Trump says he doesn’t need international law amid aggressive US policy | Donald Trump News

US President Donald Trump has rejected international law, saying only his “own morality” can curb the aggressive policies he is pursuing around the world following the kidnapping of Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro.

“I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people,” Trump told the New York Times on Thursday.

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When asked whether he had to follow international law, Trump said yes, but that it “depends on your definition of international law.”

Trump has shown a willingness to use the brute force of the U.S. military to achieve his foreign policy goals.

The United States launched an early morning attack on Venezuela on Saturday, with explosions reported in the capital Caracas and at Venezuelan military bases.

U.S. troops ultimately kidnapped Venezuelan President Maduro in Caracas, in what critics say was a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

The attack on Venezuela appears to have exacerbated the belligerence of the US president, who received the inauguration ceremony FIFA Peace Prize last month.

Immediately after the attack, Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela and exploit the country’s vast oil reserves, although his administration said it would cooperate with interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

Yet the Trump administration said so would “dictate” policy to the interim government and repeatedly threatened a “second wave” of military actions if US demands were not obeyed.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she’s going to pay a very high price, probably higher than Maduro’s,” Trump said of Rodriguez in an interview Sunday with The Atlantic.

Earlier this week, Trump also suggested the United States could carry out a strike against Colombia’s left-wing president. Gustavo Petroand he intensified his campaign to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.

In June, Trump joined Israel unprovoked war against Iran, ordering the bombing of the country’s three main nuclear sites.

Trump aide Stephen Miller criticized the post-World War II international order, saying that from now on, the United States would “shamelessly” use its military force to secure its interests in the Western Hemisphere.

“We are a superpower, and under President Trump’s leadership, we are going to behave like a superpower,” Miller told CNN on Monday.

But experts warn that failure to comply with international law could have catastrophic consequences for the entire global community, including the United States.

International law is the set of rules and norms that govern relations between states. It includes United Nations conventions and multilateral treaties.

Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told Al Jazeera earlier this week that US statements rejecting international law were “extremely dangerous”.

Satterthwaite expressed concern that the world could return to an “age of imperialism,” noting that degrading international laws could encourage Washington’s adversaries to launch their own acts of aggression.

“International law cannot prevent states from committing terrible acts if they commit to doing so,” Satterthwaite told Al Jazeera.

“And I think the world is aware of all the atrocities that have happened in Gaza Recently, and despite the efforts made by many States and certainly by the UN to put an end to these atrocities, they have continued. But I think our situation is worse if we don’t insist on the international law that exists. We are simply going down a much worse slippery slope.”

Yusra Suedi, assistant professor of international law at the University of Manchester, warned against the belief that “might is right” and the tendency to disregard international law.

“This signals something very dangerous, in the sense that it allows other states to follow suit – states like China, which might have its sights set on Taiwan, or Russia with regard to Ukraine,” Suedi told Al Jazeera.

Ian Hurd, a political science professor at Northwestern University, said the story illustrates the perils of U.S. policy in Latin America.

The region has witnessed more than a century of US invasions and US-backed military coups, leading to instability, repression and human rights abuses.

“There are countless historical examples of this, from Panama to Haiti to Nicaragua to Chile in the 70s and so on,” Hurd told Al Jazeera.

He added that Trump’s Venezuela policy is “consistent” with how the United States has previously tried to decide how other parts of the Americas are governed.

“You can see that in each of these cases, the United States has come to regret its choice to intervene. It never works out well.”