Storming Venezuela got you oil, Mr. Trump. Raiding Haiti could get you a Nobel
By Tim Padgett
January 15, 2026 at 6:00 AM EST
COMMENTARY With no conquest booty like oil to distract him, President Trump could focus the capture of gang leaders in Haiti on rescuing the country's republic — and win his Nobel Peace Prize.
President Donald Trump’s Donroe Doctrine is on a Donroll.
We just nabbed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil. We’re about to nab Greenland and its minerals.
Where next, O Captain, My Captain? Do we seize the Panama Canal? Do we break up Katy Perry’s treasonous romance with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?
READ MORE: If regime change doesn't come in Venezuela, Trump will have handcuffed himself alongside Maduro
I know a lot of folks, especially here in Miami, think the next Donroe dart should be thrown at communist Cuba, whom Trump’s now warning to “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
But the problem with Cuba is, the island’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, isn’t under U.S. criminal indictment, as Maduro was. (And, frankly, that’s an astounding Trump administration oversight — I mean, Díaz-Canel has surely committed mortgage fraud somewhere, no?)
So how about … Haiti?
Yes, yes, I know our President thinks Haiti is a “shithole country” unworthy of his America First agenda. But hear me out on this one, Mr. President, because there could actually be something in it for you personally — meaning, it might meet your foreign policy requirements.
It could set you up for that Nobel Peace Prize you’re furious about not receiving back in October — when they gave it to that woman, María Corina Machado, for leading a democracy movement in Venezuela that, let's face it, failed to overthrow a brutal dictatorship while you were ending God knows how many wars around the world.
In this case, Mr. Trump, you'll have to make an exception and help Black foreigners, because it’s what the woke Scandinavian snowflakes in Oslo want.
Here's how we fix that travesty, Donroe style:
You see, it turns out Haiti’s de facto head of state — gang federation leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier — is under indictment in the U.S., for violating sanctions against funding the homicidal criminal groups that rule Port-au-Prince and much of the rest of the country.
What’s more, the Trump administration has designated Cherizier and his gangbangers — whose violence has forced 1.4 million Haitians from their homes – as terrorists, just like Maduro.
So we're Donroe Doctrine-obligated to send a U.S. special forces raid into Haiti to capture Cherizier and fly him to prosecution in Washington D.C., the way Maduro was whisked to New York.
Berlin Wall potential
But here’s where Cherizier’s capture would go the extra yard for Trump’s Nobel campaign that his Maduro collar might not.
Venezuela's remaining regime leaders — Acting President Delcy Rodríguez (right), Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino (center) and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello — at an event in Caracas on May 13, 2025. (1048x756, AR: 1.3862433862433863)
In Venezuela, Trump’s made it pretty clear he’s more interested in controlling the country’s oil reserves, the world’s largest, than he is in restoring its democracy. And he’s certain the mafiosi still running Maduro’s regime will “graciously,” as he said, accommodate him.
Fine. Trump’s gotta be Trump. “Life’s a deal, really,” he reminded us after Maduro’s removal. Still, his Venezuela deal doesn’t exactly promise the sort of Fall-of-the-Berlin Wall triumph the Nobel committee in Norway adores.
It’s precisely because Haiti does not have oil, or anything else Trump wants, that it offers more Nobel potential.
Say U.S. Chinook helicopters nab Cherizier. What prize, what conquest haul, would Trump then see that he could make some pliant Cherizier lieutenant hand him?
There wouldn’t be any, really. Except one. Not an opportunity for America to re-up its resources — but a chance for Haiti to re-create its republic.
With no oil or minerals or trans-oceanic canal to tantalize him, Trump instead might focus solely on going after Cherizier’s successors — Cherizier's regime — like Vitel’Homme Innocent, who’s on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
With no booty distractions, Trump could decapitate Haiti’s gang leadership, disarm the gangs and neutralize their rapacity just enough to let the country hold its first presidential election in a decade — and let Haitians crawl out from under “Barbecue” rule.
That’s Nobel stuff.
Granted, it might involve too much of the warrior messiness the Norwegians prefer their peace laureates avoid. Even so, the end result — saving Haiti, the world’s first Black republic, in a way Trump may not end up saving Venezuela, South America’s first republic — just might persuade them to overlook that.
At the same time, I know Trump and MAGA worry that helping Black people that way violates Project 2025's ban on DEI. I also realize Trump thinks Haitians eat suburban Americans’ cats and dogs.
But in this case, sir, you’ll need to make an uncharacteristically humane exception, because that’s what those woke Scandinavian snowflakes in Oslo want.
It’s their deal.
And life’s a deal, really. Isn’t it?
President Donald Trump’s Donroe Doctrine is on a Donroll.
We just nabbed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil. We’re about to nab Greenland and its minerals.
Where next, O Captain, My Captain? Do we seize the Panama Canal? Do we break up Katy Perry’s treasonous romance with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?
READ MORE: If regime change doesn't come in Venezuela, Trump will have handcuffed himself alongside Maduro
I know a lot of folks, especially here in Miami, think the next Donroe dart should be thrown at communist Cuba, whom Trump’s now warning to “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
But the problem with Cuba is, the island’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, isn’t under U.S. criminal indictment, as Maduro was. (And, frankly, that’s an astounding Trump administration oversight — I mean, Díaz-Canel has surely committed mortgage fraud somewhere, no?)
So how about … Haiti?
Yes, yes, I know our President thinks Haiti is a “shithole country” unworthy of his America First agenda. But hear me out on this one, Mr. President, because there could actually be something in it for you personally — meaning, it might meet your foreign policy requirements.
It could set you up for that Nobel Peace Prize you’re furious about not receiving back in October — when they gave it to that woman, María Corina Machado, for leading a democracy movement in Venezuela that, let's face it, failed to overthrow a brutal dictatorship while you were ending God knows how many wars around the world.
In this case, Mr. Trump, you'll have to make an exception and help Black foreigners, because it’s what the woke Scandinavian snowflakes in Oslo want.
Here's how we fix that travesty, Donroe style:
You see, it turns out Haiti’s de facto head of state — gang federation leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier — is under indictment in the U.S., for violating sanctions against funding the homicidal criminal groups that rule Port-au-Prince and much of the rest of the country.
What’s more, the Trump administration has designated Cherizier and his gangbangers — whose violence has forced 1.4 million Haitians from their homes – as terrorists, just like Maduro.
So we're Donroe Doctrine-obligated to send a U.S. special forces raid into Haiti to capture Cherizier and fly him to prosecution in Washington D.C., the way Maduro was whisked to New York.
Berlin Wall potential
But here’s where Cherizier’s capture would go the extra yard for Trump’s Nobel campaign that his Maduro collar might not.
Venezuela's remaining regime leaders — Acting President Delcy Rodríguez (right), Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino (center) and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello — at an event in Caracas on May 13, 2025. (1048x756, AR: 1.3862433862433863)
In Venezuela, Trump’s made it pretty clear he’s more interested in controlling the country’s oil reserves, the world’s largest, than he is in restoring its democracy. And he’s certain the mafiosi still running Maduro’s regime will “graciously,” as he said, accommodate him.
Fine. Trump’s gotta be Trump. “Life’s a deal, really,” he reminded us after Maduro’s removal. Still, his Venezuela deal doesn’t exactly promise the sort of Fall-of-the-Berlin Wall triumph the Nobel committee in Norway adores.
It’s precisely because Haiti does not have oil, or anything else Trump wants, that it offers more Nobel potential.
Say U.S. Chinook helicopters nab Cherizier. What prize, what conquest haul, would Trump then see that he could make some pliant Cherizier lieutenant hand him?
There wouldn’t be any, really. Except one. Not an opportunity for America to re-up its resources — but a chance for Haiti to re-create its republic.
With no oil or minerals or trans-oceanic canal to tantalize him, Trump instead might focus solely on going after Cherizier’s successors — Cherizier's regime — like Vitel’Homme Innocent, who’s on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
With no booty distractions, Trump could decapitate Haiti’s gang leadership, disarm the gangs and neutralize their rapacity just enough to let the country hold its first presidential election in a decade — and let Haitians crawl out from under “Barbecue” rule.
That’s Nobel stuff.
Granted, it might involve too much of the warrior messiness the Norwegians prefer their peace laureates avoid. Even so, the end result — saving Haiti, the world’s first Black republic, in a way Trump may not end up saving Venezuela, South America’s first republic — just might persuade them to overlook that.
At the same time, I know Trump and MAGA worry that helping Black people that way violates Project 2025's ban on DEI. I also realize Trump thinks Haitians eat suburban Americans’ cats and dogs.
But in this case, sir, you’ll need to make an uncharacteristically humane exception, because that’s what those woke Scandinavian snowflakes in Oslo want.
It’s their deal.
And life’s a deal, really. Isn’t it?