By removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power and bringing him to New York City to stand trial for various alleged crimes, the United States has benefited, at least temporarily, the people of Venezuela and all of Latin America. But the Trump Administration may have also created long-term problems difficult, if not impossible, to solve as well.
There’s no doubt about it. The operation to kidnap Maduro was brilliantly planned and flawlessly executed. Its success is a credit to all involved.
And Maduro was a genuinely bad actor whose removal from power can only benefit the tragic nation he misruled for so long. He stole the last two elections. He used terror, violence, and murder to retain power. He drove millions of citizens into exile. No wonder Venezuelans, especially in Texas and Florida, where the largest communities of exiles reside, are so joyful at his demise.
The actual legality of President Trump’s actions will no doubt be debated well into the foreseeable future, with his supporters and detractors split largely along partisan lines. The Democrats in Congress are claiming that his actions were totally illegal: He acted without even the slightest hint of consent from Congress. One should not be surprised if he is impeached for this, especially if his actions prove unpopular with the public and the Democrats, as expected, win back control of the House of Representatives this November.
On the other hand, one of Trump’s most consistent defenders, Constitutional law expert and law professor Jonathan Turley, for example, argues that Trump’s actions have a precedent in the overthrow of Panamanian dictator Manual Noriega, who was arrested, tried, and convicted of drug smuggling charges at the direction of President George H. W. Bush. Moreover, says Turley, “[F]or all these Democrats objecting, the authority that Trump could cite is Barack Obama [who] vaporized a US citizen without a criminal charge [in a drone attack in the Middle East]. One could think that if a president could do that, and I don’t remember Democrats objecting en masse[, then] you could arrest someone for trial with an existing indictment.” Only time will tell which legal arguments ultimately prevail.
But legalities aside, the Trump Administration will face a variety of other challenges in the wake of its Saturday morning actions. For example:
Who’ll govern Venezuela now? Trump says his administration will “run” the country until governance can be handed off to a responsible authority sometime in the future.
But in the meantime, through whom in the Venezuelan political system will Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio work? Trump and Rubio have chosen to bypass, not altogether unreasonably, leaders of the democratic opposition, including Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado, and her candidate for president in 2024, Edmundo Gomez. True, Gomez won 70% of the popular vote, but though Maduro is gone his followers remain in firm control of the Venezuelan armed forces, and neither Machado nor Gomez could effectively govern without a large contingent of American troops—boots on the ground—to protect them from Madura’s followers. So Trump and Rubio have chosen to try to govern through Mauro’s vice president and political ally Delcy Rodriguez, using the threat of more intervention should she prove uncooperative.
And how will other Latin American presidents react? Trump has expressed enmity towards the presidents of Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia. And while he has made no threat against Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, he has raised the possibility of removing the others.
Moreover, despite the joy Venezuelans may currently feel at Maduro’s capture, Latin Americans may come to resent America’s perceived plundering of their natural resources. After all, Trump has already expressed his determination to bring back American companies to extract and sell Venezuelan oil. In the past, American actions to protect American agricultural corporations harvesting and exporting agricultural produce—United Fruit harvesting bananas, for example—have elicited demands that “Yanquis go home.”
Finally—for the time being—one must wonder how Russia’s President Putin and China’s President Xi will react. Will Trump’s intervention in Venezuela encourage and strengthen their efforts to destroy Ukrainian and Taiwanese independence? If so, how will America respond?
The operation to rid Venezuela of Maduro and bring him to justice was the product of brilliant planning. Planning of equal quality is necessary to guide the United States over the sea of troubles on which it has embarked. It’s too early to know how well we’ll cope, but we’ll soon begin to find out.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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