Tasha Kheiriddin: Venezuela proves Trump wants China out. Carney better take notice

Happy New Year. Or not, depending on where you find yourself these days. If you’re deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, that’s in a cell in Brooklyn, N.Y. If you’re U.S. President Donald Trump, that’s on the catbird seat in Washington, D.C. And if you’re Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, that’s on a tightrope in Ottawa, trying to strike the right note with an ally that looks more like an aggressor every day.

Saturday, Caracas; next week, Nuuk? Nobody knows. But what’s clear is that Trump is moving rapidly to secure hemispheric dominance in the Americas. And this has serious implications for Canada.

Our response, however, needs to consider more than what’s on the surface. So far, Trump has listed four goals of U.S. action in Venezuela: securing access to oil, halting drug trafficking, curbing illegal migration and establishing a democratic government in Caracas. The first three impact Canada: Venezuela exports a similar type of heavy crude that our oilsands produce, and Trump has used drug trafficking and illegal migration to justify tariffs on our country.

So how should we respond? Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre jumped on the first issue, demanding that the federal government expedite pipeline approval to the West Coast. With the U.S. potentially awash in Venezuelan crude, he argues that Canada should diversify its export market.

As to the other matters, the federal government has already acted to secure the border and stem criminal activity. This week it released a year-end summary of those initiatives, including intercepting over 1,000 pounds of fentanyl and reducing illegal crossings from Canada to the U.S. by 98 per cent over last year.

Fair enough. But neither set of actions addresses the underlying reason that Trump went into Venezuela: curbing foreign interference in America’s affairs.

The Monroe Doctrine is about hemispheric dominance. That means keeping other powers out of America’s backyard, namely the dark triad of Russia, China and Iran. They have long cultivated ties with Caracas: China buys 80 per cent of Venezuela’s oil exports; the Venezuelan drug trade finances Iran proxy group Hezbollah; and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership with Maduro in May 2025, the fourth such deal in two years.

Taking out Maduro puts this co-operation to an end. This is particularly important regarding China, which has become the largest trading partner in South America. It also comes at a critical time for Iran, where anti-government protests are multiplying, and Russia, which is in talks to end its war in Ukraine.

Understanding that this is Trump’s big-picture agenda, what should Canada do? Answer: what we should have done 40 years ago. Stem the foreign interference by these same countries that has infected our political, economic and social spheres.

For decades Beijing has engaged in elite capture, messed with our elections, and intimidated the Chinese-Canadian diaspora. Iranian government officials entered Canada with impunity to foment anti-Israel hate and threaten immigrants who had fled the regime. And Russian operatives undermined support for the war in Ukraine — right here on Canadian soil.

Is Ottawa paying attention? Perhaps. On Jan. 3 it published new regulations, including a $1-million fine, for its Foreign Influence Registry — a registry that is years overdue.

Carney doesn’t have to worry about being kidnapped in the middle of the night. But he does need to worry about Trump’s economic leverage. Up for review this year is CUSMA, the trade agreement that ensures 85 per cent of Canada’s exports to the U.S. are tariff-free. Tariffs on those goods would bring our economy to its knees.

Rooting out foreign influence is both a means of insulating ourselves from American economic aggression, and what we should have done anyway, but chose not to, because we assumed Washington would always be our friend no matter who else we cozied up to. Now we know better — and must act accordingly.

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.