"My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker," U.S. President Donald Trump said in his inaugural address. He promised to "measure our success... most importantly [by] the wars we never get into." Trump has proudly boasted that he is "the first President in decades who has started no new wars."
Fast forward a few months, and everything has changed. The "president of peace" is thundering for war.
All signs are pointing to U.S. military action in Venezuela. The U.S. has flooded the region with three Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast track submarine, F-35B jet fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, P-8 Poseidon spy planes, assault ships and a secretive special-operations ship. So far, there are over 10,000 troops. It is the largest military buildup in the region in over three decades. That is a force that is much too large for its stated purpose of confronting a few drug carrying speed boats.
The Trump administration has stipulated that "Maduro is not the President of Venezuela and his regime is not the legitimate government" and that Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organization Cartel de Los Soles." It has notified Congress that the U.S. is now in formal "armed conflict" with the cartels, and Trump has terminated all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela. On October 14, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, under the authority of Trump, ordered a lethal strike on the fifth small Venezuelan speed boat.
On October 15, The New York Times reported that Trump has secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela. The authorization allows the CIA "to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela," including "covert action against Mr. Maduro or his government."
While couched in the language of fighting drug trafficking into the United States, the Trump administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Venezuela. Under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with the support of CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Trump's chief domestic policy advisor, Stephen Miller, Trump's team has pushed for the removal of Maduro from power. A Trump administration official familiar with policy discussions on the approach to Venezuela told Axios that, though the military build up is "about narco-terrorism... if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying." Another, by comparing it to the American operation against Panama's Manuel Noriega in 1989, implied that a coup was higher on the agenda.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump confirmed the authorization, an unusual move for a president that seemingly makes the covert action less covert. Asked by a reporter whether he had authorized the CIA to "take out" Maduro, Trump answered that, though that's "not really a ridiculous question," it would be "a ridiculous question for me to answer."
The idea of regime change is not one that arose unexpectedly on the Trump administration's agenda. Even before taking office, Trump's incoming administration made it known that it sought regime change in Venezuela.
And it was not a new idea then. It is an old idea. A very old idea. The U.S. first became involved in coups in Venezuela in 1908 when they helped Juan Vicente Gómez to oust Cipriano Castro in a coup. Nearly a hundred years later, the U.S. would be deeply involved in the unsuccessful 2002 coup that briefly removed Hugo Chávez from power. Bush officials acknowledged that "they had discussed the removal of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for months with military and civilian leaders from Venezuela." Officials of the Organization of American States confirmed that the Bush administration "was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it." Eventually, the State Department would admit that the Bush administration "provided training, institution building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the military coup."
The coup attempts would continue. In 2019, top Trump officials took part in a secret meeting to plan a Venezuelan coup. On the same day, Vice President Mike Pence brazenly announced to the U.N. Security Council that "the Trump administration is determined to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela." Days later, the U.S. attempted a coup to remove Maduro from power with the full knowledge of Trump.
The latest adventure into war and regime change destabilizes, not only the region, but what little remains of the architecture of international law. The Trump administration is threatening war and regime change against a sovereign country who has not even whispered a threat to the United States or anyone else. But the world quietly watches while no one dares to say no to the United States.
Once upon a time, the world was governed by international law, a codified law that had the United Nations as its firm foundation and that applied universally and impartially to all nations. That law has been usurped by the U.S.-led rules-based order that is based on the principle that when the rule benefits America it is applied, and when it does not benefit America, it is not.
On October 10, the Security Council met to discuss the U.S. strikes on Venezuelan speed boats. But, while China and Russia criticized the United States, the rest of the Council "crafted their words carefully, avoiding direct denunciation of the Trump administration," speaking only vaguely about the need for diplomacy and respect for the boundaries of international law. Imagine what the U.S. would say if China was bombing boats off the coast of Taiwan or Russia was bombing non-military Ukrainian boats.
It is time for the United Nations and the world to reassert themselves and say no to American recklessness, arrogance and exceptionalism and stop another illegal American war.