E-Paper
Why nations must call out Trump’s transgressions
Classical colonialism is a practice in which a foreign power occupies land, subjugates people, and exploits natural and human resources
Although consistent with the long-term trend in American foreign policy, the US’s invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its leader Nicolás Maduro, break from the pattern of recent years.
Since the end of the Cold War, the US had become less interventionist and more tolerant of ideological diversity in South America. More broadly, a wariness about foreign interventions took shape during the Obama years and was articulated clearly by President Donald Trump during his first presidency. For instance, Trump’s first two speeches at the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 and 2018 mount a strong defence of the principle of sovereignty of all nations. Both Trump and Joe Biden wanted to scale down American entanglements in the Muslim world, as illustrated in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. During his re-election campaign, Trump was critical not only of American involvement in the Ukraine war but also of America’s “forever wars”. In Riyadh in May last year, Trump railed against “neo-cons” who had “wrecked far more nations than they had built” by “intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves”. And it is likely that he resisted Israeli pressure to wage an expansive war of regime removal and State degradation in Iran, limiting direct American military involvement to bombings of Iran’s nuclear sites in June last year.
So what explains the invasion, the kidnapping, and the plans to run Venezuela? It is surely about the control of Venezuelan energy, which will aid the US’s bid for global AI dominance. But this didn’t require invasion and abduction since Maduro had publicly stated his willingness to give America access to Venezuelan energy. It could be that the interventionists or the neocons within the administration prevailed over Trump. Or, it could be that Trump succumbed to the temptations of unchecked power at home and abroad, for few modern leaders have enjoyed the volume and quality of unrestrained capabilities to influence outcomes globally that Trump enjoys.
Whatever be the wellsprings of America’s Venezuela-related actions, they can be understood mainly through three frames.
First, it is the latest in the classical pattern in international politics of the strong vanquishing the weak, the law of the fish or matsyanyaya. The actions repeat the past pattern of America’s intervention in its neighbourhood to assert dominance, project power, and send a message of deterrence to its rivals near and far.
Second, since the US government has framed Maduro’s abduction as a law enforcement action, it constitutes what Mahatma Gandhi called official lawlessness to describe the British use of legal provisions to suppress Indians’ legitimate national aspirations, including the right to demand freedom and sovereignty. America’s use of its domestic law to justify the invasion and capture of a foreign country’s leader almost certainly violates international law, including the sovereign rights of the Venezuelan State. And, the actions definitely bury the western notion of a rules-based international order, which America swore by until a little more than a year ago.
Finally, Trump’s declaration that the US will “run” Venezuela — ostensibly because the country has been misgoverned — and control its energy resources — because Venezuelans haven’t been efficient at extracting oil — marks the return of classical colonialism. Classical colonialism is a practice in which a foreign power occupies land, subjugates people, and exploits natural and human resources on the argument that the current rulers misgovern the country and do not represent the true aspirations of the people. It promises — as Trump has to Venezuelans — to do good by the people. This was the British template in India.
This mix of great power excess, violation of international law, and colonialism has an immediate precedent in Israeli-American militarism in West Asia since October 2023. There, Israel has almost succeeded in its settler colonial project. It has executed a genocide in Gaza, impairing the possibility of future generations of healthy Palestinians in their homeland. It has laid out plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians even as it has de facto annexed the West Bank. Furthermore, to execute the final stage of its settler colonial project, Israel has, with American assistance, created a neighbourhood comprising pliant or complicit leaders running weak States with phantom sovereignty, whom Israel can or does bomb at will.
Zoom out and you will find across West Asia, North Africa and South America a large geography of imperialism in which two military hegemons, working in tandem, act as they please, extracting resources, colonising territory, and executing a genocide. If Trump’s America has felt emboldened to invade and humiliate Venezuela, it is also because a majority of the leading powers of the world — including Europe, Russia, and China — have allowed Israel to get away with a lot worse. Impunity is thriving on impunity. Violation of State sovereignty is facilitating crimes against humanity, and the two could set global geopolitics into a tailspin. Between them, Israel and America have put Colombia, Canada, Greenland (and thus Denmark and Europe), Mexico, Cuba and Iran on notice. And speculation is rife that the US could also attack Iran. Everyone should take secretary of State Marco Rubio’s warning to other States and leaders during the first official briefing following Maduro’s abduction seriously and view it alongside Benjamin Netanyahu’s regional rhetoric since late 2023.
The time for sovereign States of the world to hedge and equivocate is over. If they don’t stand up to these crimes against humanity and aggression against States, they risk precipitating a dangerous, truly global crisis that will take a heavy toll.
Atul Mishra teaches international politics at Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR. The views expressed are personal
