I Was Held Hostage in Panama in 1989. I Know the Real Cost of Trump’s “America First.”

The US military operation to invade Venezuela and capture President Nicolás Maduro has been widely considered a military success. Now comes the hard part. Venezuela is our responsibility. Along with all the other “known unknowns,” as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it—insurgency, civil unrest, complications reviving oil production—there is another uncertainty: the plight of Americans held in Venezuela who may be in harm’s way. I have some idea how they might be feeling right now.

It was just after midnight on December 20, 1989, when I first heard the helicopter gunships and saw sporadic flashes of light from the mezzanine of the Marriott hotel on the outskirts of Panama City. I’d just made it to Panama for CBS News, one of the few American broadcast journalists who managed to slip into the country ahead of a rumored attack to capture Panamanian general Manuel Noriega. Long a US ally, Noriega had fallen out of favor with President George H.W. Bush, who accused him of human rights violations and drug trafficking.

As the sun rose, we could see American troops near the Marriott and choppers flying over the Bay of Panama. Two hours later, as I walked from our edit room, I looked down to the lobby and saw a group of armed civilians. I started running to a back staircase, but just then a man and a woman carrying M-16 rifles emerged from the elevator and told everyone to drop to the ground. Pointing their weapons at our heads, they screamed that they wanted the North Americans.

Yelling in Spanish, “A gringo seen is a gringo killed,” they rounded me up along with an American businessman, Doug Mullen. Hands up, we were herded into a pickup truck outside the hotel. “Lie face down and keep quiet,” they ordered with their guns still pointing in our faces. The truck pulled away, ultimately climbing the hills outside the city.

It dawned on me that I was a hostage, an object to be traded or disposed of. After a couple of stops and a 45-minute drive, the pickup stopped, and we were led into a clearing in the jungle. Guns and machetes in hand, our captors surrounded us and tied us to a tree. I was afraid they would kill us here and dump our bodies. I feared we would simply disappear or die in the cross fire if anyone tried to free us.

Several American citizens may be wondering if they face a similar fate in Venezuela. As of last May, at least eight Americans were being held in Venezuelan prisons, according to ABC News. The State Department has said more Americans are wrongfully imprisoned in Venezuela than in any other country. In the past, US prisoners being wrongfully or questionably detained have been used by Maduro as bargaining chips.

In the past year, talks between Venezuelan officials and US negotiators, headed by President Trump’s envoy for special missions Richard Grenell, led to the release of 17 American citizens and permanent residents from Venezuelan prisons. According to The New York Times, some of the American citizens released from prison last year described abusive conditions and lack of due process. With the recent economic and military escalation, Maduro ended any releases.

Several more Americans were detained in the months since the Trump administration began pressuring Venezuela and attacking small boats allegedly carrying drugs, according to a US official who spoke to The New York Times. One of them is believed to be 28-year-old James Luckey-Lange of Staten Island. He went missing soon after he crossed Venezuela’s southern border in early December.

As the Trump administration struggles to justify its role in this country almost twice the size of California—with a history of violence and insurrection—the president must also address what it intends to do about those Americans left behind.

The president trumpets that no Americans died in Operation Absolute Resolve, that this is no Mogadishu, Iraq, or Afghanistan. However, Venezuela’s interior minister said that 100 Venezuelans were killed in the invasion, while Cuba’s presidential office said that 32 Cubans were killed. Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine (or the “Donroe Doctrine,” as he put it), continuing a long American tradition of changing the course of history in this hemisphere from the barrel of a gun. Now, part of that resolve should be to resume negotiations to safely return the Americans held in Venezuelan prisons.

The five Panamanians who kidnapped me and Doug Mullen called themselves “Norieguistas,” military and paramilitary Noriega supporters. They were angry about the invasion; the US had “dropped bombs” on their neighborhood. They would hold us for four long days. With each passing minute, I feared we would die, possibly caught in the middle of a firefight if anyone tried to rescue us.

We had been moved from the jungle to a small, hot cinder block house. On our third day, President Bush held a news conference. He declared the situation in Panama “pretty well wrapped up.” We watched, alongside our captors, on Armed Forces TV, as CBS News showed my photo and reported that they still had not heard any word from me. Our captors began to grow nervous and finally allowed Doug to contact a Panamanian colleague from his US-based company.

After two days of intricate negotiations, our captors agreed to free us. They surrendered to American soldiers and were arrested. Because they didn’t harm us, they were soon released. Doug and I embraced, and I thanked him for saving my life.

Noriega eluded capture for several days, taking refuge at the Vatican diplomatic mission in Panama City. There, the US military famously blasted heavy rock music around the clock. He surrendered on January 3, 1990, and was flown to the United States on a military aircraft, where he was tried, convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

For Doug and me, it ended peacefully. After a debriefing and news conference, we were flown back to the United States and to our families. We kept in touch for a few years. He told me he had moved to, of all places, Venezuela. Doug died in 2015.

The Venezuelan government says it’s starting to release some of the estimated 800–1,000 Venezuelan political prisoners it’s currently holding. And the US State department confirms that some of the American prisoners have been released as well, including, reportedly, James Luckey-Lange. I hope all of them will see freedom soon. I know what it’s like to watch American helicopters overhead and wonder if they’re coming to save you or if you’ll be caught in the cross fire.

Donald Trump marketed himself as an “America First” isolationist, critical of our long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, like so many commanders in chief before him, Trump has led the US into an abyss with his interventionist urges. Doug and I were lucky. But for hostages, time moves differently. With each failed or nonexistent negotiation, other families are left wondering if their loved ones have simply vanished and will ever come home. That’s the very real cost of “America First”—Americans left behind.