\n President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to remove the head<\/a> of a sovereign country over the weekend was a hugely significant operation. But it was perhaps even more significant as a statement of intent.\n <\/p>\n \n Ever since the capture<\/a> of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday, Trump and his administration have leaned in on his expansionist foreign policy agenda<\/a> like never before.\n <\/p>\n \n When Trump began previewing this shortly after his 2024 win<\/a> \u2014 by teasing taking Greenland and making Canada the 51st state \u2014 it was often dismissed as unserious trolling or pie-in-the-sky hopes.\n <\/p>\n \n Today, it can no longer be shrugged off. Trump celebrated Maduro\u2019s ouster by laying claim to Venezuela\u2019s oil and threatening a series of other countries<\/a>. His political and government social media accounts are depicting him as the conqueror of the Americas<\/a>, with a State Department post Monday declaring, \u201cTHIS IS OUR HEMISPHERE<\/a>.\u201d By late Monday, top White House adviser Stephen Miller doubled down on the administration\u2019s goal to take control of Greenland<\/a>, suggesting the United States has more of a legitimate claim to it than its ruler, Denmark.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNobody\u2019s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,\u201d Miller added. Days earlier, Trump said we \u201cneed Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not gonna be able to do it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s all rather stunning stuff.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s also decidedly at odds with the will of the American people. Everyday Americans \u2014 including large numbers of Republicans \u2014 seem to have almost no appetite for any of this.\n <\/p>\n \n Among the many unpopular things Trump has done in his second term, casting his eyes on dominating the Western Hemisphere might rank among the most politically dubious.\n <\/p>\n \n A Reuters-Ipsos poll<\/a> released Monday afternoon bore this out.\n <\/p>\n \n It echoed an earlier Washington Post poll<\/a> in suggesting Americans were about evenly split on the Venezuela operation. While 33% approved, 34% disapproved.\n <\/p>\n \n Not great, but not bad either. Those numbers are certainly a lot better than polls last month that tested a hypothetical strike on Venezuela. They suggest just removing Maduro \u2014 the extent of the mission so far \u2014 could be OK with Americans.\n <\/p>\n \n But the rest of the Reuters poll gets at just how little appetite Americans appear to have for an extended operation in Venezuela:\n <\/p>\n \n And perhaps most strikingly, the poll asked whether the \u201cUnited States should have a policy of dominating affairs in the Western Hemisphere\u201d \u2014 precisely the intention Trump has previewed.\n <\/p>\n \n Only 26% of Americans supported that. And only 43% of Republicans did.\n <\/p>\n \n But this new data shouldn\u2019t be surprising. After all, Trump\u2019s expansionist ideas also polled very poorly when he lodged them a year ago.\n <\/p>\n \n On Greenland, a series of polls showed Americans opposed the US attempting to take the territory by large margins \u2014 55%-28%<\/a>, 54%-23%<\/a>, and 73%-27%<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Even when it came to merely pressuring Denmark to cede control \u2014 as opposed to something like a military invasion \u2014 Americans opposed that by 49 points<\/a> in a March poll.\n <\/p>\n \n Making Canada the 51st state was even more unpopular<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n And Trump\u2019s briefly floated idea of taking control of Gaza was a veritable albatross<\/a>. As many as 74% of Americans opposed that.\n <\/p>\n \n About the only expansionist Trump idea that approached viability in Americans\u2019 minds was reclaiming the Panama Canal<\/a>. But even that generally polled well underwater.\n <\/p>\n \n Even in the cases in which Republicans leaned in favor of Trump\u2019s ideas, they didn\u2019t do so passionately. Just 8% of Republicans \u201cstrongly\u201d favored<\/a> getting Denmark to turn over Greenland in a January 2025 Reuters poll. Just 29% strongly favored reclaiming the Panama Canal.\n <\/p>\n \n Indeed, Reuters also asked a broad question back then.\n <\/p>\n \n With Trump playing up the concept of \u201cmanifest destiny<\/a>,\u201d the poll asked people whether the United States had the \u201cright to expand its territory in the Western Hemisphere.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Americans opposed that by 30 points (51%-21%). Even Republicans leaned only modestly in favor (39%-32%). And just 7% of Americans overall strongly agreed with that sentiment.\n <\/p>\n \n One thing you\u2019ll notice about many of the numbers above is that they don\u2019t add up to close to 100%. That\u2019s because lots of Americans don\u2019t offer opinions.\n <\/p>\n \n And that suggests Trump could convince people this is the way. Perhaps he could move some Republicans who don\u2019t strongly favor owning the Western Hemisphere or controlling Venezuela\u2019s oil fields more solidly into his camp. Maybe some independents might suddenly warm to the strategic benefits of owning Greenland.\n <\/p>\n \n But all signs show that could be a very difficult trick.\n <\/p>\n \n There is plentiful evidence that a big reason why Americans don\u2019t favor these things is that they want Trump to focus on something else entirely: domestic matters and, more specifically, inflation.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s one thing to ask Americans to support this level of expansionism in the best of times. It\u2019s another to ask them to support it when economic pessimism pervades<\/a> and they don\u2019t see Trump engaged on this issue.\n <\/p>\n \n The number I keep coming back to comes from CBS News and YouGov<\/a>. The October poll showed 75% of Americans and even 57% of Republicans said the Trump administration wasn\u2019t focused enough on lowering the costs of goods and services. That number has steadily crept up over the past year.\n <\/p>\n \n Similarly, other polls suggest foreign policy just isn\u2019t close to being a priority for Americans. Even Trump\u2019s Gaza ceasefire deal was largely shrugged off<\/a>. Polls show large and historically high numbers of Americans don\u2019t feel the need to get involved<\/a> overseas unless it\u2019s strictly necessary and involves an imminent threat.\n <\/p>\n \n It appears to be among the worst times for a US president to launch into an effort like this. Not even the oil companies<\/a> appear particularly keen on Trump\u2019s plans in Venezuela.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump, of course, generally doesn\u2019t let unpopularity get in the way<\/a> of what he wants \u2014 especially in his second term.\n <\/p>\n \n But using the US military to accomplish those goals and risking foreign clashes is certainly taking things to another level.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to remove the head of a sovereign country over the weekend was a hugely significant operation. But it was perhaps even more significant as a statement of intent. Ever since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday, Trump and his administration have leaned in on his expansionist foreign policy … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Trumps-plan-to-own-the-Western-Hemisphere-and-Greenland-is.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16080,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078\/revisions\/16080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n Nearly three-quarters (72%) expressed concern about becoming too involved in the country, and that included a majority of Republicans (54%).
\n <\/span>\n <\/li>\n
\n Americans opposed governing Venezuela even just temporarily by double-digits (44%-34%).
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\n They also opposed Trump\u2019s apparent plan to control Venezuela\u2019s oil by 17 points (46%-29%).
\n <\/span>\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n This echoes early polling on Greenland and Canada
\n<\/h2>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/c-ap25085488404824.jpg\")
\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"