Opinion In Venezuela, Trump’s lawless grab opens risky new chapter

Few will shed a tear for Nicolas Maduro. His autocratic rule hollowed out Venezuela’s institutions, crushed dissent, subverted elections and violated human rights. The pre-dawn US operation to capture and transport him to New York on charges of drug trafficking may be presented as making Venezuela a safer place but how it was carried out suggests the opposite. Indeed, the manner in which US President Donald Trump has taken out a sitting president — through an air, land and sea assault that penetrated the capital — sends a message far beyond Caracas. It tells the world that the so-called rules-based order, already badly frayed, exists largely as a slogan. Be it Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, or Trump himself, first in global trade and now in Venezuela, anything goes. Doesn’t matter if it’s illegal, lacking Congressional authorisation at home or UN Security Council sanction abroad.

That Washington was moving against Maduro was evident for months. Trump repeatedly claimed, on thin evidence, that the Venezuelan leader was funnelling drugs and criminals into the US. The US also carried out more than two dozen strikes in international waters — themselves illegal — against vessels it alleged were involved in drug smuggling, killing over 100 people. The operation fits neatly into Trump’s recently unveiled National Security Strategy, which calls for “a hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists.” The harder question is what comes next for Venezuela, home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Trump has said the US will “run” the country and that its “broken infrastructure” would be repaired by US oil companies. He has also made clear, for now, that he has little interest in working with the opposition led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado. Should the US consolidate control over the petro-state’s leadership and resources, it would replace an authoritarian regime with an extractive order, the dangers of which include protracted armed conflict with militias and resistance groups, refugee flows and wider regional destabilisation.

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Last year ,Trump unleashed tariff wars across the globe. This year opens with regime change in Venezuela and the threat of one in Iran. Pushback has been muted. Europe has limited itself to calls for restraint; as expected, Russia, China, Brazil and Iran have been critical. India’s direct stakes are limited. New Delhi has called the development a “matter of deep concern.” Months after Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs, a trade deal still hangs fire. Like most countries, India will have to play it by ear. Trump has opened a new, dangerous chapter in regime change and “nation-building.” The world can do little but watch how the US handles the day after in a nation of 28 million people whose sovereignty it has so brazenly breached.