With the seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump has demonstrated more powerfully than ever his belief in the power of his will, backed by raw US military force. On his orders the US has Maduro behind bars and now will 'run' Venezuela.
The US president made the announcement in a remarkable news conference with enormous implications for US foreign policy worldwide at his Florida club and residence, Mar-a-Lago. Trump said the US would be in charge in Venezuela 'until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition'.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said, had spoken to the Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez, who had told him 'we'll do whatever you need... She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn't have a choice'.
Trump was light on detail. He said that 'we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have [them]'. But does he believe that he can govern Venezuela by remote control? Will this demonstration that he will back words with military action, praised lavishly at Mar-a-Lago by both Marco Rubio and the US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, be enough to reshape Venezuela and browbeat Latin American leaders into compliance? It sounded as if he believes something like that.
The evidence is that it will not be easy or smooth.
The respected think tank, the International Crisis Group, warned in October that the fall of Maduro could lead to violence and instability in Venezuela. The same month The New York Times reported that defence and diplomatic officials in the first Trump administration had war-gamed what might happen if Maduro fell. Their conclusion was the prospect of violent chaos as armed factions competed for power.
The removal and incarceration of Nicolás Maduro is a remarkable assertion of American military power. The US assembled a massive armada and achieved its goal without losing a single American life.
Maduro had ignored the will of the Venezuelan people by sweeping aside his own electoral defeat and, without question, his departure will be welcomed by many of its citizens. But the implications of the US action will reverberate forward, way beyond Venezuela's borders.
The mood at the Mar-a-Lago news conference was triumphalist, as they celebrated what was undoubtedly a textbook operation carried out by highly professional US forces.
The military operation is only the first stage. America's record of achieving regime change by force in the last 30 years is disastrous. The political follow-up is what makes or breaks the process. Iraq descended into a bloody catastrophe after the US invasion in 2003. In Afghanistan two decades and billions of dollars' worth of attempted nation-building were swept away in days after the US pulled out in 2021. Neither country was in America's backyard. Yet the ghosts of interventions past in Latin America - and the threat of others yet to come - are scarcely more promising.
Trump tried out a new nickname, the Donroe Doctrine, for the declaration made by President James Monroe in 1823 warning other powers not to meddle in America's sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere. 'The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we've superseded it by a lot,' Trump said at Mar-a-Lago. 'Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again.'
He said that the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, had to 'watch his ass'. Later he told Fox News that 'something's going to have to be done with Mexico'. Cuba is undoubtedly also on the US agenda, which is being driven by Rubio, whose parents are Cuban-Americans.
The US has a long record of armed intervention in Latin America. I was in Haiti in 1994 when President Bill Clinton sent in 25,000 troops and two aircraft carriers to enforce regime change. Then, the Haitian regime crumbled without a shot being fired. Far from ushering in a better future, the 30 years since then have been a period of almost unbroken misery for the Haitian people. Haiti is now a failed state dominated by armed gangs.
Donald Trump talked of making Venezuela great again, but not about democracy. He dismissed the idea that the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, should lead the country. 'I think it'd be very tough for her to be the leader, she doesn't have the support... She doesn't have the respect.'
He did not mention Edmundo González, who many Venezuelans believe was the rightful winner of the 2024 elections. Instead, the US, for the time being anyway, is backing Maduro's Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez.
While there must have been some kind of internal collusion that gave the US military the inside knowledge it needed to remove Maduro, the regime created by his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, appears to be intact. It is unlikely that the Venezuelan armed forces... will acquiesce with US plans.
The Maduro operation also amounts to another serious blow to the idea that the best way to run the world is to follow an agreed set of rules, as laid out in international law. The idea was tattered before Donald Trump took office, but he has already demonstrated repeatedly both in the US and internationally that he believes he can ignore laws he doesn't like.
European allies... are wrestling with ways to say that they support the idea of international law without condemning the fact that the Maduro operation is a blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations. The US justification that its military was simply aiding the execution of an arrest warrant for a drug lord masquerading as Venezuela's president is thin, especially given Trump's declarations that the US will now control the country and its oil industry.
China condemned the US action. It said 'hegemonic acts of the US seriously violate international law and Venezuela's sovereignty and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region'. Even so, China might see a precedent set by the US action.
In Washington, that is certainly the fear of the Democratic vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner. He issued a statement saying China's leaders, and others, will be watching closely. 'If the United States asserts the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan's leadership?'
Trump seems to believe that he makes the rules, and what applies to the US under his command does not mean others can expect the same privileges. But that is not how the world of power works. His actions at the start of 2026 point to another 12 months of global turbulence.
