President Trump’s decision to send U.S. forces into Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and return them to the U.S. to face drug charges elicited condemnation from legal experts and other critics who argued that the operation — conducted without congressional or United Nations approval — clearly violated U.S. and international law.
Such criticism came from Democratic leaders, international allies and adversaries including Mexico, France, China and Russia, United Nations secretary-General Antonio Guterres and experts on international law and wartime powers.
“Nicolás maduro was a thug and an illegitimate leader of Venezuela, terrorizing and oppressing its people for far too long and forcing many to leave the country. But starting a war to remove Maduro doesn’t just continue Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, it further erodes America’s standing on the world stage and risks our adversaries mirroring this brazen illegal escalation,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote on X.
A U.N. spokesman said Guterres was “deeply alarmed” by the U.S.operation and “deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected.”
China’s foreign ministry said “such hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty,” while France’s foreign minister said the U.S. operation “contravenes the principle of the non-use of force that underpins international law.”
Republicans largely backed the president,with both House Speaker Mike johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority leader John Thune (R-S.D.) defending the operation as “decisive” and legally justified. However, other Republicans questioned Trump’s authority to act unilaterally, and raised similar concerns as Schiff about other world leaders citing Trump’s actions to justify their own aggression into neighboring nations.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) defended Trump’s actions as “great for the future of Venezuelans and the region,” but said he was concerned that “Russia will use this to justify their illegal and barbaric military actions against Ukraine, or China to justify an invasion of Taiwan.”
Trump defended the operation as a legitimate law enforcement action necessary to combat threats to the U.S. from Maduro, whom he accused of sending violent gang members and deadly drugs across the U.S. border on a regular basis.
“The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States,” Trump said at a news conference. “As alleged in the indictment, he personally oversaw the vicious cartel known as Cartel de los Soles, which flooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans.”
Tho, Trump also made no secret of his interest in venezuela’s oil. He said U.S.officials would be running Venezuela for the foreseeable future and ensuring that the nation’s oil infrastructure is rebuilt — to return wealth to the Venezuelan people, but also to repay U.S. businesses that lost money when Maduro took over the industry.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced that Maduro, who had previously been indicted in the U.S. in 2020, is now the subject of a federal indictment.
