Maduro’s capture shows Trump’s goal to dominate the Americas

The city went dark. The air defences were disabled. Explosions rang out. And under the night sky, a fleet of American helicopters swooped in and captured the president.

Hours later, when celebrating the US government’s seizure of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump mentioned Venezuela’s oil 20 times. 

The moment shook Latin America perhaps more than any single event this century — but its meaning depends on whom you ask.

To the Latin American left, it confirmed what certain leaders have been warning for decades: The United States is an imperial power willing to invade and exploit its southern neighbours for its own gains and their natural resources.

To the Latin American right, Trump had just rescued a broken Venezuela from a leftist dictatorship and now would finally realise the nation’s immense economic potential.

Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain and Uruguay — all led by leftists — jointly denounced the bombings and capture as “an extremely dangerous precedent” and warned against “any attempt at governmental control, administration, or external appropriation of natural or strategic resources” in Venezuela.

President Javier Milei of Argentina, the region’s most prominent right-wing leader, cheered the US action. “There’s no middle ground here,” he said. “You are either on the side of GOOD, or you are on the side of EVIL.”

What everyone can agree on is that the intervention showed that the United States is once again the centre of gravity in Latin America, for better or worse.

Trump is among them. “The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine,” he said on Saturday, referring to the 1823 policy of President James Monroe that sought to stop European powers from meddling in the Americas. “Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

In the 30 years before the current Trump administration, US foreign policy in Latin America had largely focused on supporting democracy and free trade.

Trump has overhauled that approach to focus on what is in it for the United States — or, in many cases, for him.

He imposed tariffs on Brazil in a failed bid to save his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, from prison. He applied sanctions on Colombia’s president after he criticised US policy. He endorsed a right-wing candidate in Honduras in a surprise that may have tipped the election. And he gave Argentina a $20 billion lifeline to help Milei in legislative elections.

Those actions unsettled many in Latin America, reminding them of Washington’s long history of interventions in the region, like its invasions of Mexico, Panama and Haiti, and its support for military coups.

“Thinking as a region, this is scary in a way I haven’t seen for a long time,” said Celso Amorim, the top foreign policy adviser to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and one of the most experienced government officials in Latin America, having served at various times as Brazil’s foreign minister, defence minister and special adviser over a span of 16 years.

“The most serious thing to me is that this return to interventionism isn’t even disguised,” he said in an interview. “There isn’t even a, let’s say, ‘No, we went there to defend democracy.’ There is an objective that is obviously economic.”

Lula, Latin America’s most influential statesman, held two separate meetings with his ministers about the US attack Saturday, according to the Brazilian government. He then issued a particularly stern critique, saying Washington’s actions “cross an unacceptable line” and that “the international community, through the United Nations, must respond forcefully.”

On Sunday, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States — the main multilateral organisation for the region — held an emergency meeting to address the situation in Venezuela. Many nations led by leftists sent their foreign ministers, while others led by conservative leaders sent more junior diplomats.

At the meeting, Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, warned that the rest of Latin America should be worried. “This attack is not only against Venezuela; it is an attack against Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said to the group of 33 nations. “Today it may be Venezuela; tomorrow it could be any other country that decides to exercise its sovereignty.”

Many Latin Americans disagreed. The Maduro government was corrupt and repressive, they said, and that drew the anger of the US government. “To all the narco-Chavista criminals, your time is coming,” President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador said Saturday, referring to followers of Maduro’s socialist predecessor, Hugo Chávez. “Your structure will completely collapse across the entire continent.”

Yet whether nations will do more than issue angry statements remains to be seen. The United States is the most crucial economic partner for much of the region, and Trump has proved willing to intervene economically, politically and now militarily against countries that cross him.

“I think we’re at a low point of inter-American diplomacy because all countries have turned inward, and all countries are developing transactional approaches to their relationship with this administration,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States. Given the growing partisan divide across the region, he added, “I think it’s going to be very hard to see a muscular approach by Latin American and Caribbean nations to this.”

The response from President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico illustrated that political tightrope.

While she condemned the Venezuela attack, Sheinbaum did so more diplomatically than several of her peers. Consider that at the same time on Saturday, Trump was once again warning that Mexican cartels could be his next military target.

Brazil, however, is much farther from the United States and its No 1 trading partner is now China. That has enabled Lula to take a far more bellicose approach to Trump — which has yielded positive results for Brazil.

Amorim suggested that Trump’s policies could push other countries toward China. Interventions “are going to have the opposite effect of what the United States wants,” he said. Nations “will increasingly have to look for counterbalances, so as not to let themselves get involved in this type of situation.”

What seems most likely now is that Latin America’s conflicting opinions on Venezuela — and each nation’s efforts for self-preservation — will lead to little cohesive action. Sarukhán said it would likely take a full-scale occupation of Venezuela to spur more than statements.

That also means a potential emboldening of Trump.

Over the past year, his actions in Latin America have become more aggressive. That has left many nations struggling with what to make of his tough talk.

Hours after watching the US military pull off a successful operation in Venezuela, he already was suggesting that Cuba could be next. “I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation,” he told reporters Saturday.

On Sunday morning, in a phone call with The Atlantic, he said, “We do need Greenland, absolutely.”

By Sunday night, he had another target in the hemisphere in mind.

“He’s not going to be doing it for very long,’” Trump said of Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who has frequently criticized Trump. “He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories.”

Asked whether the US would conduct an operation against Colombia, he replied, “It sounds good to me.”