{"id":387649,"date":"2026-01-04T16:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T16:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387649\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T16:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T16:42:17","slug":"u-s-allies-and-foes-fear-maduros-capture-sets-precedent-for-more-american-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387649\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. allies and foes fear Maduro’s capture sets precedent for more American intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"

By capturing Venezuela\u2019s president<\/a>, Washington sent shockwaves felt far beyond Caracas.<\/p>\n

The United States stunned the world on Saturday by launching military strikes in Venezuela and seizing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, swiftly ending his 13-year rule<\/a> in an operation the Trump administration framed as a demonstration of American power, as President Donald Trump<\/a> boasted that the U.S. possessed \u201ccapabilities and skills our enemies can scarcely imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

America\u2019s adversaries heard him loudest.<\/p>\n

\"NicolasA photo released by the White House on Truth Social shows Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on Saturday.via Truth Social<\/p>\n

Russia and China swiftly condemned the strikes and called for the release of Maduro, who has been brought to the U.S.<\/a> to face criminal charges. Iran and Cuba denounced what they called a violation of international law, their objections carrying an edge of unease that they, too, could find themselves in Washington\u2019s sights<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Even major European allies, more cautious and measured in tone, carefully signaled concern about the operation\u2019s legality<\/a> while largely aligning with the U.S. on policy.<\/p>\n

Taken together, these responses suggest the revival of old fears of American interventionism, prompting allies and adversaries alike to ponder where Washington might act next.<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise to “demolish foreign drug cartels” by going after Maduro. She said on X that the operation would “keep our citizens safe” in keeping with Trump’s \u201cAmerica First\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n

For Tehran, the fall of a close ally comes as it grapples with internal unrest of its own, just a day after Trump warned Iran it could face U.S. action if protesters were harmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American military attack on Venezuela is a clear violation of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter and the fundamental rules of international law,\u201d it said in a statement published by Iran\u2019s semiofficial news agency Tasnim on Telegram.<\/p>\n

\"LoudFlames rise at Fort Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, after a series of explosions in Caracas on Saturday.Luis Jaimes \/ AFP – Getty Images<\/p>\n

In Havana, Cuba\u2019s leadership labeled the attack \u201cstate terrorism,\u201d acutely aware that both Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have openly questioned how long the Cuban government itself should remain untouched.<\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s \u201cprimary interest is in Cuba, not in Venezuela,\u201d said Michael Paarlberg, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, noting that Rubio sees Venezuela \u201cas the chief patron of the Cuban regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked during an interview with NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d whether the Trump administration\u2019s next target is the Cuban government, Rubio said that \u201cthe Cuban government is a huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI\u2019m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at war against drug trafficking organizations, it’s not a war against Venezuela,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the intervention. \u201cWe are enforcing American laws with regards to oil sanctions.\u201d <\/p>\n

While past U.S. regime-change efforts in Cuba have failed, dating back decades, Paarlberg told NBC News the Cuban government would still likely \u201cbe worried about something like a direct parallel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States\u2019 traditional adversaries were not alone in their condemnation, with several left-leaning governments in Latin America warning the move risked destabilizing the region.<\/p>\n

Brazil said the U.S. had crossed an \u201cunacceptable line,\u201d warning the attack set an \u201cextremely dangerous precedent for the international community.\u201d Other democratic leaders in the region, including Colombia\u2019s Gustavo Petro, Mexico\u2019s Claudia Sheinbaum and Chile\u2019s Gabriel Boric, joined in denouncing the U.S. intervention.<\/p>\n

Legal experts also questioned the operation\u2019s legality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"VenezuelaSoldiers guard the area around the Miraflores presidential palace after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday.Cristian Hernandez \/ AP<\/p>\n

The use of military force to remove Venezuela\u2019s president is effectively a \u201ckidnapping\u201d and violates core principles of the United Nations Charter, said Mary Ellen O\u2019Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you detain someone unlawfully, if you take someone into your custody and you do not have the legal right to do that, then what else would you call it?\u201d she told NBC News.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.N. Charter makes it very clear that there are very few times when a country has the right to carry out military force on the territory of another country,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd it never has the right to do that in order to bring an individual out to stand trial before their courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many European allies struck a careful balance, nodding to international law but without dissent in an effort to avoid upsetting the U.S.<\/p>\n

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country would \u201cshed no tears\u201d about the end of Maduro\u2019s regime before reiterating his \u201csupport for international law,\u201d without saying what that support entails.<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the operation \u201ccomplex,\u201d and said his country \u201cwill take our time,\u201d to evaluate it, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she supported a peaceful and democratic transition of power, and that \u201cany solution must respect international law and the U.N. Charter.\u201d<\/p>\n

French Foreign Minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot said the military operation in Venezuela \u201ccontravenes the principle of non-use of force, which underpins international law,\u201d while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said it violated international law.<\/p>\n

But as reactions to the Venezuela strike largely fell along predictable lines, the precedent it sets has left others wondering how vulnerable they might be, said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cEuropean countries were counting on the U.S. and certain types of U.S. behavior that perhaps they can\u2019t do anymore,\u201d he told NBC News, noting that Denmark had been careful in its response because \u201cthey know that Greenland is in the firing line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TrumpA Trump aircraft in Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 7, 2025.Emil Stach \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of buying or taking Greenland<\/a>, treating it as a strategic asset for the U.S. in the Arctic.<\/p>\n

Denmark\u2019s ambassador to Washington, Jesper M\u00f8ller S\u00f8rensen, shared what he said was a \u201cfriendly reminder\u201d on X Saturday that \u201cwe expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,\u201d pushing back at Trump-aligned figures who had raised the issue in the wake of the Venezuela strike.<\/p>\n

Many of the reactions to the Venezuela strike, Hellyer noted, \u201chave very little to do with Maduro and have everything to do with, you know, lining up with the U.S. on a particular issue.\u201d Europe, he said, was \u201cexpressing support for international law, but without wanting to be identified as opposing the U.S.,\u201d raising the question: \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of invoking a system that isn\u2019t backed by the strongest power in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

But recent history shows that even as the rules-based order struggles, the U.S. has frequently acted unilaterally, with the Venezuela strike reflecting enduring patterns of intervention in Latin America, according to retired Col. Gregory A. Daddis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, U.S. actions in Venezuela follow a long history of American interventionism in the Western Hemisphere,\u201d he said, \u201cwhere we have argued that the Western Hemisphere, in its entirety, falls within our jurisdiction to protect U.S. interests.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By capturing Venezuela\u2019s president, Washington sent shockwaves felt far beyond Caracas. The United States stunned the world on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-387649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}