The US military strike on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro have sent shockwaves worldwide, reigniting doubts about the credibility of the so-called rules-based international order. In this instance, power, not any principle, appears to be the decisive factor. Regardless of Maduro’s governance failures, the US operation clearly violates Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which forbids the use of force against another state’s sovereignty. In legal terms, it is an act of aggression.
There was no authorisation from the UN Security Council, and the claim of self-defence is unconvincing. No evidence has been presented to suggest that Venezuela posed an imminent threat to the US. Characterising Maduro as the head of a “narco-terrorist” network, which is central to Washington’s narrative, does not in itself establish a lawful basis for the use of force or justify a regime-change operation under international law.
Unsurprisingly, the operation is being read through the prism of America’s long and uneasy history of intervention in Latin America. The most immediate parallel is Panama in 1989, when US forces captured President Manuel Noriega, also indicted on drug-trafficking charges, and oversaw the installation of a new government. That precedent hangs heavily over Venezuela, reinforcing perceptions that this was less an exceptional response than a familiar assertion of power. Donald Trump’s own words strengthened that impression. Speaking about Maduro’s capture and suggesting that the US would “run” Venezuela during a transition, Trump framed the episode not as a limited security operation but as a decisive act of control.
Washington has sought to justify its actions by portraying Venezuela as a cartel state posing a direct threat to US security. This narrative exaggerates the danger and stretches the concept of self-defence. Looming over Trump’s arguments are Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest, a factor that continues to fuel scepticism about Washington’s true motives.
Many Venezuelans may not mourn the removal of a leader who presided over economic collapse and political repression. But the manner of his removal cannot be condoned. Toppling a foreign government by force sits uneasily with Trump’s earlier promise to end regime-change interventions after the costly failures of Iraq and Afghanistan. If the US now asserts the right to seize leaders and govern other nations at will, the international order it once upheld is not merely under strain. It is being deliberately dismantled.