🔗 Share this article

The overthrow and alleged seizure by incursive American military units of Nicolas Maduro will dispatch a tremor of fear and consternation across the globe. This power grab is unlawful, without justification, and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, disregards sovereign territorial rights, and risks creating an state of anarchy within the country.

It is policy crafted from chaos. But this is the reality we currently inhabit – the world according to the US President.

A Remarkable and Perilous Declaration of Unfettered US Power

The overt assault on Venezuela marks an remarkable, hazardous assertion of unchecked American might and comes in the same week that the President menaced armed attacks against a further disliked anti-western regime: that of Iran. It follows many months of escalating US military, economic and political pressure on Maduro, encompassing lethal maritime attacks on vessels suspected of drug smuggling.

Trump claims to be acting to prevent illegal narcotics entering the US via Venezuela and to halt an alleged influx of “criminal” migrants. In an repetition of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is also accused of coveting Venezuela’s vast oil and gas resources – suspicions reinforced by repeated, illegal US confiscations of Venezuelan oil tankers.

But Trump’s chief motivations seem to be individual hostility aimed at Maduro, and a desire to revive the historical Monroe Doctrine by creating a US sphere of influence and dominance throughout the west.

Hemispheric Alarm and Worldwide Consequences

Hemispheric heads of state, such as Colombia’s president, who has clashed with Trump in the past few months, met the takeover with fury and concern; not least, perhaps, because they fear they too could become targets of Washington’s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba’s socialist administration has particular cause for concern. It relies heavily on Venezuela’s regime for cheap energy and backing in politics and economics.

The US secretary of state has been explicit of his desire for regime change in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be running high. Trump has in the past menaced armed intervention there, over control of the Panama Canal. Indeed, the reported capture of Maduro brings to mind the 1989 US incursion into Panama and the overthrow and detention of its then dictator.

Autocratic, undemocratic governments globally will be carefully watching Trump’s next steps, as will Washington’s allies in democracy. Iran denounced the overthrow. It has good reason to be fearful. But Russia’s president may not be totally displeased by the removal of his Venezuelan ally.

A Dangerous Precedent for Global Conflicts

Trump’s unjustified turn to force is not entirely dissimilar from moves during the invasion of Ukraine. Both have unlawfully assaulted a neighbouring country and sought to remove its leadership. For China’s leader, whose forces were last week practising military action against the “breakaway factions” of Taiwan, Trump has just established a benchmark he may one day gladly follow.

Trump’s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and democratic Western nations. They ought to, and have to, unequivocally condemn it. It openly confronts the rules and principles of the international order they hold dear. The US has once again ignored the UN and traditional methods of resolving inter-state grievances. And it is proceeding with seemingly little consideration for what happens next in Venezuela.

An Unclear Future and Potential for Chaos

The Caracas government has been decapitated, but remaining high-ranking figures of the regime appear still to be at their posts. They are calling for opposition and, possibly, reprisals against the US. There are unverified accounts of non-combatant deaths. If a power vacuum develops, civil stability might disintegrate, sparking civil war or a possible military coup. And it is uncertain whether the most recent American armed intervention has ended, or may intensify more.

The idea that exiled opposition leaders will swiftly return and that full democracy will now be reinstated is unrealistic. The coming days will be decisive. And it’s all down to Trump.

The Illusion of a Peacemaker

Trump’s imprudent move should at last bury his always misleading characterisation of himself as a “world peacemaker”. It’s past time that leaders in Europe publicly recognise him for what he is – a international provocateur of war, a worldwide threat.

Each time he blunders noisily into conflict zones, setting deadlines, issuing ultimatums, choosing sides and profiting from suffering, the quest for fair and enduring peace is set back.

No surprise peace remains distant. And bizarrely, even while presenting himself as a neutral peace broker and non-interventionist, Trump concurrently conducts warfare on the world. The US conducted record numbers of air strikes in the Middle East and Africa the previous year, data indicates.

A Legacy in Blood

Since resuming the presidency a year ago, the ostensibly peace-seeking President has launched strikes in Yemen, carelessly killing numerous civilians after loosening rules of engagement; attacked targets in Nigeria, to detrimental outcomes; bombed Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and bombed Iran, where he mendaciously exaggerated the success of US strikes on nuclear facilities. He even will not exclude attacking Greenland, a independent land of a Nato ally.

What’s going on in the President's mind? A benign interpretation is that in issues of conflict and tranquility, he has no idea what his actions entail – no plan, no understanding – and makes up policy on the fly, depending on how he feels.

The more ominous reading says he knows exactly what he’s at, that more and worse is to come. Like previous leaders in their final term who exhausted options domestically, Trump finds the world stage offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and self-importance. He is forging a historical record through violence.

Trump’s irresponsible, dangerously erratic conduct is getting measurably worse. His Venezuela “success” may encourage him to try further and bigger, unhinged outrages. He struts and preens, cries havoc! and unleashes the hounds of conflict.