Where Will Trump Strike Next? Six Nations on Washington's List

The signs had been there for months that something was coming in Caracas, but it was still a shock when it actually happened. The bombing of Venezuelan military facilities, followed by the spiriting away of Nicolás Maduro, may be one of the most dramatic starts to a new year in recent memory. The immediate question right now concerns the former dictator’s fate. But a bigger one is lurking in the background: what if this really was just the start?

What if 2026 will be filled with more such moments, where the US military displays its awesome might? The capture of Maduro was not the only time President Trump has authorized a sharp demonstration of force. Back in June, the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. On Christmas Day, it carried out airstrikes on Nigeria.

And then there is the conversation Trump had with reporters aboard Air Force One the day after the Venezuela operation, in which he listed multiple nations and territories where the United States might strike next.

Key Takeaways

After capturing Maduro, Trump publicly named Colombia, Greenland, Mexico, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela as places where the United States might apply pressure or force next.
Colombia and Greenland face loud rhetoric but structural obstacles to military action: Colombia is a Major Non-NATO Ally with a democratically elected president whose term ends in August, while annexing Greenland would fracture NATO and draw blowback even from GOP lawmakers.
Mexico is genuinely exposed because the US could conduct limited cartel strikes in the borderlands far from Mexico City, where President Sheinbaum would have no practical means to stop rapid operations.
Iran sits in the most acute danger, embroiled in its worst protests since Mahsa Amini’s death, with US strategic airlifters and special-operations assets reportedly moving in its direction.
Venezuela could face a second round: interim leader Delcy Rodríguez holds power under explicit threat, with Trump warning she could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” if she fails to open Venezuela’s oil industry to American exploitation.

That makes now a useful moment to weigh the likelihood of American action against those nations: which countries should shrug the threats off with nervous laughter, and which should be legitimately afraid. The list spans longtime adversaries and treaty allies, autonomous territories and continental neighbors. Not all of them face the same risk, and the differences between them say a great deal about how Washington now thinks about the use of force.

The thesis is straightforward: the danger any given nation faces depends less on Trump’s rhetoric than on the cost-benefit math of acting against it, and that math varies wildly from one target to the next.

Threats to Allies: The Case of Colombia

If there is one Latin American leader who should feel nervous about the near future, it is President Gustavo Petro of Colombia. On January 4th, Trump not only accused Petro of being a drug lord—claiming “he has cocaine mills and cocaine factories”—he also suggested he was open to overthrowing the Colombian president. When asked aboard Air Force One whether he was planning to target Bogotá with military action, Trump replied, “It sounds good to me.”

From one angle, that comment is not all that surprising. Trump and Petro have been goading one another for months, with Petro calling on US soldiers to “disobey orders,” and Washington responding by revoking his visa. As recently as mid-December, Trump told reporters that Colombia “is producing a lot of drugs. They have cocaine factories.

They make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States. So Petro better wise up, or he’ll be next. He’ll be next. I hope he’s listening.

He’s going to be next.”

Given what is known of Trump’s nature, it is hardly a shock that he might want to target a leader who started a rhetorical fight with him. But from another angle, this may be the wildest threat of all.

Why Colombia Is the Unlikeliest Target

Most of the nations Trump threatened were longtime US foes like Iran and Cuba, or countries—like Mexico—that the president has fixated on for years. Colombia is different: it has been a US ally for decades. When much of Latin America shifted toward left-wing anti-Americanism in the early 21st century, Bogotá remained a staunch supporter of Washington, even backing the Iraq War. Since 2022, it has been classed as a Major Non-NATO Ally, a designation it shares with Australia, Israel, Brazil, and Egypt—nations that are key to Washington’s global strategy.

That does not mean Colombia has been as close to Washington as Jerusalem or Canberra. Under Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, Bogotá has positioned itself as an independent player: joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, trying to warm ties with Venezuela (with limited success), and severing relations with Israel in ways that cut against broader US foreign policy. Yet America remains Colombia’s top trading partner. And while Petro did suspend intelligence sharing with the US over last year’s strikes on alleged drug boats, there is no indication his goal was to make life easier for drug cartels.

Crucially, Petro is not an autocrat clinging to power. Unlike Maduro, he was democratically elected in a fair vote, and his single term—mandated by the Colombian constitution—is set to expire in August. Even if he wanted to remain, he lacks the support in the senate, among the public, or in the military to pull off a coup. US military action against Bogotá therefore seems unlikely: it would mean attacking a long-term ally and provoking global uproar, all to remove a democratically elected leader whose term ends in a few months anyway.

The cost-benefit ratio is simply out of whack.

That said, it cannot be ruled out. Washington’s recent National Security Strategy emphasized that the US sees its future as the dominant force in the Americas, and a true return to gunboat diplomacy would mean almost anything goes. But a move against Petro would lack even the vague cloak of legality that surrounded Maduro’s capture. The Venezuelan strongman was a dictator who had stolen elections and ruled through force—hence the muted reaction from many nations to his ouster.

Were the US to do the same to Petro, even America’s closest allies would feel compelled to speak out.

Watch on WarFronts

Watch the full video analysis on the WarFronts YouTube channel, presented by Simon Whistler.

Greenland: Coercion Over Conquest

The Greenland question follows a similar logic. To be clear, Trump appears quite serious about acquiring the island, telling reporters: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.” Katie Miller, the wife of influential adviser Stephen Miller, even posted an image of Greenland emblazoned with the American flag, under the word “SOON.”

Beyond the rhetoric, WarFronts has reported over the past year on US spying and influence operations in the territory—an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is far from fanciful to assume the current administration really would like to annex the island.

But the practical reality is that sending the military to overthrow the government in Nuuk would encounter far more pushback than strikes on Venezuela. Such an operation would not only be flagrantly illegal, it would also drive a permanent wedge between the US and its NATO allies. And the blowback at home would likely be stronger.

After some Republican lawmakers, such as Utah Senator Mike Lee, initially questioned the legality of the strikes on Venezuela, they subsequently rowed back their criticism—helped, no doubt, by the fact that Maduro had clearly stolen the last Venezuelan election. But outright annexing an autonomous territory belonging to one of America’s closest allies feels like a step too far even for some GOP lawmakers.

How Pressure on Greenland Is Likely to Look

That does not mean Greenland will escape pressure. Instead, expect a growing campaign of coercion: perhaps trying to force Denmark’s hand under the threat of economic sanction, or even threatening Europe that the US will pull the plug on Ukraine support if the bloc rejects American claims on Greenland. As analyst Shashank Joshi wrote, Trump believes he has significant leverage over Europeans and could view economic coercion as a means of forcing a purchase of Greenland on his terms.

There are also smaller steps available. Joshi has highlighted the possibility that the administration could declare American bases on the island to be “sovereign US territory”—an act that would test Europe’s resolve without resorting to military action. In other words, while the sight of US special forces bombing Nuuk and forcing Greenland to become a colony at gunpoint currently seems farfetched, that does not mean nothing will happen in the coming months. The Trump administration is simply likely to favor coercion against US allies over shows of military force.

Mexico: The Borderlands Problem

The third longstanding ally Trump directly threatened with intervention is Mexico—and here the calculus shifts. At first glance, Mexico may appear to have less to fear than either Colombia or Greenland. Trump has never outright threatened to annex Mexico, as he has with Greenland or America’s northern neighbor, Canada, and he has never set his sights on Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, the way he has with Gustavo Petro. But although Trump’s treatment of Mexico suggests he thinks differently about intervention there, that does not mean he is all that opposed to the idea.

When Trump has threatened US military action in Mexico, it has focused on the country’s powerful cartels, which still exert practical control over a high proportion of Mexican territory despite the efforts of several successive administrations to curtail their power. As in Venezuela, Trump has kept most of the negative energy he sends Mexico’s way focused on its relevance in the narcotics production and trafficking networks that funnel drugs into the United States. Unlike in Venezuela, he has not accused Mexico’s leaders of operating in direct alliance with the cartels.

But Trump’s recent statements suggest that even if he does not believe Mexico’s administration is directly complicit, he does believe it has been compromised in its ability to fight the cartels. Trump has frequently offered to carry out targeted strikes and special-operations raids against cartels on Mexican territory, hitting the means of production, transshipment routes, and potentially even cartel kingpins. According to Trump, Sheinbaum has refused—and by his telling, it is not out of any concern for Mexican sovereignty. “She’s very frightened of the cartels,” he claimed.

Sheinbaum’s Sovereignty Argument and Its Limits

On Sunday, less than forty-eight hours after his forces captured Maduro, Trump explained on television that he had been growing restless when it comes to America’s southern neighbor. “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” he said. As Trump described it, Mexico is capable of taking the necessary action against the cartels but has failed to do so—and after more than a year of waiting, it may be time for the United States to act.

Sheinbaum has worked mostly to defuse the situation, characterizing the recent comments as “just President Trump’s manner of speaking” and avoiding an outright rebuttal. Instead, she echoed other Latin American leaders after the Venezuela strikes: “We categorically reject intervention in the internal matters of other countries. The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: intervention has never brought democracy, never generated well-being, nor lasting stability.”

Returning to the question of national sovereignty, she added: “It is necessary to reaffirm that in Mexico, the people rule, and that we are a free and sovereign country—cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no.” She emphasized her country’s commitment to stemming the flow of drugs into the US, particularly fentanyl, and pointed to the “root causes” that allow the problem to fester—specifically, transnational criminal groups the US has not stamped out on its own soil.

But although Sheinbaum is unlikely to be whisked away from Mexico City in the dead of night, her situation is all the more perilous because the US would likely prioritize more limited military action far from the capital. The borderlands nearest to the United States are prime cartel territory, and for Sheinbaum that creates two problems at once. First, if the US decided to launch missiles or send ground operatives into those areas, she would have no practical means to stop it, especially if the operations were as rapid as what Washington just achieved in Venezuela.

Second, if those strikes take place before she can intervene, then Mexico’s response will be partially dependent on the court of public opinion. Sheinbaum’s sovereignty argument is strong when applied to the idea that the US should not be overthrowing Mexico’s government. But it will be perceived as weaker, no matter what international law says, if it is applied in defense of cartels barely past the United States’ border.

Threats to Targets: Iran in the Crosshairs

Turning from Washington’s friends to its enemies, the first and most urgent name is Iran. The situation there is dire enough that it warrants its own extended treatment, but even a brief overview explains why the country is so exposed. Right now, the nation is embroiled in its most intense series of protests since the death of Mahsa Amini, with chaos in most of Iran’s major cities and many of its outlying districts. As of this writing, at least seventeen people have been killed—prompting what Trump had already vowed would be a military reprisal, even before the recent strikes in Venezuela.

The military picture is moving fast. Israel briefed the US on its plans for a potential new round of strikes across Iran, and according to a report by The Times, Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has already worked out an exit strategy to Moscow in case things get any worse. Over the last several days, more than ten American strategic airlifters have traveled across the Atlantic in Iran’s direction, reportedly carrying assets belonging to the elite helicopter unit known as the Night Stalkers—the same unit that was instrumental in capturing Maduro.

Members of America’s Delta Force, the unit that completed Maduro’s capture, may have made the journey too. The combination of domestic unrest, an Israeli operation in the offing, and the visible movement of America’s most capable special-operations aviation paints a grim outlook for Tehran.

Cuba: Collapse Without a Shot?

After Iran comes Cuba, a nation that shares a very long history with both Venezuela and the United States. The ups and downs of the US-Cuba relationship—mostly the downs—are well known: the Cuban Missile Crisis, decades of rule by Fidel Castro, embargoes, sanctions, and Cuba’s slow, agonizing economic atrophy. But the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela is far closer, and over the last decade or so, its power balance has been firmly established.

Cuba is instrumental to both Venezuela’s survival as a country and the survival of its ruling regime. It is one of the few countries to accept Venezuelan oil, and it offers a key economic lifeline in the Caribbean, where ships do not have to travel through the Panama Canal to continue trade. Venezuela is home to many thousands of Cuban nationals, who work as doctors, teachers, engineers, and other essential civil assets—but also as soldiers, paramilitaries, and intelligence agents.

For Maduro, those Cuban nationals were protection. In fact, Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, admitted that thirty-two Cubans were killed during Maduro’s capture, all of them intelligence or military operators. But they had also served as Maduro’s handlers, managing counterintelligence, dictating the flow of information and access to Maduro’s inner circle, and keeping very close tabs on him at all times.

Trump, Rubio, and the Case Against Intervening in Havana

Now that Maduro is gone, international onlookers have expressed an understandable curiosity about the ramifications for Cuba. After all, Cuba and America still share a hostile relationship, especially under America’s current leadership. While Democrats have used past periods in office to warm ties with Cuba, Republicans have long counted on the support of Cuban-American exiles and their descendants, who have advocated that Washington use its power more forcefully to get rid of the Cuban regime. One of those Cuban-Americans—the descendant of Cubans who made it to the US before Castro’s takeover—is the man who now serves in a dual role as Trump’s Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Marco Rubio.

Both Rubio and Trump have been more than happy to offer criticism of Cuba when prompted, especially as they are riding high on their actions in Venezuela. Rubio derided Cuban leadership as “incompetent, senile men,” and offered, “if I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned—at least a little bit.” But although Trump has not been any more complimentary toward Havana than Rubio has, he has seemed to almost dismiss the idea of a direct intervention as unnecessary for the United States. According to Trump, Cuba is on its way to collapsing anyway: “I think it’s just going to fall.

I don’t think we need any action. Looks like it’s going down.” In both his first and second terms, Trump has worked to raise economic and diplomatic pressure on Cuba, but he has yet to hint at military action in any meaningful way.

At face value, that might sound like good news for the Cuban regime, and it could be—but there are two ways to read the situation. On the one hand, Trump’s belief that the loss of Venezuelan oil and other income, and Havana’s exposure to future economic shocks, might lead him to conclude that history should be free to run its natural course. On the other hand, Trump has a tendency to become slightly impatient, and right now, high-level Cuban-Americans in government—especially Rubio—have his ear.

If the collapse Trump is waiting for does not appear to be happening quickly enough, then Rubio and other anti-regime advocates may not have a very hard time convincing him to pull the trigger. After all, Maduro was easy to capture, nobody on Earth stood in the way, and if a Cuban collapse is coming anyway, Trump can simply make it happen a little faster.

Venezuela Again: Delcy Rodríguez in the Hot Seat

Finally, there is one more name on Trump’s potential hit-list: Venezuela itself, in a second-round repeat of what has already happened. The natural question is some version of “didn’t the US already do regime change? What else is left to do?” The problem lies with the way the US attempted regime change, and more specifically, the person it left in charge.

After years of calling out Maduro and his entire regime as a corrupt, underhanded dictatorship doing double-duty as a nationalized drug cartel, Washington did not elevate Venezuela’s clear opposition leader, María Corina Machado, or her deputy, who the opposition alleges actually won the election that saw Maduro return to office. Instead, they went with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s own former vice president, who now serves in the role of interim leader. That was a strange decision for a few reasons, although the US was reportedly helped along by input from career intelligence operatives and diplomats who have been impressed with Rodríguez’s ability to sustain Venezuela’s oil industry despite sanctions. Strange decision or not, Rodríguez is now in an unenviable position: she is technically in charge of Venezuela, but with a very keen awareness of a metaphorical sniper’s red dot bouncing around on the lapel of her blazer.

When WarFronts says Rodríguez is in the crosshairs, it is meant very literally. When Atlantic reporter Michael Scherer asked Trump about Rodríguez, Trump left zero doubt about her situation: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” According to Trump’s other statements, Rodríguez has spoken with the US and agreed to “do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”

But what she does not have, according to Trump, is a choice about what she does next. Either she proves herself to be the partner Washington was hoping for, or she will be replaced by somebody who can promise to do better.

What Survival Looks Like for Rodríguez

The actions that will land Rodríguez in the hot seat are not necessarily what one might think. After she was elevated, Rodríguez outright condemned America’s actions and claimed, “There is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.” But in speaking with the American press, Marco Rubio admitted that, in the grand scheme of things, those kinds of statements really do not matter.

As Rubio described it, they are more about placating Venezuelans who are upset about the whole thing, in a country where lots of Maduro loyalists in the military and the paramilitaries are likely to try and take out a leader they see as truly hostile. Instead, Rodríguez has signaled that she is willing to work with the US—something she showed publicly on Monday, the day of her inauguration, when she called for a “balanced and respectful relationship between the US and Venezuela,” aimed at establishing an “agenda for cooperation.”

Far more than Rodríguez’s rhetoric, it is her actions that will matter now: unlocking Venezuela’s oil industry for American exploitation, pacifying the Venezuelan government, and ensuring that any democratic will from the Venezuelan people does not get in the way. In a regime as corrupt as Venezuela’s, with an entire, robust opposition movement waiting to come into power if the regime proves non-viable, there are quite a few people willing to take Rodríguez’s place if she cannot keep her end of the bargain. Her survival, in other words, depends not on what she says but on whether she delivers what Washington wants.

A Whole New World

So those are the nations that seem to be next on Donald Trump’s hit list: Mexico, Colombia, and the territory of Greenland, plus Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela in a potential second round. How those nations will react to the pressure is anybody’s guess. But at the very least, their leaders can be expected to act as if they know they might be in the crosshairs.

The common thread is that rhetoric and risk are not the same thing. Colombia and Greenland draw some of Trump’s loudest language yet face structural obstacles—alliance ties, the law, congressional limits—that make outright military action unlikely. Mexico and Iran, by contrast, are exposed precisely because limited, rapid action is feasible there: cartel strikes in the borderlands, or a special-operations campaign timed to Iranian unrest and an Israeli operation.

Cuba’s fate hinges less on a planned strike than on Washington’s patience and the influence of hardliners around the president. And Venezuela shows that even a country that has already undergone regime change is not safe if its new leadership disappoints. At the start of 2026, it is a whole new world—and any nation that cannot adapt risks being overcome.

Presented by

Simon Whistler

Simon Whistler is one of YouTube's most prolific educational creators. WarFronts is his deep dive into military history and conflict analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which nations did Trump name as potential next targets, and what is the article’s core argument?

Speaking to reporters the day after the Venezuela operation, Trump listed Mexico, Colombia, Greenland, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela in a potential second round. The article’s core argument is that the danger any nation faces depends less on Trump’s rhetoric than on the cost-benefit math of acting against it: Colombia and Greenland face structural obstacles that make military action unlikely, while Mexico, Iran, and Venezuela face more genuine risk because limited, rapid action is feasible there.

Why is Colombia an unlikely target despite Trump’s direct threats?

Colombia has been a US ally for decades and has held Major Non-NATO Ally status since 2022, placing it alongside Australia, Israel, and Egypt. President Gustavo Petro was democratically elected in a fair vote and lacks the congressional support, public backing, or military loyalty to stage a coup even if he wanted to—and his single term ends in August anyway. Attacking a democratically elected leader of a long-term ally would provoke global uproar without the muted international reaction that greeted Maduro’s capture.

Why is Mexico more exposed to US military action than Colombia or Greenland?

Unlike Colombia, where the target would be a democratic government, Trump’s stated focus in Mexico is the cartels that control large stretches of borderlands. The US could launch limited strikes or special-operations raids against cartel infrastructure very close to its own border, where President Sheinbaum would have no practical means to intercept rapid operations. Her sovereignty argument—though legally sound—would be perceived as weaker internationally if applied in defense of narco organizations operating just past the US frontier.

What makes Iran’s situation particularly acute right now?

Iran is currently in its most intense wave of protests since the death of Mahsa Amini, with at least seventeen people killed. Israel has briefed the US on plans for a new round of strikes, Ayatollah Khamenei has reportedly worked out an exit strategy to Moscow, and more than ten American strategic airlifters—carrying assets of the Night Stalkers helicopter unit and possibly Delta Force operators—have traveled toward Iran. The combination of domestic unrest, Israeli operations in the offing, and visible US special-operations movement paints the most urgent picture of any nation on the list.

Why is Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez still in danger despite the change of government?

Washington installed Rodríguez—Maduro’s own former vice president—as interim leader rather than elevating the recognized opposition. Trump left no ambiguity: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” According to Trump’s statements, Rodríguez has agreed to “do what we think is necessary,” but her survival depends entirely on delivering results—primarily unlocking Venezuela’s oil industry for American exploitation and pacifying the government—not on what she says publicly.