U.S. allies and foes fear Maduro’s capture sets precedent for more American intervention
By capturing the president of Venezuela, Washington sent shock waves far beyond Caracas.
The United States stunned the world on Saturday by launching military strikes in Venezuela and seizing President Nicolás Maduro, quickly ending 13 years of rule in an operation the Trump administration billed as a demonstration of American power, with President Donald Trump boasting that the United States had “capabilities and skills that our enemies can barely imagine.”
It was America’s adversaries who heard it loudest.
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Russia and China quickly condemned the strikes and called for the release of Maduro, who was brought to the United States to face criminal charges. Iran and Cuba have denounced what they call a violation of international law, their objections tinged with a certain unease at the idea that they too could find themselves in Washington’s crosshairs.
Even key European allies, more cautious and measured, have carefully expressed concerns about the legality of the operation, while largely aligning with US policy.
Taken together, these responses suggest the resurgence of old fears related to U.S. interventionism, prompting allies and adversaries alike to consider Washington’s next move.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was keeping his campaign promise to “dismantle foreign drug cartels” by going after Maduro. She said on X that the operation would “keep our citizens safe” in line with Trump’s “America First” agenda.
For Tehran, the fall of a close ally comes as the country grapples with internal unrest, just a day after Trump warned Iran it could face U.S. action if protesters were harmed.
“The US military attack against Venezuela constitutes a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and the fundamental rules of international law,” he said in a statement published on Telegram by Iran’s semi-official news agency.
In Havana, Cuban leaders called the attack “state terrorism,” keenly aware that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have openly questioned how long the Cuban government itself should remain intact.
“Rubio’s primary interest is Cuba, not Venezuela,” said Michael Paarlberg, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, noting that Rubio views Venezuela “as the main patron of the Cuban regime.”
When asked Sunday during an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” if the Trump administration’s next target was the Cuban government, Rubio responded, “The Cuban government is a huge problem.”
He said: “I’m not going to talk to you about what our next steps will be and what our policies will be in this regard. But I don’t think it’s a mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime.”
“We are at war against drug trafficking organizations, this is not a war against Venezuela,” Rubio said of the intervention. “We enforce U.S. laws regarding oil sanctions.”
Even though past U.S. efforts to change the regime in Cuba have failed for decades, Paarlberg told NBC News that the Cuban government was likely still “worried about something that looks like a direct parallel.”
Traditional adversaries of the United States were not the only ones to condemn the move, with several left-wing governments in Latin America warning that the move risked destabilizing the region.
Brazil said the United States had crossed an “unacceptable line,” warning that the attack set an “extremely dangerous precedent for the international community.” Other democratic leaders in the region, including Colombian Gustavo Petro, Mexican Claudia Sheinbaum and Chilean Gabriel Boric, joined them in denouncing the American intervention.
Legal experts have also questioned the legality of the operation.
The use of military force to remove Venezuela’s president effectively constitutes “kidnapping” and violates fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School.
“If you’re detaining someone illegally, if you’re taking someone into your custody and you don’t have the legal right to do it, then what would you call that? she told NBC News.
“The United Nations Charter makes it very clear that there are very few cases where a country has the right to exercise military force on the territory of another country,” she added. “And he never has the right to do that to bring an individual to be tried in his courts. »
Many European allies have struck a balance, referring to international law but without dissent, in an effort to avoid antagonizing the United States.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country would “shed no tears” over the end of Maduro’s regime before reiterating its “support for international law”, without specifying what this support entails.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the operation “complex” and said his country would “take its time” to evaluate it, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she supported a peaceful and democratic transition of power and that “any solution must respect international law and the United Nations Charter.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the military operation in Venezuela “violates the principle of non-use of force, which underlies international law”, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said it violated international law.
But because reactions to the Venezuela strike have been largely predictable, the precedent it sets has led others to wonder how vulnerable they might be, said HA Hellyer, a senior research associate at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank in London.
“European countries were counting on the United States and certain types of American behavior that maybe they can no longer do,” he said, noting that Denmark had been cautious in its response because “they know Greenland is in the crosshairs.”
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of buying or taking Greenland, treating the Danish territory as a strategic asset for the United States in the Arctic.
Denmark’s Ambassador to Washington, Jesper Møller Sørensen, shared what he called a “friendly reminder” on Saturday on X that “we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” pushing back against Trump-aligned figures who had raised the issue following the Venezuela strike.
Many of the reactions to the Venezuela strike, Hellyer noted, “have very little to do with Maduro and have everything to do with, you know, aligning with the United States on a particular issue.” Europe, he said, “expresses its support for international law, but without wanting to be identified as opposing the United States,” asking the question: “What is the point of invoking a system that is not supported by the strongest power in the world?”
But recent history shows that even as the rules-based order is in trouble, the United States has often acted unilaterally, with the Venezuela strike reflecting enduring patterns of intervention in Latin America, according to retired Col. Gregory A. Daddis.
“In many ways, U.S. actions in Venezuela follow a long history of U.S. interventionism in the Western Hemisphere,” he said, “where we have argued that the Western Hemisphere, in its entirety, falls within our jurisdiction to protect U.S. interests.”
