United States President Donald Trump has never been particularly discreet about wanting regime change in Venezuela. After months of sabre-rattling, the direct “large scale strike” on the South American country came in the early hours of January 3 — and involved a special forces operation apprehending Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
This demonstration of unconstrained force is the first time that the US has effectively kidnapped a head of state since 1989 when some 20,000 US soldiers descended on Panama and took its de facto leader, General Manuel Noriega, to the US to face charges of drug trafficking.
But the US operation is more than simply a shocking violation of international law. It is yet another major departure from Trump’s re-election platform of limiting US overseas entanglements. For, at his subsequent press conference, the president announced that the US “are going to run the country” until a proper transition can take place. He stopped short of committing troops to an actual occupation force, but neither did he explicitly rule out any American boots on Venezuelan ground.
The Trump administration is without doubt the key player deciding whether the situation in Venezuela now escalates further or not. But much will also depend on how Venezuelans will react. Maduro was not vastly popular, to say the least, but he and his inner circle exercised full control over the armed forces and security apparatus. His government, for now, remains in power but the capture of Mr Maduro could set off infighting among the remaining elite and trigger a new wave of mass protests against the regime.
In the immediate aftermath of the operation, Venezuela’s defence minister said that the country will resist the presence of foreign troops and that all of the country’s armed forces will be deployed. Whether these forces will ultimately put up a fight during a second wave of US strikes, which Mr Trump threatened during his press conference, however, is not clear. Nor is it obvious how pro- and anti-Maduro forces will position themselves in the coming days, or what exact plans the White House has in place to deal with widespread unrest in Venezuela should that happen.
Venezuela is at a critical juncture now, but the repercussions of this US operation will be felt well beyond the country. Mr Trump said the US and the western hemisphere are a much safer place to be after the US operation. But no matter the lengths to which he and his supporters go in justifying their action, this operation will further erode what is left of a rules-based international order.
The US operation confirmed the trend to a return to thinking of the world as spheres of influence — as articulated in the Monroe doctrine some two-hundred years ago and in the new national security strategy of the US, released just a few weeks back. The “president of peace”, as Trump likes to portray himself, and his war secretary, Pete Hegseth, were unequivocal that this operation was a clear indication of Washington’s determination to re-assert absolute dominance in the western hemisphere — in word and deed.
Unsurprisingly, several countries in the Western Hemisphere, which the US sees as the core of its sphere of influence, denounced the US operation, as did Russia and China.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had signalled his support for Maduro early on in the escalating crisis at the beginning of December. A statement by the Russian foreign ministry initially merely offered support for efforts to resolve the crisis “through dialogue”. In subsequent press releases, Russia took a stronger line, condemning the US operation as “unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of an independent state” and then demanding that Washington “release the legitimately elected president of a sovereign country and his spouse.”
China similarly condemned the US operation as a “clear violation of international law, basic norms in international relations, and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter” and urged Washington to “ensure the personal safety of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.”
But it is unlikely that the US will face any immediate major repercussions beyond some handwringing about the need to respect international law, including from other democratic countries. The US operation to capture Maduro sets a dangerous precedent, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it. That it will likely further encourage other states with similar pretensions to their own spheres of influence goes almost without saying.
The US president has made no secret about his desire to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland for national security reasons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long taken a hard line on Cuba’s government. If the operation in Venezuela indicates how the White House envisages the implementation of the so-called Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine articulated in the national security strategy, instability is likely to increase in the Western Hemisphere and well beyond.
Such instability — more likely than not in light of recent US experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq — would be a far cry from being the “common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests” that the national security strategy proclaimed.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on January 4, 2026.
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