The ball may have dropped in Times Square last week, but that wasn’t the visual that truly marked the dawn of this new year. Instead, it was Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro being frog-marched onto a Gulfstream V by U.S. special forces.
And importantly, that was just a pilot episode for what’s ahead in 2026 and beyond.
For the last 50 years, we lived in “Pax Americana” – considered a time of relative global peace and stability upheld by the United States.
That era died last week in Caracas, replaced by something far more deliberate. We’ve now entered a new regime: Imperium Americanum.
In this new world order, the White House isn’t interested in nation-building or winning hearts and minds. It is interested in assets, supply chains, and threat elimination.
The Venezuela raid was the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a year of absolute chaos. And if you understand how the political clock is ticking in the background, you know that the president will only pick up the pace. With Mexico and the Arctic in the government’s sights, Uncle Sam is zeroing in on its next targets.
Let’s take a look at the reality of this new regime – and the investment playbook for the most aggressive 11 months in U.S. history.
The 11-Month Window Driving U.S. Aggression
To understand why this shift is happening now – and why it will accelerate – you need to look at the calendar.
We’ve just entered January 2026. In November, only 11 months from now, we’ll have the Midterm Elections.
And the betting markets, polls, and historical trends are all signaling the same thing: The Democrats are favored to flip the House (~75% odds right now) and even have a chance at flipping the Senate (~30% odds and climbing).
If the gavel passes to the opposing party in January 2027, this “Imperial Presidency” hits a brick wall. Investigations launch, funding freezes, and the latitude to enforce unilateral raids evaporates.
That means the Trump administration has an 11-month window of unchecked power to reshape the geopolitical map. It cannot afford to account for “diplomacy” or wait for “coalitions.” It has to move fast and break things now while it still controls the checkbook and the committee chairs.
That’s why we are likely about to witness a full-bore sprint into imperialism. The administration needs wins to show that it “fixed” the border, “secured” the supply chain, and “crushed” U.S. adversaries before voters go to the polls.
This urgency is the fuel for the fire. It means the “risk premium” in the market will stay elevated; but it also means the government spending spigot for certain military operations will be wide open.
So, where will that spending flow? The target list is already taking shape.
After Maduro: America’s Next Targets
Venezuela was the low-hanging fruit. The oil was there, the “narcoterrorism” warrant was signed, and the refugees induced a political headache. But the Imperial Playbook has other chapters, and the next is already being drafted.
Mexico and the Kinetic Border
In comments to Fox & Friends following the Venezuelan raid, President Trump signaled what comes next:
“We can’t take a chance, after having done this incredible thing last night, of letting somebody else take over… We have to do it again. We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us. There’s nobody that has the capability that we do.”
For years, Republicans have floated the idea of designating Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). That is no longer a talking point; it is the likely next step.
This is the blueprint. Once you slap a “terrorist” label on the Sinaloa or CJNG cartels, the legal framework changes. You don’t need the Mexican president’s permission to strike them – just a drone and a target package.
The White House views the border crisis not as an immigration issue, but as a security issue driven by hostile non-state actors. The logical extension of the Venezuela raid is a campaign of “targeted strikes” against cartel infrastructure in Northern Mexico: a “sanitization” campaign.
Greenland and the Resource Grab
The target list doesn’t stop at Latin America.
With that in mind, it’s no accident that Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie, made this post about Greenland around the time of Maduro’s arrest.
This is what I call the Resource Realism wing of the new regime – the faction that views geography as inventory and sovereignty as negotiable.
China controls 90% of the rare earth processing market; and Greenland sits on one of the largest undeveloped deposits of rare earths and uranium on the planet.
In the old world, we would offer a trade deal. But under Imperium Americanum, we make an offer Denmark can’t refuse – like a heavy-handed “security partnership” that effectively cedes sovereignty over the mining districts to U.S. interests.
The White House sees the Arctic as the next South China Sea. Expect a massive push for U.S. corporate control over Greenland’s geology.
How to Invest In a High-Tempo Imperial Strategy
With the geopolitical landscape redrawn, the question becomes tactical: how do we trade this?
Most investors see ‘war’ and buy Lockheed Martin (LMT) or Northrop Grumman (NOC).
That is the wrong play for this situation.
Lockheed builds the F-35. It costs $100 million and takes years to build. That makes LMT a “Program” stock, great for a 20-year Cold War.
But we aren’t fighting a Cold War. We are fighting a “Shadow War.” We are doing raids, drone strikes, and surveillance, and we need things that are cheap, disposable, and fast.
As such, you want to own “Op-Tempo” (Operational Tempo) stocks. You want the companies that make the bullets, the drones that get shot down, and the satellites that find the targets.
There are a few names that fit the bill for this Imperial Basket.
Drones, Attrition, and the New Air Power
If the U.S. starts striking cartel labs in Mexico, it won’t send a piloted aircraft. It’ll send a Valkyrie drone made by Kratos (KTOS).
Kratos is the leader in “attritable” aircraft – high-performance drones that are cheap enough to lose. In a high-tempo conflict where you are flying constantly over hostile territory, you burn through these things like AA batteries.
Kratos is a high-beta play. If the news breaks that “U.S. Drones Strike Cartel Convoy,” Lockheed stock may move 1%. Kratos stock would pop 15%. This is the pure-play on kinetic action.
But drones are only as valuable as the intelligence guiding them.
The Eyes of the Empire: Surveillance as a Core Weapon
Imperium Americanum is an intelligence-led regime – because, of course, you cannot strike what you cannot see.
- BlackSky (BKSY) is the tactical play. It provides real-time, low-latency imagery. This company tells the situation room, “The target just moved to this compound.” And it’s already hunting cartels for “undisclosed Latin American customers.”
- Planet Labs (PL) is the strategic play. If the U.S. is taking over Greenland’s mining sector or managing Venezuela’s oil fields, we’ll need daily, global scans of the terrain. This is Planet Labs’ specialty.
These stocks have been beaten down as “unprofitable tech.” But we think that in 2026, they’ll become “critical national security infrastructure.”
Of course, collecting intelligence is only half the battle. You need a system to synthesize it.
The Software Running the Imperial State
If the White House is micromanaging the world – from Venezuelan oil yields to cartel movements to Greenland mining output – it needs a dashboard.
Palantir (PLTR) is that dashboard.
It is already deeply embedded in the Pentagon. But in this new regime, where the line between military and economic policy is erased, Palantir becomes the operating system of the imperialist agenda. It is the safest, strongest hold in the basket.
Who Profits When the Dust Settles
The stocks we’ve mentioned so far capture the machinery of this conflict. There’s one company that captures the spoils.
As we mentioned in a previous issue, Maduro’s ouster may have been veiled as a response to ‘narcoterrorism.’ But in truth, the U.S. seized Venezuela for its heavy crude. And Valero (VLO) is the company that refines it.
While defense stocks give you the growth from the conflict, Valero gives you the profit from the peace. Its margins are about to explode as cheap Venezuelan sludge hits U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. This is your cash cow.
The Rules of the Imperial Market
As we sprint through the next 11 months, you need to rewrite your mental model of the market.
- The White House is the CIO. There is no such thing as a “free market” in 2026; only the “aligned market.” If a company’s interests align with the Imperial Agenda (securing resources, hurting adversaries), they will get contracts, regulatory moats, and air support (literally). If they don’t, they’ll get tariffs and DOJ investigations.
- Volatility is the Feature, Not the Bug. The Trump administration wants to be unpredictable. It’s confident in “The Madman Theory.” Expect tweet-storms that tank sectors overnight. Keep your position sizes reasonable and cash on hand to buy the dips when the president makes fresh threats.
- Morality is a Bear Market. You might find this new era distasteful and think that “Gunboat Diplomacy” belongs in the 19th century. That is a valid opinion. It is a terrible investment thesis.
The market only really cares about liquidity and earnings. And right now, the U.S. government is about to inject massive liquidity into the business of projecting power.
The Bottom Line
The raid on Caracas was the starting gun of a new era.
We face 11 more months of a White House that feels invincible, with a deadline that makes them desperate. That is a recipe for maximum action.
The U.S. is going shopping. We just bought a country in South America. We might browse the aisles in the Arctic tomorrow.
As President Trump boasted, “Nobody can stop us.” That’s not just rhetoric – it’s a market signal. So, don’t stand in the way of this momentum.
Follow closely behind, and fill your basket with the stocks set to benefit most in this new era.
