Stay with us and read on to find out more.
The justification for this extraordinary act was primarily based on a criminal indictment in the USA that had been in place for years. If you visit the U.S. Department of Justice website, you can see the charges against Nicolás Maduro and other officials, including narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking, and other crimes. These charges date back to 2020, meaning that there has been a long-standing warrant for their arrest for almost six years. Maduro now faces a narco-terrorism charge for conspiring to distribute cocaine while intending to provide direct and indirect support to foreign terrorist organisations. He is also charged with cocaine exportation to the U.S. conspiracy and weapons charges. Maduro and his wife Cilia are both named there.
Maduro claims he is innocent and says he has been abducted and that he is a military prisoner. His hearing is scheduled for March 2026.
This has sparked a great deal of debate around the world. Obviously, we're going to explore all the different arguments for and against, but one thing is certain: Maduro's regime was undoubtedly illegitimate. He lost the general election by a huge margin. He was not democratically elected. He is a brutal dictator whose far-left regime was originally founded by Hugo Chávez, a huge far-left, anti-Western ideologue. His regime has devastated the country, committing appalling human rights abuses and engaging in excessive corruption, directly causing untold suffering to Venezuela's impoverished people.
It is also a fact that this far-left, anti-American, anti-Western government is allegedly seen by Russia, China and Iran as a country ripe for exploitation. This made Trump's military operation very much about geopolitical strategy. For Trump, this is one of the most important issues as Russia has a significant presence in Venezuela, primarily through providing economic, military and political support to Nicolás Maduro's regime. Moscow has provided billions in loans and investments, particularly in the oil sector.
Russia has deployed troops, conducted joint exercises and supplied weapons to Maduro to bolster his position in the event of an American invasion. Russia, or rather Putin, views Venezuela as a strategic foothold into the Americas, in order to counter the United States' influence. This is part of their strategy to challenge the idea of an American superpower by creating a multipolar world order, as it is widely reported that Russia, China and Iran form an "evil global axis". All of these countries play an important role in Venezuela.
Perhaps most of all, China is involved primarily for economic reasons. They are the largest creditor, having given Venezuela over $60 billion worth of loans, most of which is repaid in oil. 80% of Venezuelan oil is exported to China. Beijing has invested heavily in infrastructure, and the Belt and Road Initiative is key to China's efforts to form alliances with nations around the world. China has supported Maduro at the United Nations and provided technology for surveillance and population control. This is Beijing's way of trying to expand its influence further into the Americas and challenge Trump.
It's also worth noting that Nicolás Maduro's final act as president of Venezuela was meeting with a Chinese official, just hours before the military operation to capture him was unleashed. During that meeting, Maduro reaffirmed his alliance with China and emphasised the importance of their collaboration.
The third country is Iran. Both Iran and Venezuela are considered pariah nations and are both sanctioned by the USA. They are also united by anti-American ideology and collaborate in an attempt to circumvent US sanctions. Iran has provided Venezuela with significant aid in the form of missiles, drones, military hardware, technical expertise for energy infrastructure and intelligence sharing. They are therefore part of this so-called 'Axis'.
This is really important to President Trump and the United States. The United States has this attitude that all of the Americas are its backdoor and that it has a sphere of influence there. This is why the Monroe Doctrine, introduced by President James Monroe in 1823, has been referenced so much recently. It essentially came into force at a time when Spain had colonies in the Americas. By 1823, most of those colonies had achieved or were achieving independence, and Monroe essentially said: 'Europeans cannot come to the Americas any longer. We will not tolerate it; this is our area of influence. In exchange, we Americans won't interfere with Europe or its colonies either."
Now, in 1823, the United States was very weak. In fact, it was the British Navy — under the concept of the Pax Britannica — that successfully enforced the Monroe Doctrine on behalf of the Americans, because they were not interested in the Europeans going into the Americas. Eventually, however, America became strong enough to defend both North and South America. It has now extended this policy to any other country. No country can interfere in the Americas; this is the Monroe Doctrine. Famously, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it almost led to World War III when President Nikita Krushchev wanted to deploy weapons in Cuba. This has been American policy for a long time, however, we haven't really seen it enacted by successive presidents for the last 30 years, but it has been in the past. President Trump is simply reverting to that traditional outlook, which was also supported by President Reagan and others, for example in the invasion of Grenada, even though it was a Commonwealth nation.
Now, President Trump's decision to intervene in Venezuela has caused a split within the MAGA movement. Those who might style themselves as MAGA purists, led by figures such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, disagree with the president about the decision to intervene, as you can read about it here on this article. They believe it contradicts Trump's 'America First' policy. They believe that interventionism will embroil America in overseas military endeavours again. 'America First' means not intervening in foreign wars or engaging in regime change operations.
Many people backed Donald Trump because he opposed the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan, and criticised the intervention in Libya and long overseas deployments. They therefore see this move into Venezuela as another foreign entanglement that diverts attention away from domestic policies. They want the government to focus on domestic issues such as inflation, crime, the border and the war on drugs, rather than diverting attention to Ukraine, Venezuela and elsewhere.
They also believe that regime change has always been disastrous in recent years. We just need to look at the countries where Western countries have intervened. The country they left behind was almost never an improvement on the previous regime, with power vacuums, civil wars and terrorism. They fear that the United States of America could be stuck funding and stabilising Venezuela for years. It is true that Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya were disasters. However, it could be argued that Trump's strategy in Venezuela was designed specifically to avoid those pitfalls.
The problem in Iraq was that the Americans eliminated the entire ruling class, creating a huge power vacuum. This resulted in a military occupation, which then became a problem in itself. In Libya, the opposite happened; there was no occupation, and the country descended into civil war and terrorism. In Afghanistan, it was simply impossible to govern the country. So what we've seen in Venezuela is a very different approach. There will be no American troops on the ground. This is remote control. There will be no long-term deployment of American troops on the ground, as we saw in Iraq. Unlike in Libya, the regime's leadership is not being removed; the vice president is actually being kept in place, and it is hoped that she will be influenced and told what to do. Otherwise, the same will happen to her as happened to Maduro. The idea is that there will be a transition period away from this regime during which either the opposition leader who won the election by a landslide will be put in power or fresh elections will be held.
All of this is unclear. This is one of the criticisms. No one really knows what the strategy is. Americans are very good at military implementation and victory, but when it comes to what happens next, we haven't had many success stories.
We need more clarity, and hopefully the plan is either to hold new elections or to install the person who won the last election as soon as possible. However, there is also a lot of distrust in the MAGA movement regarding foreign policy elites and defence contractors. As we saw in Iraq, many defence contractors wanted to make money through lobbying to enter these countries. Most importantly, there are also oil interests at stake. We must ask ourselves whether this is a genuine war of liberation or whether, as was suspected with Iraq, it is actually more about securing oil reserves, which would benefit the oil giants. The fact that American companies will benefit from the situation by getting a large chunk of the oil certainly casts a shadow over the more noble and moral aspects of this intervention.
At the same time, President Trump will point out that Venezuela's oil industry was built using American talent, drive and skill. Then, the socialist government effectively stole billions of dollars' worth of American assets and infrastructure by seizing it. Trump believes that this 'theft' is one of the greatest injustices against the United States. He believes that Venezuela unilaterally took control of platforms and resources developed by American companies such as Exxon Mobil. Trump believes that Maduro's regime was the worst in this respect because it allowed the oil infrastructure to decay through mismanagement, corruption and underinvestment. It should therefore be producing much more oil than it is at the moment, given that Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, even larger than those in Saudi Arabia.
Trump's argument is that by capturing Maduro and placing Venezuela under temporary US interim rule until a safe transition can be made, the United States can prevent further chaos there, ensure stability and block adversaries like Russia and China. Crucially, they can also invest in the oil industry. American companies could increase oil production, generating more revenue to be invested back into Venezuela — a win-win situation for everyone. Therefore, it is not imperialism, as many people are suggesting. Instead, Trump argues that this is humanitarian and strategically and economically beneficial to Venezuela.
And there are the more mainstream arguments of the left, the Democrats, the French and the British, as well as other governments in Europe and around the world. The Liberal Democrats, Green Parties and others say that this is a clear breach of international law and U.S. constitutional and domestic law. They argue that bypassing Congress entirely violates the requirement for Congress to approve war and has resulted in executive overreach without any public or legislative consent. It violates the UN Charter. There was no Security Council mandate for this intervention and it is unprecedented to take a head of state in this matter. It erodes the rule-based order and replaces it with a system where power dictates everything and 'Might' is right. This allows powerful nations to ignore international law at will. The Trump Administration's response to this is that it was simply a surgical law enforcement operation and that it wasn't a war. They claim that it didn't require the approval of Congress and that the president has every right to support the execution of federal arrest warrants under his existing powers. They also claim that this was essentially about an arrest warrant rather than regime change, and that the regime hasn't changed. And that under Article Two, the President's powers include the right to enforce U.S. laws extraterritorially. This is what the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has said, and therefore it is entirely legitimate.
Regarding the issue of drugs, the criticism of this argument is that Venezuela is not actually that significant an exporter of drugs to the U.S.. In fact, few cocaine shipments head north from Venezuela. As you can read on in this Statista article and see on the map as below, only 8% of cocaine entering the US comes via the Caribbean corridor, which includes Venezuela. However, the vast majority (74%) comes via the Eastern Pacific and Western Caribbean vectors. Colombia and Ecuador are much more significantly involved in the American drugs battles.
Another argument is that it is without precedent for a foreign state to enter another country and kidnap its head of state. Firstly, as aforementioned, Maduro was not the legitimate Head of State. Secondly, there is precedent in recent history: on 3 January 1990, the US invaded Panama to capture Manuel Noriega, the country's dictator. Originally an American proxy and CIA informant, he then went rogue and became a criminal drug trafficker involved in murders. He was arrested and tried in the USA on multiple charges, including drug trafficking and racketeering. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1992. Note the date: he was captured on 3 January 1990. Maduro was captured on 3 January 2026. The same date, exactly. This cannot have been a coincidence. This was clearly designed to show that it had been done before. Therefore, there is a precedent for it. More broadly, however, the argument that a sovereign territory can never be invaded is inaccurate. The United States has invaded many countries in the Americas and elsewhere in Latin America, as you can see in this link: (United States involvement in regime change in Latin America) as well as on the list of countries ordered by date below:
You can also check that, in this link, the United States involvement in regime change in countries around the world. Since the 19th century, the US government has been involved in, and has participated and interfered in, the replacement of many foreign governments, both overtly and covertly.
So, there are clearly examples, especially with regard to the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, of American governments of all political persuasions recognising the need to enter countries if it serves American interests. Much of this essentially boils down to defending American interests, prioritising America means ensuring America has complete control of the Americas.
The idea is also put forward that this will embolden people like Putin to violate international law and the sovereignty of other nations. However, Russia has actually been doing this since it invaded Georgia and Crimea, and we need only look at the way it has poisoned people in England and assassinated political opponents, and in other parts around the world. Russia does not need any inspiration from America to violate international norms.
One argument is to ask what would stop Putin from kidnapping President Zelenskyy in Ukraine now. This is like comparing apples and oranges. Maduro was loathed and hated by the Venezuelan people. He was not democratically elected. His removal was morally justifiable. By contrast, if Putin were to take Zelenskyy away, he would be removing an elected leader who is not loathed and hated by the entire Ukrainian population in the same way that Maduro was. Zelenskyy still has a huge amount of support. These are therefore entirely different situations.
Some people also say that this is not motivated by humanitarian concerns, but by a personal grudge that Donald Trump holds against Maduro because he has been mocked and taunted by him in the past. In fact, there may be some truth in that, as Maduro also mocked the way Donald Trump danced in one video, and in another he set out a direct challenge to Trump, saying, 'Come and get me. I'm here in Miraflores, I'm waiting for you! Don't take too long. Coward!.'
One thing you shouldn't do is poke Donald Trump like this.
Remember when President Obama mocked Donald Trump at a press dinner and challenged him to stand for election? He never thought he would. But being mocked by Obama is probably what made Trump decide to stand for election, defeating a powerful career politician like Hillary Clinton, despite all the campaign and bad press against him. You could see why being mocked by Maduro might have been just what was needed to make Trump consider removing him from office in Venezuela.
You can also watch Maduro mocking Trump's dance in this video here, and judge for yourself. Given what we know about President Trump, it's easy to imagine how he might react and decide that revenge is best served cold — and from the air.
Some legitimate questions can be asked about President Trump's decision to endorse Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's vice-president, who has been sworn in as Venezuela's interim president. She is just as bad as Maduro. She is far-left; her father was a communist agitator and she follows in his footsteps. She is a communist and has been involved in all the political suppression that Maduro has overseen. As Maduro's vice-president, she is responsible for much of the corruption and the way in which the Venezuelan police and army have dealt with the population as a whole, not to mention all of the disastrous policies that have led to Venezuela's bankruptcy.
What seems clear is that the international rules-based order, which has dominated the world since the end of the Second World War — and even more so since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s — is in an existential crisis. This order was built around institutions such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Trade Organization and the IMF. However, we have not really seen the whole world abide by international law. Only countries like Britain and those in the Anglosphere feel compelled to do so, along with parts of Western Europe. However, even France and Spain routinely flout international law. It does seem as if we are entering a new era in which the Anglosphere, and now also the United States under Trump, is finally understanding that you need to prioritise your own national self-interest above everything else. This is a return to the great power politics of the 19th century, where essentially 'Might' was right. Russia, China and India have no intention of prioritising international law over their own national interests. If you want to engage with Russia and China, you essentially have to play by the same strong power politics. The only things Russia, India and China understand and respect are self-confidence, assertiveness and the ability to prioritise national interests.
The West and Britain were at their strongest when they had a clear sense of identity. They were self-confident and prioritised their own interests. However, Britain and the West are now at their lowest point because they have rejected that mindset. They now live in a culture of nihilism, self-flagellation, and guilt. Leaders in Britain and the EU, as well as in most other European countries, are destroying their countries and impoverishing their people by allowing uncontrolled immigration of people with political and religious ideologies, and cultures that are incompatible with their way of life and culture. They are allowing the enemy to enter their borders and destroy their countries from within.
This brings us to another issue: Greenland. Trump feels that the EU is weak and incapable to protect its territories, and therefore he feels he cannot trust EU leaders, as he has hinted at many times. This has probably led him to believe that the Americans should own Greenland and keep it 'safe' for themselves, but we all know that is not the case. There's more to it than that, but I will discuss this in more detail in another article.
So, it does seem as if we now have a world of spheres of influence, with the United States of America controlling North and South America, and Russia has its own sphere of influence. China also has its own sphere of influence. This means that Britain and Europe must step up and meet them eye-to-eye as they also were great powers. If they are to return to a world of great power politics, they must abandon their globalist dreams, flex their muscles, and ensure they can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other great powers around the world, if they want to keep their territories safe, and above all, not being pushed around by their American counterparts, who are threatening and demanding ownership of an important and significant portion of their territory — Greenland.
And there you have it.
If you liked this, please share it with your friends and comment respectfully, we are all allowed to agree to disagree respectfully and still be in good terms with each other. No point at becoming enemies just because we think differently. If we cannot be friends at least we can be frenemies. Bless!
Sources: in the links implemented in highlighted words in red throughout the article, and analysis by Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, Historian & Royal Commentator.
-----------------------
website Phoenix Translations
email: inquiry88phoenix@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment