Capture of Maduro – classical Trumpian playbook

Last Saturday, marking an unprecedented event in the contemporary history of international relations, the former President of Venezuela cum unpopular dictator Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Flores were captured by US forces via Operation Absolute Resolve on the orders of the US Commander-in-chief Donald Trump. Trump had accused the Venezuelan leader of running a so-called narco terrorist organisation. In 2020, during the first term of Trump’s presidency, the US Department of Justice filed a major criminal indictment charging Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials with a range of serious crimes tied to drug trafficking and corruption.

Upon assuming the Presidency for the second time, Trump has been quite vocal about Maduro’s alleged role in leading and facilitating cocaine trafficking aimed at the US. The alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy by Maduro and his associates revolve around using drug trafficking to fund or support terrorist activities with the intention of harming US society. In 2024, Maduro won the Presidential election for a third term. However, many independent observers provided strong evidence to claim the ousted dictator lost the election by a wide margin. Subsequent to the widely disputed election, many powerful Western democracies began to question the legitimacy of Maduro’s rule in the South American state.

Critics have pointed out the controversial action by Washington was aimed at controlling oil and other resources in the Latin American nation. Venezuela is the country which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Hours after the capture of Maduro, Trump had stated that America would be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground in Venezuela and US oil companies would spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken oil infrastructure in the oil-rich state.

Nevertheless, experts in international law have stressed the action by the Trump administration was in contravention of the international law, emphasising the US is likely to have violated the terms of the article 2(4) of the UN charter, which was signed in October 1945. The rules specify that states must refrain from using military force against other countries and must respect their sovereignty. Observers have underscored that the attack could have only been considered lawful if the US had a resolution from the UN Security Council or was acting in self-defence.

Despite sceptics condemning the questionable US action, the ouster of Maduro has been universally celebrated by the Venezuelan immigrants across the world. During the period of the evicted despot, the resource-rich state went through an era of decline and currently an estimated 80% of residents in the turbulent nation live in poverty. Around 8 million people had fled Venezuela under the disastrous rule of the exiled tyrant. Many Venezuelans who fled their homeland under the Maduro regime and his predecessor Hugo Chavez are hopeful the significant development in their motherland marks an end to more than 25 years of political persecution and economic ruin that destroyed their beloved country.

Although the ruling NPP politicians were passionate admirers of Chavez and Maduro (especially during the days of the JVP dispensation), the response of the Government to the unprecedented act of the White House has been quite timid to say the least. The Statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry did not even refer to the USA. The behaviour of the Government is diametrically opposite to the hyper-sensitive anti-US sentiments the NPP/JVP used to express before coming into power.

Commentators in international affairs have opined that the unilateral measure by the Trump administration could set a dangerous precedent for the global world order as it could inspire other powerful states to take similar steps that would threaten the sovereignty of small neighbouring states in the pursuit of advancing geopolitical interests. Such a scenario would undoubtedly create chaos and turmoil while destabilising the accepted convention of multilateralism in international affairs.