by
Austin BayJanuary 21, 2026
The Trump administration is currently engaged in numerous Transactional Diplomacy Operations. Venezuela, Greenland and Congo are the most prominent examples.
Let's start with the administration's goals:
1. Improve U.S. strategic position economically, militarily and socially. This is first and foremost.
2. Assuring the U.S. has unfettered access to decisive 21st-century resources.
3. Prevent China, Russia and any other potential major power adversary from obtaining these resources by using military threat or seizure (invasion, military coercion, proxy paramilitary groups), political manipulation (propaganda, proxies and spies seeding internal chaos), corrupting influence (e.g., buying local politicians) or outright theft (e.g., fraud using proxy political or criminal actors).
Here's a working list of decisive 21st-century resources:
1. Energy resources capable of powering modern manufacturing facilities and data centers, contemporary transportation systems and the homes and businesses of 350 million Americans.
2. The mineral resources required to manufacture 21st-century digital equipment, weaponry, communications systems, power generation and delivery networks and space systems.
3. Access to or control of positions on Planet Earth whose location (geo-location in the lingo) provides extraordinary military, civilian transport and/or economic advantages. For example, certain positions in the Northern Hemisphere dramatically enhance the effectiveness of North American air-space surveillance systems and air-space defense (think President Trump's Golden Dome strategic defense program).
In the 4th century B.C., whoever controlled Sicily had a trade and defense edge in the central Mediterranean. Greenland is an edge in the Arctic and in space.
Trump's transactional gambits lead with U.S. economic power (money) backed by Pentagon might and his calculated personal disruption of diplomatic apathy. (In prior essays, I've called these Trump's Trade and Raid operations.)
The administration pursues these operations globally, but Greenland, Venezuela and Congo are indicative. Trump initiatives with these nations involve securing decisive resources.
Energy is Venezuela's most prominent decisive resource. The country has over 300 billion barrels in proven reserves (possibly another 100 billion lurk).
Venezuela also possesses significant decisive but as yet untapped rare earth mineral assets. Until the arrest of dictator Nicolas Maduro, Beijing effectively controlled these minerals and denied them to the U.S.
South America's Guiana Shield, a 1.7-billion-year-old chunk of the Earth's crust, contains enormous rare earth deposits. Venezuela's slice contains cerium and lanthanum (used in catalytic converters and advanced optics) and thorium and neodymium (critical to 21stcentury digital electronics and power generation systems).
Under Maduro, Venezuela exported killer drugs as well as America-destroying anarchy and crime (via illegal aliens). Those cruel exports served China's strategic interests by internally weakening the U.S. Removing the noxious Venezuelan regime improves the U.S. strategic position socially and, ultimately, economically.
Greenland has very valuable rare earth minerals, but also has an outright rare Earth (unique) position for defending North America from air and space attack (think ICBMS), for securing north Atlantic sea lanes and for securing U.S. and Canadian rights in the Arctic Sea.
Greenland has deposits of 25 minerals the European Union rates as critical to modern economies. Greenland's problem: it lacks the infrastructure to support extraction. Why? The harsh physical environment. However, the political-cultural environment seeded by anti-development climate and environment activists is another impediment.
Is this covert Chinese political manipulation? Probably. During the Cold War, Russia used money and propaganda to infiltrate Western "peace movements" whose agendas amounted to disarming NATO.
Everyone sane in Europe and North America wants "like-minded partners" (meaning NATO nations) to cooperate to develop Greenland's mineral resources and strategic military position. However, only the U.S. can provide convincing military protection from Russia and China.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's global trove of minerals and its position in central Africa are not afterthoughts.
In an April 2025 column, I wrote that Congo has gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum (coltan), lithium, gold and diamonds. "The uranium for America's World War II atom bombs came from the then-Belgian Congo. Mobile phone and computer manufacturers need coltan (columbite-tantalite). Cobalt is a 21st-century treasure. Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, a must-have for electric vehicles."
Fact: The Congolese have had it with Communist Chinese imperialism.
Congo has also exposed Communist China as an empire of Chinese crooks. In 2006 and 2007, Chinese front companies began buying Congolese mineral operations. In 2008 and 2009, China signed the so-called China Deal of 2008 with Congo's Kabila dictatorship, a deal allegedly worth billions. China would build roads, electrical generation facilities and modern goodies. But Beijing built ... next to nothing. In 2021, Congo condemned China and began legal proceedings to end Beijing's fraud.
Congo appears to have decided transactional diplomacy with the U.S. is a much better deal. Trump's deals are in the open. The investments are tracked, the royalties paid in U.S. dollars.
Congo also sees a domestic political payoff: a deal with the U.S. allows it to escape China's corrupt grasp. America benefits strategically if it can deny or limit Chinese access to Congo's mineral trove -- and eventually the minerals possessed by neighboring Zambia and Angola. The strategic payoff for the U.S.? Damaging China's manufacturing sector, which ultimately degrades its military power.