Atlantic Council Non-resident Senior Fellow Alexander Gray analyzes how the Trump administration aims to defend what it perceives as America's vital "core interests."

Washington

Alexander Gray, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former White House National Security Council chief of staff, discussed the United States' renewed focus on hemispheric defense and core interests in the Americas. He explained that the Trump administration's national security strategy emphasizes countering extra-hemispheric powers like China, Russia, and Iran, particularly when they are seen as destabilizing the region.

Gray addressed the US stance on Venezuela, arguing that both the Biden and Trump administrations did not recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate leader and instead supported Maria Karina Machado. He stated that US actions are intended to restore global deterrence and uphold the international order, sending a message to other state actors that the United States will not tolerate violations of sovereignty or territorial conquest by force.

Atlantic Council's Gray on U.S. 'core interests'

certainly we want to recap what we've been hearing on Air Force One and President Trump has been speaking for the past couple of minutes and you know it seems like he continues to you know be asked questions about where where to next where does the US have its eyes on after of course the fall of Maduro he's now talking about Cuba looks ready to fall Cuba is going down don't need any US action they're also talking about Greenland as well saying that we need Greenland for national security and the EU knows we need to have Greenland as well some remarks about China to Dave saying that he is still planning to go to China in April to meet with President Xi that was something that was announced of course but you know given this situation in Venezuela you gotta wonder how is this going to affect some of the big oil buyers like China of course they too are a big global ally when it comes to Caracas there so certainly there's going to be a lot of implications geopolitically here moving forward and what this means for the US China relationship as well yeah context is key here because it this is a President Trump is speaking with press and I imagine he is taking specific questions on those topics and it's perhaps it's not as if he's just going through a list of things that are likely to fall which I think is good context there but it certainly does beg the conversation in terms of is the US doing a lot more deliberately a lot more conscious efforts to really increase its sphere of influence and its neighborhood let's use it as a starting point Alexander Gray is put aside of Washington he's non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council geo strategy initiative he previously served as a chief of staff of the White House National Security Council from 2019 to 2021 a pleasure to have you on the program and good morning from the Asia-Pacific sir let me start very very simple where to next here well I think you have to look at this as the old u.s. concept of hemispheric defense the president laid this out in his national security strategy a couple weeks ago this is what was traditional u.s. foreign policy for most of our history thinking about the hemisphere very broad I always say it's the Aleutian Islands to Greenland and the North Pole to the South Pole and everything in between and those are the core interests of the United States and I think the president is taking us to that type of mental map where he's going to be looking at what his national security strategy called the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine this means that if you're an extra hemispheric power like China Russia or Iran and you are actively engaged in what is seen as destabilizing behavior in the hemisphere that is going to be a key national security threat and if you're a regime like the former Maduro regime or Cuba or Nicaragua and you are working actively with those extra hemispheric powers you're going to be seen as an American adversary and I think that's the mental framework that people need to understand the president and his team are bringing to this and do we need to talk about whether the Methodists are actually legal or not is that is that a side point here in terms of what the intentions are because as you know there have been some criticisms that have come through from the international community that the US has violated sovereign law here well I think on the case of Nicolas Maduro both Joe Biden and Donald Trump in both his terms did not acknowledge that Nicolas Maduro was the legitimate leader of Venezuela I think Nicolas Maduro he was a narco trafficker he was indicted under Joe Biden's presidency for narco trafficking and he deliberately ignored the will of the Venezuelan people in free and fair elections Maria Karina Machado is the elected leader of the people of Venezuela not Nicolas Maduro so I think the question of international law here is totally unrelated to what the facts on the ground does it have negative consequences though Alexander I wonder because you already see the likes of social media talking about you know this sort of takeover unilateral takeover by force is just creating a template for for China to invade Taiwan for example obviously that's just speculation at this point but is there a negative consequences here that any sort of big power can do something like this why do you actually from the opposite perspective we saw that Russia already behaved this way four years ago in its invasion of Ukraine China has been acting this way for a long time in terms of talking about potentially conquering Taiwan as a policy option I think what this does is actually help restore deterrence globally and we talked about the US-led liberal order and the international order post-world war two well all of those things are predicated on not conquering territory through the use of force what President Trump is saying here is there's an illegitimate leader in Nicolas Maduro the US acted appropriately for our security interests and in and push for the rule of law and I think it sends a powerful deterrent signal to international state regimes like the Chinese the Russians the North Koreans the Iranians that the United States will not tolerate trying to trample that international order

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