Trump's illegal Venezuela assault means global anarchy

This shameless oil grab destroys last vestige of the 'international order'

It’s one thing to bomb another country without provocation, and another to literally kidnap its leader, along with his wife.

Donald Trump’s overnight assault on Venezuela is nakedly illegal, and a transparent attempt to seize the country’s natural resources. It also demolishes whatever remained of the so-called ‘international order’.

Trump’s pretext - which centres on drugs - should be given short shrift. A few weeks ago, I interviewed Prof. Miguel Tinker Salas, who pointed out that “Venezuela is not a producer of drugs. There is no fentanyl exported from Venezuela. It does not have the apparatus. It does not have the precursor chemicals.”

This is, in fact, about oil. As Trump said in 2023:

When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.

Kidnapping a country’s leadership and leaving a power vacuum is the behaviour of a gangster state. But it also points to the US strategy under Trump - which is to accept the end of global hegemony in favour of spheres of influence dominated by Great Powers. You can see why he is so sympathetic to Russian claims in Ukraine. He wants the same for the US in Latin America - a restating of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which in practise treated the Continent as Washington’s backyard.

These are the morbid symptoms of a hegemon suffering from profound decline, not the rational acts of a global superpower.

The so-called international order has already been trashed. The illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 was one major reason. That itself helped normalise acts of aggression - such as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Israel’s Western-armed genocide in Gaza is of course another hideous reason.

This aggression against Venezuela surely finishes off what remains. What’s to stop other powers doing the same as they see fit, inventing whatever pretext they deem fit?

I also agree with the assessment of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Expect an escalating assault on US democracy at home. Trumpism will seek to consolidate control domestically as well as over its regional sphere of influence. A grim year beckons.