On Saturday the third of January, the USA bombed Venezuela and captured its president: how could this unfold in the coming days?
What has happened so far?
At 2am Saturday morning reports of bombing in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, emerged. Videos circulated on social media, showing explosions and low flying military planes in the capital and nearby infrastructure sites, like Higuerote Airport and La Guaira Port. The planes touched down at 02:01 and the Maduro, the President of Venezuela, was captured by US forces as he attempted to enter a steel safe room. US forces had exited by 04:29 and Trump announced the attack on Truth Social shortly after.
This attack seemed to be the USA and Trump sticking its elbows out and showing its strength across the world. It sent a message to the rest of NATO, Russia, and China, to not mess with Trump. As well as a performative action, this gives the USA access to Venezuelan Oil Reserves—the largest area of proved oil fields in the world. This is no secret as Trump himself has expressed interests in pumping
Venezuelan oil in a range of press conferences since the attack, including saying the Venezuelans will be ‘turning over 30-50 million barrels’ of oil to the US.
It's hard not to draw similarities between this case and the last time the USA attacked a country for its oil: Iraq. However, there are some key major differences. Unlike Iraq, America don’t seem to be flooding the government departments with US officials and essentially running the country for them. It instead seems to be a remote governing, controlling what Venezuela can and can’t do through military force. They currently have military presence in the Caribbean Sea, and Venezuelan waters. This creates a quasi-puppet government, where the Venezuelan Vice President will run things, but she will essentially be there to appease the USA.
It is important to note that the Vice President was chosen by Maduro, considered by most countries to be a dictator who stole the last election. This means she is a Maduro loyalist, and would be inclined to continue the Maduro regime which followed directly from the infamous rule of Hugo Chavez, however he suffered from less popularity due to his lack of charisma and ability to carry out the populist agenda. A continuation of the regime means that things would not necessarily improve for the Venezuelan people, even if the Vice President were to appease Trump.
Many would have expected Trump to endorse the pro-democratic leader of the opposition, and winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Corina Machado, but he claims that she lacked the respect of the Venezuelan people to rule and wouldn’t be a respected leader. This shows the world that no element of this was about improving the state of democracy in Venezuela, however this is not surprising. Trump himself has broken and stretched democratic norms to aid his political career. For example, both Maduro and Trump packed their respective Supreme Courts with loyalists. It is highly likely that Maduro rigged his previous election, and Trump has contested the results, accused the opposition of vote rigging, as well as delegitimising his opponents, calling Hilary Clinton a criminal repeatedly, and often stating that Obama wasn’t American. Another stark similarity is that Trump is a convicted felon, and the USA want to convict Maduro on drug trafficking and weapons charges. This all leads to the conclusion that Trump isn’t, and never was, interested in improving Venezuelan democracy, which is what many world leaders, whether they condemn the action or not, have praised. He is not interested in the upkeep of democratic norms, and instead, is more interested in the political points he can score on the global stage and the oil in Venezuela.
Speaking of democratic norms, Trump has broken international law. Most world leaders have condemned this, but not Kier Starmer. Starmer has instead chosen to take the stance of acknowledging the benefits that Maduro has been taken, rather than condemning the action itself. This provided tough scrutiny and hard work for Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper who seemed to struggle to hold the government’s position in a recent announcement in the House of Commons. However, this is a clear breach of the UN Charter Article 2(4), which prohibits the use of force against any other country, except for in the case of self-defence (Article 51), and drug trafficking is not included in this. Therefore, extraditing Maduro is illegal, even despite the authoritarian regime. Many critics even say that Trump is on course to break the Fourth Geneva Convention Article 55 and the Hague Convention 1907 Article 55 stating that public property and resources cannot be depleted by an occupying state, and any resources used requires fair payment. If Trump were to use Venezuelan Oil for the USA to profit, as he has suggested, then it would break these conventions.
What could this mean for the world?
We’ve already seen what this means for Venezuela, not much change in regime and Trump having control over many of their resources - but what about the ripple effect on other countries? Trump and
Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, have already warned Colombia and Cuba that they could be next, calling it in the interest of US security, due to the drugs trafficking coming from those countries. The Monroe Doctrine, or, as Trump calls his version, the Don-roe Doctrine, is a declaration by the USA that Europe should not touch the Western Hemisphere, and that the USA has the right to do as they wish in the Western Hemisphere in the name of national security. Whilst many call this out of date, the current administration are using this to justify the invasion and fearmongering of sovereign states, in order to flounce prowess, take natural resources all in the name of the USA’s security, and most European leaders aren’t standing for it.
In addition to wanting to go after Cuba and Columbia, the US have their sights on Greenland. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. This means they govern themselves with internal policy, but Denmark gives them funding and handles most foreign policy. This isn’t the first time we have seen Trump go after Greenland. He wants it for a few reasons: one, he believes it is important for the security of the USA as they have access to the Arctic Circle, including the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, where many Russian ships and subs pass through; two, he wants the minerals and natural resources there; three, it would be a show of power over Europe; four, there will be shipping lanes opening up as Arctic ice melts. He only lays claim to the first reason, however this is a strange reason to need control of Greenland as Denmark has previously allowed US military bases and equipment, and it was the USA who withdrew them. If they were to ask, there is a high chance they would be able to do such a thing. It is no reason to threaten a NATO ally over something this futile. This is what leads many political scientists and theorists to think there are other reasons in play.
This renewed interest in the Monroe Doctrine and expansion of US territory could be a sign of neo-colonialism - meaning Trump may want to expand the USA’s territory on the map. This is a dangerous sentiment, attacking sovereign nations, and returning to a time where humans lacked respect for each other. Trump has previously showed interest in this, stating that he wants to go after many areas like Greenland, Cuba and even Canada, making them part of the USA. This America First ideology, making it seem like America is the best way of living, is dangerous for those inside America, limiting their access to other ways of life, with stronger democratic norms, better schools, and universal healthcare, creating a sense of dangerous nationalism amongst much of the electorate.
The USA have also been stopping ships going in and out of Venezuela, and captured a Russian flagged ship heading to Venezuela, with the help of the UK. This is extremely similar action to that of the British Empire, taking ships and cargo under their own control to prevent the development and infringe upon other nations. This return to colonialist ideals is frightening and gives the green flag for other countries to perhaps look into this as well.
However, perhaps the most frightening repercussion, even more so than a weaking of NATO via Greenland, is the green light this gives Russia, China, and North Korea to conduct similar attacks. If Russia were to take out Volodymyr Zelenski, or China take out the leader of Taiwan, they could claim this in the interest of national security, as a precedent, with the most powerful Western country, has been set. If this is forgiven, International Law is severely weakened, and chaos could ensue global relations. This frightening situation, whilst not guaranteed, is not impossible, and could lead to a quick breakdown in any peace negotiations in these conflicts.
In conclusion, this attack sets a frightening precedent, and it cannot be condoned by the international community, in order for future global safety. Otherwise, we could see similar US operations in Cuba, Colombia, or Greenland (which could lead to a NATO breakdown), or even Russia and China attacking their opponents in some of the world’s biggest conflicts. Will Europe, and the rest of the international community be able to come together, and stop such blatant breaking of international law in the future? Only time will tell, but, if anything is for certain, this everchanging situation will have large repercussions.
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