Stealing is not a path to prosperity,” my favorite anti-Trump commentator, Matthew Yglesias, wrote in response to talk of an attack on Venezuela. On that point, he is right.
In fact, theft can be a path to prosperity under certain conditions. If your industries lack a critical raw material and you seize control of that resource, production can accelerate. The same logic applies to energy.
Theft can also generate prosperity if it temporarily knocks a competitor out of the game. Even if the rival eventually recovers, you may have gained a decisive head start.
And theft can, in theory, fund productive investments—say, an education reform that would otherwise be unaffordable.
But robbing Venezuela accomplishes none of this. At best, a handful of speculators may profit. That is the full extent of the gain. Even if the proceeds were redistributed to citizens at home, it would not strengthen the domestic economy. Much of the money would simply flow abroad in the form of imported goods, rather than being converted into domestic production capacity. However one frames it, this path does not generate real prosperity.
This raises a related puzzle. None of the major intellectual currents behind the Trump movement, none of its organized factions, and none of the large voter blocs—aside from Cuban émigrés—have demanded the occupation of Venezuela or Cuba. Many supporters are loyal enough to back Trump in almost anything. Still, this is not what they believed they were signing up for when they supported and elected him.
So why this direction? And let me add in advance: a hypothetical tumor on Trump’s brain is not an acceptable explanation.