Not many would have forgotten that US President Donald Trump proudly claimed that he did not send a single American soldier to fight overseas during his first term (2016–’20). After entering the White House for the second time in January 2025, he asked to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping eight wars in the world within a period of 10 months.
Since the beginning of his second term, he has been talking about capturing and occupying countries and territories. He talked about making Canada, a neighbouring country that does not cause any problems, the 51st state of the US; about annexing the island of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark; and owning the Panama Canal.
Trump, who has supported Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, has also expressed his desire to evacuate people from Gaza and turn the valley into a riviera.
Although New Delhi has categorically denied that Trump had anything to do with the cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, international media reported that he had so far said more than 70 times that he was responsible for stopping the war between the two nuclear-armed South Asian countries. While presenting himself as a peacemaker on the one hand, Trump has bombed Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran on the other.
Attack on Venezuela
On 3 January, a day after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro offered ‘serious talks’ with Washington, the US carried out a large-scale airstrike, kidnapped him and his wife Cilia Flores, and detained them in New York. Maduro is standing trial in the US on charges of leading a ‘narco-terrorist movement.’
President Trump has said that the US Constitution allows him to intervene in Venezuela, arguing that as Commander-in-Chief of US forces, it is his duty to protect the American people. But no sane person would say that Venezuela posed a security threat to the US. The Trump administration has offered no credible evidence that Maduro ran a drug cartel.
Trump had set his sights on Venezuela during his first term. His administration formally charged Maduro and his top aides with alleged involvement in drug trafficking. The US and its Western allies recognised Opposition politician Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s Acting President.
Venezuela has been a top priority of Trump’s foreign policy since he returned to office in January 2025. The US had declared a ‘war on drugs,’ accusing Maduro of being one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world. Furthermore, the US announced a $ 50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
The Trump administration, which has sent thousands of troops and warships to the Caribbean, said that several boats allegedly trafficking drugs had been destroyed in the airstrikes, but in reality, several hundreds of people were killed in the attacks.
Trump authorised the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out clandestine operations inside Venezuela and imposed a naval quarantine on oil tankers to and from the country. US forces are reported to have seized five oil tankers carrying ‘banned oil’ as of 9 January.
Even after Maduro’s arrest, neither Venezuela’s military structures nor the State apparatus collapsed, as was widely expected. Right-wing Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado, who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, fully supports the US President’s policies, but Trump dismissed her as lacking the popular support and respect needed to govern the South American country.
Vice President Delcy Rodríguez took over the Government as Acting President the following day by order of the Supreme Court of Venezuela. Trump immediately warned that Rodríguez would have to pay a huge price if the Interim Government refused to cooperate with the US. It is true that the vast majority of Venezuelans were disgusted with Maduro’s Government because of the economic crisis and his autocratic way of ruling.
However, the US has no locus standi or authority to kidnap the leader of a sovereign nation. If Trump’s job is to kidnap and imprison foreign leaders for misrule and repression, he will have to make choices from a long list of such rulers, including some in power with US economic and military support.
Trump has openly declared that the US will run Venezuela for as long as he wants and use its vast oil resources, adding that the Interim Government, run by jailed Maduro loyalists, has been giving the US everything it feels it needs.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times at the White House on 9 January, Trump said that the US would profitably rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and give the country the money it desperately needed.
A long history of regional intervention
The US has a long history of interventions in South America and the Caribbean, spanning more than two centuries. But the 3 January airstrikes on Venezuela were the first direct US military attack on a South American country. Since the middle of the 19th century, the US has intervened in its continental neighbours, not only through economic pressure but also militarily, with invasions and occupations.
Last week’s US military operation in Venezuela closely resembles the arrest of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega 36 years ago. President George H.W. Bush ordered Panama’s invasion by about 27,000 troops to capture Noriega, a former CIA ally who had been indicted on drug-trafficking charges.
Although the US has helped military dictators to topple democratically elected governments and seize power in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, overt military activities in South America and the Caribbean have historically been limited to its closest neighbours. But now, a direct military strike on a South American country marks a significant shift in US foreign and security policies.
A threefold agenda
Why does Trump want regime change in Venezuela, which poses no serious security threat to the United States? It is also not even a major drug-producing country. International political observers and strategists identify three main reasons for the US aggression.
First, Trump wants to re-impose the US’s primacy in the Western Hemisphere of the world. James Monroe, the fifth President of the US, made a declaration in 1823 promising that the US would not interfere in European affairs in order to ensure that European powers would not interfere or exercise colonial domination over the countries of the American continent in the future. This is known as the Monroe Doctrine.
In line with that doctrine, Trump now wants to keep the Western Hemisphere as the US’s sphere of influence. The National Security Strategy issued by his administration recently identifies Latin America and the Caribbean region as strategic priorities. American media and experts dubbed it the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’
The National Security Strategy document insists that the US must deny influence or control by outside powers in Latin America and ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains under American political, economic, and military influence.
Second, while reinforcing American primacy, the US would also want to keep Chinese and Russian influence in the region under check. China has already made huge investments in Latin America through its Belt and Road Initiative. It is also the largest or second-largest trading partner of most countries in the region.
Third, the US wants to replace Left-wing leaders with Far-Right ones in most Latin American countries.
Speaking to reporters after Maduro’s arrest, Trump said that America’s hegemony in the Western Hemisphere would never again be called into question.
A grave danger
The US has undermined the sovereignty and security of other countries by attacking Venezuela.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has expressed dismay that the US attack has undermined the basic principle of international law, adopted after the horrors of two World Wars in the last century, that states should not use force for their territorial claims or political demands.
Türk added that the US action had seriously weakened the United Nations, the only mechanism for preventing conflicts, calling on the international community to stand up for the rule of law.
After Venezuela, Trump has threatened Colombia, Greenland, Mexico, Cuba, and Iran. European powers have not shown the same impulse to denounce US interference in Venezuela as they did in condemning Maduro’s authoritarianism.
His interview with The New York Times reveals Trump’s determination to continue to use the US’s military might for profit and political supremacy. He said that he did not feel constrained by any international laws, norms, or checks and balances. He also said that he did not feel obliged to abide by international laws and norms.
When asked if there would be any limits to his ability to use US military power, he replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” He added: “I don’t need international law.”
Trump appears to view the norms of the post-World War II order, which the US helped establish, as an unnecessary burden. For him, it is national strength alone that should be the deciding factor when nations’ interests collide.
In his view, past US Presidents have been too cautious when it comes to exercising the nation’s power. He indicated that the US would remain in charge of Venezuela for as long as he wanted, even for several years. Trump has also suggested that he would be unhappy with anything short of “ownership” of Greenland, that Europe has to “shape up,” and that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is useless without the US.
Asked whether his action might provide a precedent in Ukraine and Taiwan, the US President shrugged off the idea and said Chinese President Xi Jinping wouldn’t dare attack Taiwan on his watch. “He may do it after we have a different president, but I don’t think he is going to do it with me as President,” Trump said.
His recklessly audacious declarations underline the grave danger that the world will have to face in the coming days. In retrospect, Trump’s transformation of the US Department of Defense into the Department of War makes it clear that he had plans in mind for a number of aggressions.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)