In Venezuela, an invasion for oil

On January 3, US President Donald Trump invaded Venezuela and took the President of the Latin American country, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife captive, transporting them back to the United States. They are to be put on trial in a New York court on the charges, as alleged by Trump, of “narco-terrorism”.

The indictment filed by the Manhattan district attorney alleges that Maduro “sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.” Maduro, his wife and son, who is a member of the Venezuelan parliament, and some other government officials are accused of “lining their pockets” from the activities of “narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect and transport tons of cocaine to the US”.

Maduro may or may not be the drug boss that Trump alleges he is. But what is relevant is that the indictment does not make the case that Maduro was planning a military attack on the US. The only ground in international law under which a country can invade another is self-defence. Invading another country to carry out regime change, whatever the failings of that country’s government or leader, is a violation of the international charter.

Trump’s real motives have been evident ever since he began blockading Venezuela, impounding its oil tankers — alleging that they were carrying drugs, weapons and “stolen” oil — and blowing up Venezuelan fishing boats.

And as if to make it clearer, this is what Trump said at his press conference after the invasion: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, oil infrastructure [in Venezuela] and start making money for the country.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, and China, defying the sanctions on Venezuelan oil, has been its largest buyer. Venezuela has been paying off massive debts incurred from Chinese loans with its oil. And Trump has just announced “US Raj” in Venezuela. His Clive and Hastings are US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who will “run” Venezuela during the transition to “self-rule” under a ruler who Trump finds more agreeable.

Trump’s predecessors were no shrinking wallflowers themselves when it came to invasions, or “interventions” as they liked to call them. The difference is that they still swore by the “rules-based international order” and the sanctity of the international charter as contained in the UN. So George W Bush got the UN Security Council to sign off on the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Obama for Libya. And they found “coalitions of the willing” to back them in these military expeditions.

Trump, of course, has made it clear that he does not believe in the international charter. The UN Security Council is to meet on Monday (January 5). Russia and China are the two permanent UNSC members that have condemned the invasion, while France, like other European countries, has been more circumspect, calling for “a peaceful, democratic transition”. The UK, too, has made a wishy-washy statement.

A resolution against the aggression will no doubt be attempted, pushed by Colombia and Panama, the two Latin American countries among the 10 non-permanent members. But as with the Russian veto on its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, so will it be with the US in January 2026.

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be smiling in the Kremlin at the irony — the would-be architect of peace between Russia and Ukraine, a self-nominated and vocal aspirant to the Nobel Peace Prize, who also counts Putin as a friend, has carried out his own invasion of a neighbour, and gone several steps further by taking over the country.

The November 2025 US National Security Strategy foretold this moment: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels and other transnational criminal organisations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

This new crisis after a year of Trump’s shenanigans is yet another reiteration that the US under its current leadership cannot be trusted on any count.

The world cannot get rid of Trump in the manner that he removed Maduro, nor should it want to do that because it’s for the American people to change their leader. But the invasion sets a dangerous international precedent for regime change that other countries can ignore only at their own peril. The waffling by European leaders, who in 2022 demanded condemnation of the Russian invasion from around the globe, was to be expected. It’s too much to ask them to show solidarity with Venezuela, afraid as they are to alienate Trump, though under him the US is no longer the trusted guarantor of European security it used to be.

Refusing to hold the football World Cup in the US, as scheduled this summer, would be a wonderful show of strength — the game’s most passionate players and audiences are Latin American and European — but no, that is unlikely to happen.

Where do the chips fall for India, which has its own difficult neighbourhood and a volatile security situation? It is significant that four of the five main BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa — have come out strongly against Trump’s move.

India has pitched itself time and again as a voice of the Global South but has played safe — interpreted by the government as “keeping all our options open” or “strategic autonomy” — each time the opportunity has come up to speak on behalf of the same Global South, notably on the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza. With the US, even without the trade deal, there is everything to lose.

The MEA has said the situation is one of “deep concern”, and called for peace through dialogue. But it must be clear to everyone by now that another “nuanced balancing act” is not going to help Delhi win Trump's heart. It is not too late yet to find the voice to push back against the US-led assault on the rules-based international order. That will help India regain some stature in the world rather than going along silently with an amoral American leader who is transactional, ruthless and fickle to boot.