{"id":119198,"date":"2026-01-04T00:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/119198\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T00:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T00:16:07","slug":"u-s-capture-of-maduro-in-venezuela-criticized-as-violation-of-international-u-s-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/119198\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. capture of Maduro in Venezuela criticized as violation of international, U.S. law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump\u2019s decision to send U.S. forces into Venezuela to capture President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and his wife and return them to the U.S. to face drug charges elicited condemnation from legal experts and other critics who argued that the operation \u2014 conducted without congressional or United Nations approval \u2014 clearly violated U.S. and international law.<\/p>\n

Such criticism came from Democratic leaders, international allies and adversaries including Mexico, France, China and Russia, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and experts on international law and wartime powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNicol\u00e1s Maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country. But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn\u2019t just continue Donald Trump\u2019s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America\u2019s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation,\u201d Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A U.N. spokesman said Guterres was \u201cdeeply alarmed\u201d by the U.S. operation and \u201cdeeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s foreign ministry said \u201csuch hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty,\u201d while France\u2019s foreign minister said the U.S. operation \u201ccontravenes the principle of the non-use of force that underpins international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans largely backed the president, with both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) defending the operation as \u201cdecisive\u201d and legally justified. However, other Republicans questioned Trump\u2019s authority to act unilaterally, and raised similar concerns as Schiff about other world leaders citing Trump\u2019s actions to justify their own aggression into neighboring nations.<\/p>\n

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) defended Trump\u2019s actions as \u201cgreat for the future of Venezuelans and the region,\u201d but said he was concerned that \u201cRussia will use this to justify their illegal and barbaric military actions against Ukraine, or China to justify an invasion of Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump defended the operation as a legitimate law enforcement action necessary to combat threats to the U.S. from Maduro, whom he accused of sending violent gang members and deadly drugs across the U.S. border on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States,\u201d Trump said at a news conference. \u201cAs alleged in the indictment, he personally oversaw the vicious cartel known as Cartel de los Soles, which flooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Trump also made no secret of his interest in Venezuela\u2019s oil. He said U.S. officials would be running Venezuela for the foreseeable future and ensuring that the nation\u2019s oil infrastructure is rebuilt \u2014 to return wealth to the Venezuelan people, but also to repay U.S. businesses that lost money when Maduro took over the industry.<\/p>\n

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced that Maduro, who had previously been indicted in the U.S. in 2020, is now the subject of a superseding indictment<\/a> charging him, his wife and several others with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess such weapons and devices. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,\u201d Bondi wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also framed the operation as a law enforcement effort, and defended the lack of advance notice to Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice, and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify, because it endangers the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said Congress could not be notified in advance because \u201cCongress will leak, and we don\u2019t want leakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Schmitt, an international law professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and a professor emeritus of international law at the U.S. Naval War College, said Trump\u2019s actions were a \u201cclear violation\u201d of international law. <\/p>\n

He said the U.S. had no authority from the U.N. Security Council to conduct military operations in Venezuela, nor any legitimate justification to act in self-defense against an armed attack \u2014 which drug trafficking does not amount to.<\/p>\n

Schmitt said the operation in Venezuela went far beyond a normal law enforcement action. But even if it were just a law enforcement action, he said, the U.S. would still lack legal authority under international law to engage in such activity on Venezuelan soil without the express permission of Venezuelan authorities \u2014 which it did not have.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational law is clear. Without consent, you cannot engage in investigations or arrest or seizure of criminal property on another state\u2019s territory,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a violation of that state\u2019s sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the operation was illegitimate from the start, the resulting occupation and interference in Venezuela\u2019s oil industry are also unlawful, Schmitt said \u2014 regardless of whether the country\u2019s nationalizing of U.S.-tied oil infrastructure was also unlawful, as some experts believe it was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat unlawfulness \u2014 of seizing U.S. business interests, nationalizing them, in a way that was not in accordance with the required procedures \u2014 is not a basis for using force,\u201d Schmitt said.<\/p>\n

Matthew Waxman, chair of the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School, said that in the days ahead, he expects the Trump administration to try to justify its actions not just as a law enforcement operation, but \u201cas part of a larger campaign to defend the United States against what it has characterized as an attack or invasion by Maduro-linked drug cartels.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAll modern presidents have claimed broad constitutional power to use military force without congressional authorization, but that is always hotly contested. We\u2019ll see if there\u2019s much pushback in Congress in this case, which will probably depend a lot on how things now play out in Venezuela,\u201d Waxman said. \u201cLook at what happened last year in Iran: The president claimed the power to bomb nuclear program infrastructure, and when the operation didn\u2019t escalate, congressional opponents backed off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already on Saturday, some members of Congress were softening their initial skepticism.<\/p>\n

Within hours of posting on X that he was looking forward \u201cto learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,\u201d Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had posted again, saying Rubio told him that the military action was \u201cto protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant\u201d for Maduro.<\/p>\n

Such action \u201clikely falls within the president\u2019s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack,\u201d Lee added.<\/p>\n

Others remained more skeptical. <\/p>\n

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Trump\u2019s remarks about taking over the country and controlling its oil reserves did not seem \u201cthe least bit consistent\u201d with Bondi\u2019s characterization of the operation as a law enforcement effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump\u2019s decision to send U.S. forces into Venezuela to capture President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6650,63098,3573,1752,536,63096,48,52,51,63100,47,50,49,62984,63097,63099,6843,6283,43610,9298,8836],"class_list":["post-119198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-action","tag-american-justice","tag-china","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-international-law","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-legitimate-law-enforcement-action","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-maduro","tag-michael-schmitt","tag-neighboring-nation","tag-operation","tag-president","tag-u-s-force","tag-venezuela","tag-violation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}