Trump’s raid on Maduro could set precedent for authoritarian powers around the world

With the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump demonstrated more powerfully than ever his confidence in the power of his will, backed by the raw military force of the United States. On his orders, the United States put Maduro behind bars and will now “run” Venezuela.

The US president made the announcement during a remarkable press conference with enormous implications for US foreign policy around the world at his Florida club and residence, Mar-a-Lago. Trump said the United States would be in control of Venezuela “until we can make a safe, appropriate and wise transition.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said, spoke with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who told him “we will do whatever you need… She, I think, has been very gracious, but she really has no choice.”

Trump was not detail-oriented. He said: “We are not afraid of the troops on the ground if we have to [them]”.

But does he believe he can govern Venezuela from a distance? Will this demonstration that he will back his words with military action, widely praised at Mar-a-Lago by Marco Rubio and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, be enough to reshape Venezuela and force Latin American leaders to comply?

It seemed like he believed something like that.

It is obvious that this will not be easy or smooth.

The respected think tank International Crisis Group warned in October that Maduro’s fall could lead to violence and instability in Venezuela.

That same month, the New York Times reported that defense and diplomatic officials in the first Trump administration had imagined what might happen if Maduro fell. Their conclusion was the prospect of violent chaos as armed factions vied for power.

The impeachment and incarceration of Nicolas Maduro constitutes a remarkable affirmation of American military power.

The United States assembled a massive armada and achieved its objective without losing a single American life.

Maduro ignored the will of the Venezuelan people in brushing aside his own electoral defeat and, no doubt, his departure will be welcomed by many of its citizens.

But the implications of U.S. action will reverberate far beyond Venezuela’s borders.

The mood at the Mar-a-Lago press conference was triumphalist, as they celebrated what was undoubtedly a classic operation carried out by highly professional American forces.

The military operation is only the first step.

America’s record of forcible regime change over the past 30 years is disastrous.

Political oversight is what makes or breaks the process.

Iraq descended into a bloody catastrophe after the US invasion in 2003. In Afghanistan, two decades and billions of dollars of attempts at nation-building were swept away within days of the 2021 US withdrawal.

Neither country was in America’s backyard.

Yet the ghosts of past interventions in Latin America – and the threat of more to come – hold little promise.

Trump tried out a new nickname, the Donroe Doctrine, for the statement made by President James Monroe in 1823 warning other powers not to interfere with the American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’re way past it,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago. “Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never again be challenged.”

He said Colombian President Gustavo Petro needed to “watch his butt.”

He later told Fox News that “we’re going to have to do something with Mexico.”

Cuba is undoubtedly also on the agenda of the United States, led by Rubio, whose parents are Cuban-American.

The United States has a long history of armed intervention in Latin America.

I was in Haiti in 1994 when President Bill Clinton sent 25,000 troops and two aircraft carriers to force regime change. Then, the Haitian regime collapsed without a shot being fired. Far from heralding a better future, the 30 years that followed were a period of almost uninterrupted misery for the Haitian people. Haiti is now a failed state dominated by armed gangs.

Donald Trump talked about making Venezuela great again, but not about democracy. He rejected the idea that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, should lead the country.

“I think it would be very difficult for her to be a leader, she doesn’t have the support… She doesn’t have the respect.”

He did not mention Edmundo González, who many Venezuelans believe was the rightful winner of the 2024 elections.

Instead, the United States, at least for now, is supporting Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez.

Although there must have been some sort of internal collusion that gave the U.S. military the inside knowledge it needed to remove Maduro, the regime created by his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, appears intact.

The Venezuelan armed forces, despite the humiliation their generals might feel at their inability to oppose the American attack, are unlikely to accept the American plans.

The military and civilian supporters of the regime have enriched themselves through networks of corruption that they do not want to lose.

Civilian militias have been armed by the regime and Venezuela has other armed groups.

They include criminal networks, as well as Colombian guerrillas who supported the Maduro regime in exchange for sanctuary.

The US intervention in Venezuela highlights some of the sources of Trump’s worldview.

He does not hide his covetousness for the mineral wealth of other countries.

He has previously attempted to profit from Ukraine’s natural resources in exchange for military assistance.

Trump makes no secret of his desire to control Venezuela’s enormous mineral reserves and his belief that U.S. oil companies were robbed during the nationalization of the oil industry.

“We’re going to extract a tremendous amount of wealth from the ground, and that wealth will go to the Venezuelan people and people coming from outside of Venezuela who were in Venezuela, and it will also go to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement.”

This will reinforce fears in Greenland and Denmark that it is looking north as well as south.

The United States has not abandoned its desire to absorb Greenland, for its strategic position in the Arctic as well as its natural resources which are becoming increasingly accessible as its ice melts due to global warming.

The Maduro operation is also another blow to the idea that the best way to run the world is to follow an agreed set of rules, as set out in international law.

The idea was abandoned before Donald Trump came to power, but he has already demonstrated several times, both in the United States and internationally, that he believed he could ignore laws he did not like.

European allies, desperate not to anger him, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, are struggling to say they support the idea of ​​international law without condemning that Maduro’s operation is a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter.

The U.S. justification that its military was simply assisting in the execution of an arrest warrant for a drug lord posing as Venezuela’s president is thin, especially given Trump’s declarations that the United States will now control the country and its oil industry.

Hours before the arrest of Maduro and his wife, he met with Chinese diplomats at his palace in Caracas.

China condemned the US action. He said that “the hegemonic acts of the United States seriously violate international law and the sovereignty of Venezuela and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region.”

The United States should “stop violating the sovereignty and security of other countries.”

Still, China could see a precedent set by U.S. action.

He considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has said its return to Beijing’s control is a national priority.

In Washington, this is certainly the fear of the Democratic vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner. He issued a statement saying that Chinese leaders, as well as others, would closely monitor the situation.

“If the United States claims the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what is stopping China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leaders? [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to invoke similar justifications to kidnap the Ukrainian president? Once this line is crossed, the rules that curb global chaos begin to break down, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it. »

Donald Trump seems to believe that he makes the rules, and what applies to the United States under his command does not mean that others can expect the same privileges.

But that’s not how the world of power works.

Its actions in early 2026 point to 12 more months of global turmoil.