The US president used largely fictitious charges to seize control, but can’t know how Venezuelans will react. He may also overstep now as regards Iran
D
uring his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump pledged to end “forever wars”, abandon “nation-building” interventions and focus instead on reviving a US economy that, in his telling, had been deindustrialised by a floodtide of imports. Though Trump’s electoral victories cannot be attributed to any one thing, his “America first” narrative certainly struck a chord.
But Trump’s use of force to seize the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, his full-bore support for Israel’s demolition of Gaza and his bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations show that he’s no less willing than his predecessors to resort to military interventions.
Trump already had Maduro in his sights. He offered a $50m bounty for information leading to his capture, blockaded Venezuelan ports to stop sanctioned oil tankers and accused Maduro of involvement in drug trafficking. Still, it’s a safe bet that few outside the administration expected Trump to swoop into a country, grab its president and haul him to the US.
