The La Roca studio has, this Sunday, March 8, 2026, become the stage for one of the bleakest warnings about the future of the international order. The writer and analyst Benjamín Prado took advantage of his appearance to unpack what he considers an unprecedented imperialist drift by the Donald Trump administration. According to Prado, we are not facing an erratic or impulsive foreign policy, but a meticulously laid-out plan: a “blacklist” of nations whose natural resources are now the direct target of Washington.
The thesis of Prado is as forceful as it is alarming. He argues that the president of the United States has replaced diplomacy manuals with an inventory of raw materials. “Trump has drawn up a country-by-country list,” the contributor asserted, suggesting that the White House no longer evaluates its neighbors and allies by political affinity, but by their reserves of lithium, oil, rare earths and water. In this new paradigm of 2026, the national sovereignty of third countries seems to have become an obstacle to American economic voracity.
Extractivism as a State Doctrine
What Benjamín Prado describes is the shift from the “America First” to “America Keeps It All”. During his appearance, it was analyzed how military interventions or diplomatic pressures no longer seek to “bring democracy,” a slogan that seems to have been buried in the twentieth century, but to secure the physical control of the resources necessary for the technological transition and the hegemonic industrial power.
- The Lithium Triangle: Prado pointed with particular concern toward South America. Countries such as Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, holders of the world’s largest lithium reserves, are in his sights. The logic of Trump, according to the analyst, is that if lithium is the “new oil” and vital for the batteries of his industries, the United States must have direct control of the mines, whether by imposing friendly companies or by destabilizing governments that seek to nationalize the resource.
- Mexico and energy sovereignty: Trump’s rhetoric on the southern border has taken a dangerous turn. Under the pretext of fighting the drug cartels — which he intends to declare terrorist organizations to justify military incursions — Prado sees a hidden intent to control key infrastructures and energy resources that Mexico possesses and that are vital for the logistics of the United States.
The Economic Invasion: Tariffs as Artillery
Benjamín Prado insisted that the “invasion” does not always begin with tanks. In the 2026 world, Trump’s artillery is the punitive tariffs. By imposing rates of 25%, 50% or even higher on the products of specific nations, Washington chokes their economies until the country in question has no choice but to yield and hand over control of its resources or strategic industries to American corporations.
This strategy of the “economic scorched earth” is breaking international law and the free trade treaties that took decades to build. For Prado, the danger is that this model is legitimizing strategic looting. If the world’s most powerful country decides that it can appropriate what it needs by force — whether economic or military — the rest of the powers could follow suit, turning the global map into a resource-conquest board similar to that of the nineteenth century.
Europe’s Silence and the Risk of Annexations
Another hot point of Prado’s warning is the possible reactivation of territorial ambitions that previously seemed jokes or eccentricities. The case of Greenland is back on the table. With Arctic melt opening new trade routes and revealing deposits of critical minerals, the Trump administration has intensified its pressure on Denmark. What Prado warns is that we are facing an administration that firmly believes that territories and resources are “for sale” and that, if the owner does not want to sell, the United States has the means to “keep them” anyway.
The concern that Benjamín Prado conveys is of a world where the law of the strongest has replaced the law of institutions. The writer warns that, if there is no coordinated response from the international community, the world map in the coming years will not be drawn by ideological borders, but by the color of the minerals beneath the ground.
In short, the intervention on La Roca leaves an unsettling question in the air: Which country will be the next on Trump’s list? As resources become scarcer and technological demand soars, global security hangs by a thread controlled by an administration that conflates geopolitics with a hostile takeover on a planetary scale.
