Bruce Bartlett: “In some ways, it has been at the heart of American foreign policy since the beginning. A great many of our foreign military interventions were undertaken not to save lives or for humanitarian purposes, but simply to advance the economic interests of the country as a whole or just particular businesses.”

“I consulted a Congressional Research Service catalogue of U.S. armed interventions abroad since 1798. I saw that not only were virtually none of them authorized by Congress, but an imperial lust for territory and markets was the motive for the vast bulk. Not surprisingly, Latin America was the focal point of many such actions.”

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that recent administration threats against Greenland didn’t signal an imminent invasion and that the goal is to buy the island from Denmark,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“During the briefing, Rubio played down the idea that the U.S. could seize Greenland by force… Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest aides, on Monday in a television interview wouldn’t rule out invading the island.”

The White House said the U.S. is exploring options including “utilizing the U.S. military” to acquire Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory, the Financial Times reports.

Said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt: “President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”

Garrett Graff: “Donald Trump is hardly the first US president to look south and conquer. Over the last century, no fewer than a dozen of Trump’s predecessors embraced the belief that democracy and profit in Latin America were only one successful coup d’état away.”

“But the particular strain of imperial ambition that Trump appears to have set loose with this weekend’s raid in Venezuela appears simultaneously to be deeply atavistic and uniquely Trumpian. And it’s one that doesn’t look set to die down anytime soon.”

“Trump administration officials told lawmakers on Monday that then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were injured after hitting their heads as they were fleeing U.S. forces trying to arrest them,” CNN reports.

“Maduro and Flores ran and attempted to hide behind a heavy steel door inside their compound, but the door frame was low and they hit their heads as they tried to escape.”