Donald Trump characterised the US attack on Venezuela not as military action, but as law enforcement to capture “fugitive of American justice” president Nicolas Maduro. So Congressional approval was not required, he argues, and, anyway, there was no time to get Congress on board, despite the very public build-up off the coast over three months of 15,000 US troops and an aircraft carrier.
The US president will probably, however, not have much trouble with a pliant Congress, dominated by Republican allies, in retrospectively legitimising his blatantly illegal action, or with his largely unquestioning, loyal Maga base on a monumental policy U-turn back to military interventionism.
The UN charter’s Article 2(4) prohibits a nation from using force on the sovereign territory of another country without its consent, except in self defence, or unless authorised by the UN Security Council. The US Constitution makes ratified treaties, the UN charter included, part of the “supreme law of the land”.
The pretext for invasion – that Maduro is an “illegitimate” president who rigged his own 2024 re-election– will not wash. That determination must be one for a court, not a foreign government. And, while arresting someone to stand trial is a law enforcement operation, not self-defence, US intelligence agencies have publicly debunked the Trump myth that Maduro and Venezuela are significant exporters to the US of the drug fentanyl, as well as being a source of cocaine.
READ MORE
As Putin, and China with its eyes on Taiwan, watch on approvingly, Trump is reviving a brutal history of US gunboat diplomacy. He is dangerously turning back the clock to another era, reasserting the imperial principle of might is right in carving up spheres of influence. And Trump sees the Americas as properly under US control.
Between 1898 and 1994 there were 41 successful US interventions to change governments in Latin America. The first of them, in the 1840 was the invasion and seizure of more than half of Mexico, now comprising the territory of five US states. It was a century in which the US installed and upheld a number of brutal dictatorships.
Now Trump is promising “to run” Venezuela until a new government is installed, giving US oil companies free rein to take over the country’s vast oilfields. This is no simple arrest operation, but how Trump can achieve his goals is far from clear with a confusing political picture in Caracas. Interim leader and former vice-president Delcy Rodriguez has attacked the US action, but Washington may feel that she will toe the US line.
Meanwhile, will the US’s western “democratic” allies, many of them Nato members, simply sit quiet saying little of consequence for fear of offending their friend in Washington?
