are not popular with the public right now. So, I am not running to be Scotland’s first minister in denial of that truth. I am running to be Scotland’s first minister in defiance of it.”

His advisors have told him that he can’t avoid the unpopularity of the Labour government, so he has chosen to face it head-on. It will be meant to seem strong but it’s a fundamentally ridiculous position to take. All of the polling shows that Scottish Labour face a wipeout in a few months time. Scottish Labour will be taken down by the UK government’s record in government, and with it will go a major asset of the Union. This is being mostly ignored.

The First Minister launched the SNP campaign by pivoting towards a focus on independence. The SNP core strategy is to win a majority at Holyrood, and in doing so force a referendum. The SNP leader told activists today that May’s election is the “chance to empower ourselves to fundamentally address the biggest long-term issues” facing Scotland. It’s a strategy based on the fact that independence is more popular than the SNP, but it’s a high-risk one. A majority is very difficult to achieve at Holyrood, and he risks being a hostage to fortune. The calculus Swinney and his team have made is that the Unionist vote will be split three ways and this may be a unique moment in time to win. It’s risky.

John Swinney today said that the Scottish media should be “livid” at the UK Government‘s refusal to spell out the democratic route to a second independence referendum, the First Minister has said. Has he seen the Scottish media?

None of the parties have caught up to speed with the wider, madder geopolitical issues, caught in their own parochial worlds, how could they? However, as Keir Starmer tells us, it’s a ‘fast moving situation’ and the political parties may have to have something to say very soon.

Because Trump’s new foreign policy, his new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine have huge implications. If we are left with a situation where an unhinged Trump regime goes ahead with the annexation or invasion of Greenland, we will be faced with a US v Europe NATO alliance, that may well be the end of it. But this leaves Scotland with both a quandary and an opportunity.

Starmer’s reaction to Trump’s kidnap of Maduro and his wife is craven. His entire attitude to Trump has left him looking powerless and helpless.

There are approximately 10-12,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in the UK, primarily at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, supporting air operations for Europe and serving as a crucial hub for the U.S. Air Force, with figures varying slightly by source and date but consistently placing the UK among the top locations for U.S. forces in Europe. Scotland is, of course, home to the US Trident nuclear missile system. 

But what exactly is the strategic benefit to Scotland or the UK of any of this? In an era when the US super-power could be seen to be an ally, and the idea of the ‘special relationship’ could be said to have some meaning, it could be argued that this made some sense. But the US is no longer an ally in any real sense, and the UK has no discernible influence on the POTUS at all. So Britain, for all of the Brexiteers talk of ‘taking back control’ is effectively a vassal state, a military base for America. What even is the point of the UK’s – much valued – position as one of the ‘permanent members’ of the UN?

In this new context, and in the context of Liquid Modernity, what does it mean for a nation wanting to break with dilapidated Late Britain and assert self-determination? How does a small new nation steer a path through such chaos? The first thing to assert – and needs to be fully realise by the independence movement – is that none of the certainties presented in 2014 (or since) make any sense anymore. Britain is not, a base of pluralism or multiculturalism, it is an isolated state outwith Europe and tied to a mad Washington regime. It is a state that has Prime Minister Farage in waiting.

Being part of Britain is a disaster for Scotland.

Independence for Scotland means a break not just with Britain but with Atlanticism, Big Oil and WMD. It’s all the better and stronger for this clarification.

The potential collapse of NATO and the ‘Special Relationship’ are not the only deep uncertainties at play here. The much-ignored issue of AMOC [Is the Amoc Shutting Down? and What does It Mean for Scotland? – Bella Caledonia] and the opening up of by 2030 of the Arctic ice routes due to climate breakdown and massive Russian and Chinese are also game-changers.

The Coming Chaos

The hubris and overconfidence of the Trump junta does not reflect the reality of the forces they have unleashed.

For a start, the delineation of ‘spheres of influence’ is not by any means as clear-cut as they assume. Only a few months ago, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Venezuela adopted a new strategic treaty. Russia was pushing for Venezuela to join BRICS and OPEC+. As this reporter, Caolan, describes the bombing of Caracas is a major dent in the Trump-Putin love-in and a major blow for Russia:

russia spent billions on Venezuela and they lost it in 2 minutes. This is an extremely embarrassing start for Moscow in 2026. pic.twitter.com/4yU0cAbjtE

— Caolan (@CaolanReports) January 4, 2026

Having said that, another consequence of the partial (?) toppling of the Maduro regime is the knock-on effect on Cuba as laid out here by Democracy Now:

The reality for the Trump administration, blinded by machismo and Hegseth-imbecilism, is that they have the potential to unleash insurgent movements across Latin America. They have learned nothing since the Bay of Pigs.

The situation is not – despite the stochastic efforts of the Trump enclave – as simple as presented by Richard Seymour [Donroe Doctrine: an imaginary relation to real decline]:

“That leaves us with Rubio’s grand idea of hemispheric, anticommunist rollback. But the only thing that has going for it is Cold War domino theory, which didn’t even apply well to actual communist movements and states. The idea that the demonstration effect of a public beheading of one state will trigger a backlash against the left is preposterous. And if Latin America was ever the ‘back yard’ that Lindsey Graham evokes, it hasn’t been that for some time. The age when a few filibusters could hope to conquer or destabilise Latin American states for their own gain — the age of the actual Monroe Doctrine — is obviously long over. As is the era of installing national security dictatorships through quick, dirty interventions and leaving them to rule. As is, for now, the era of death-squad counterrevolutions. You can’t really hope to dominate a continent of industrially advanced, socially differentiated and politically complex states by such spectacular smackdowns. You have to deal with regional states as actors in their own right, not as clients or servants.

Now, some of this is revisable as the situation develops. We may yet see more of what Rubio and the war party wants, which is the momentum building toward a much larger, direct invasion. The threshold has been crossed now, and the administration didn’t worry too much about building public support (scant) or a legal case (ditto). A quick, easy win lubricates the path for riskier action. If it were up to Rubio, I suspect, this wouldn’t take the form of occupying Venezuela — that would be an Iraq-style debacle — but an equivalent operation in Cuba. And though I suspect that they would encounter way more resistance in Cuba necessitating much more military commitment, one can’t absolutely gainsay the possibility of a swift and successful raid. Nor do I want to give the impression of being somehow triumphalist or complacent about American downfall: a dying empire is a dangerous beast and will extract a big price in blood for its decline. The more desperate it becomes, the more reckless it grows, even without such a notoriously dozy, incompetent and self-aggrandising leadership.

However, for the moment, as far as I can see, this really is US power consuming itself in the act of being exercised. And I think it’s important not to accede to the spectacle of sovereign power, because its effects depend to a large extent on people buying into the spectacle.”

Scotland the What?

So, where does this leave poor beleaguered, hopeless Scotland?

It leaves us with a choice, and a starker choice than before, with Britain increasingly isolated from the immolation of England’s act of self-harm through Brexit, and the subsequent jeopardy of allying ourselves with Trump’s degenerate America.

Want US nukes on the Clyde?

Vote for the Union.

Want to be isolated from the rest of Europe in wildly uncertain times?

Vote for the Union.

Want to be tied to chaotic oil wars when we have an abundance of renewable energy?

Vote for the Union.

To make the case, not just for a break from the UK:OK travesty, but also from unhinged US imperialism may take bolder politicians than we currently have, but, as it will be oft quoted on the 25th “it’s coming yet”.

Lest this be perceived as an example of complacency, let me be clear it isn’t. It’s an opportunity. I find myself agreeing with Robin McAlpine of Commonweal, who wrote recently:

McAlpine is quite right. There needs to be a way to bypass the algorithm, and this was (and is) the hidden message from the Mamdani victory.

He concludes: “If the independence movement talks centrist, we can’t win working-class Scotland, and if we can’t win working-class Scotland, we can’t win independence. Energy speculators, not communities, landlords, not renters, upper-middle-class Council Tax perks, not reform, selling Scottish assets to foreign speculators on the cheap – these are the wrong stories to tell.”

He is spot-on.

I have my doubts (understatement) whether any of the current political class can deliver this, But we can. As I’ve said over and over, the breakthrough is to present and project Scotland as the future and break with the idea of going over past (imagined) glories, reclaiming anything, or making anything Great Again. Scottish democracy, like all of ours, lays on reclaming our lost future, and this means defeating the forces at play, whether they be in London, Washington or Edinburgh.

This article is from my Substack Fifty Six Degrees North.

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