Maduro Is Gone – and the Age of American Empire Has Begun

The ball may have dropped in Times Square last week, but that wasn’t the visual that truly marked the dawn of this new year. Instead, it was Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro being frog-marched onto a Gulfstream V by U.S. special forces.

And importantly, that was just a pilot episode for what’s ahead in 2026 and beyond.

For the last 50 years, we lived in “Pax Americana” – considered a time of relative global peace and stability upheld by the United States.

That era died last week in Caracas, replaced by something far more deliberate. We’ve now entered a new regime: Imperium Americanum.

In this new world order, the White House isn’t interested in nation-building or winning hearts and minds. It is interested in assets, supply chains, and threat elimination. 

The Venezuela raid was the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a year of absolute chaos. And if you understand how the political clock is ticking in the background, you know that the president will only pick up the pace. With Mexico and the Arctic in the government’s sights, Uncle Sam is zeroing in on its next targets.

Let’s take a look at the reality of this new regime – and the investment playbook for the most aggressive 11 months in U.S. history.

The 11-Month Window Driving U.S. Aggression

To understand why this shift is happening now – and why it will accelerate – you need to look at the calendar.

We’ve just entered January 2026. In November, only 11 months from now, we’ll have the Midterm Elections.

And the betting markets, polls, and historical trends are all signaling the same thing: The Democrats are favored to flip the House (~75% odds right now) and even have a chance at flipping the Senate (~30% odds and climbing). 

If the gavel passes to the opposing party in January 2027, this “Imperial Presidency” hits a brick wall. Investigations launch, funding freezes, and the latitude to enforce unilateral raids evaporates.

That means the Trump administration has an 11-month window of unchecked power to reshape the geopolitical map. It cannot afford to account for “diplomacy” or wait for “coalitions.” It has to move fast and break things now while it still controls the checkbook and the committee chairs.

That’s why we are likely about to witness a full-bore sprint into imperialism. The administration needs wins to show that it “fixed” the border, “secured” the supply chain, and “crushed” U.S. adversaries before voters go to the polls.

This urgency is the fuel for the fire. It means the “risk premium” in the market will stay elevated; but it also means the government spending spigot for certain military operations will be wide open.

So, where will that spending flow? The target list is already taking shape.

After Maduro: America’s Next Targets

Venezuela was the low-hanging fruit. The oil was there, the “narcoterrorism” warrant was signed, and the refugees induced a political headache. But the Imperial Playbook has other chapters, and the next is already being drafted.

Mexico and the Kinetic Border

In comments to Fox & Friends following the Venezuelan raid, President Trump signaled what comes next:

“We can’t take a chance, after having done this incredible thing last night, of letting somebody else take over… We have to do it again. We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us. There’s nobody that has the capability that we do.”

For years, Republicans have floated the idea of designating Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). That is no longer a talking point; it is the likely next step.

This is the blueprint. Once you slap a “terrorist” label on the Sinaloa or CJNG cartels, the legal framework changes. You don’t need the Mexican president’s permission to strike them – just a drone and a target package.

The White House views the border crisis not as an immigration issue, but as a security issue driven by hostile non-state actors. The logical extension of the Venezuela raid is a campaign of “targeted strikes” against cartel infrastructure in Northern Mexico: a “sanitization” campaign.

Greenland and the Resource Grab

The target list doesn’t stop at Latin America. 

With that in mind, it’s no accident that Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie, made this post about Greenland around the time of Maduro’s arrest.

This is what I call the Resource Realism wing of the new regime – the faction that views geography as inventory and sovereignty as negotiable.

China controls 90% of the rare earth processing market; and Greenland sits on one of the largest undeveloped deposits of rare earths and uranium on the planet. 

In the old world, we would offer a trade deal. But under Imperium Americanum, we make an offer Denmark can’t refuse – like a heavy-handed “security partnership” that effectively cedes sovereignty over the mining districts to U.S. interests.

The White House sees the Arctic as the next South China Sea. Expect a massive push for U.S. corporate control over Greenland’s geology.