Early on the morning of Jan. 3, 2026, the United States launched an operation into Caracas, Venezuela, aiming to capture and sentence the president of the country, Nicholas Maduro, for drug trafficking crimes. This operation, known as Operation Absolute Resolve, drastically changed American foreign policy, and raised fundamental questions of the international world order.
Florian Justwan, chair of the UI Department of Politics and Philosophy, reached out to The Argonaut to provide commentary about the impact of Maduro’s capture on the international community. Justwan specializes in foreign policy, attitudes towards democracy and has conducted research on South American politics.
The Argonaut: In your opinion, what is the global message being taken away from Maduro’s capture?
Justwan: Its seems to a lot of IR [International Relations] observers, that the Trump Administration is pursuing a foreign policy, where it’s trying to achieve 2 and half things. One is a consistent supply of energy for the United States. This is to a large extent about energy, and it is not really a story about the United States trying to help the humanitarian side of things. It’s not a story about establishing democracy in Venezuela, its establishing energy supply for the United States, and clearly, that is something the trump administration is working on.
The second thing, looking at this holistically, not just with regards to Greenland or Denmark and Venezuela, but also in the dialogue with Columbia and Mexico. The United States is clearly working hard to strengthen its political control in the western hemisphere. That seems to be kind of the larger, big picture goal here. Strengthen, re-establish control of countries in the western hemisphere , particularly in regard to countries that have energy implications for the US.
The half thing I will say here, is that the United states seems much more comfortable just using its muscle , engaging in pretty blatant power politics, un-constrained by international law, or even wishes of key allies, that’s sort of a lesson that people in the international politics world take away from this.
Arg: The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, said at the World Economic Forum, “The rules-based order is fading, and the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must,” is there a general belief internationally that International World Order is gone after the capture of Maduro?
Justwan: The response that countries gave was quite varied. There were some countries that immediately criticized this action, and publicly said this was a violation of international law, Brazil is a really good example. The Brazilian President [Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva] came out and criticized this very forcefully.
Other countries, Argentina for instance, with a more right leaning government, applauded the United States for doing this. Long standing U.S. allies in Europe, we see that their response differs depending on whether it was made publicly or behind closed doors. Publicly, a lot of European leaders were bending themselves out of shape, to not offend Trump, since they need US support in Ukraine to strike a deal there, while still pointing out international law is important.”
That was what was perceived negatively and skeptically throughout the world, because essentially the United States threatened a fellow NATO ally, Denmark, over part of their territory. And they said, at least for a while, unless you give up your territory, we will put sanctions on you. The combination of these factors has led a lot of observers to say that we are in a New World order now.
Carney is a good example of this, but elsewhere in the world, you get skeptical and concerned statements. The former President of the European Parliament [Josep Borrell] for instance said that the United States with this current administration should be seen as a hostile power. Venezuela was how it all started, but I think Trump’s foreign policy right now has multiple different moving parts, and they should all be thought of holistically.
Arg: To what extent has the United States conducted similar missions and what makes this mission different?
Justwan: The United States has repeatedly during Republican administrations, and in Democratic administrations, used its military in ways that international lawyers called illegal. I think there are two ways that this stood out, number one, going into another country, and then really forcibly removing the head of state. There’s precedent for that, Noriega in Panama, in 1989, 1990, but that’s pretty much it. There is that precedent, but it’s still unusual in the grand scheme of things. Not a lot of instances of that happening.
The other way in which this is different, is that there is a norm in the United States, that the executive branch gives at least a heads up about something that is about to happen to a small circle of trustworthy members of congress. Based on what we know, this did not happen this time, so it was a violation of norms in this way. It’s really something where the executive branch decided to act and no one on the legislative side of things was really consulted or taken into account ahead of time.
Arg: Do you see other countries who want control over foreign territories enacting similar foreign policy such as China and their interest in taking Taiwan, or is only the U.S. able to make these claims due to their military strength?
Justwan: The Trump administration essentially made the argument that what the US is doing in Venezuela is making the United States appear strong on the world stage. It’s going to deter countries like China from doing things that ‘the United States doesn’t like’ because China and other actors see that the United States is trigger happy, and willing to use their force.
But at the same time, the argument is being made that the United States is continuing to undermine international norms, and international law, and that continued undermining might lead other countries to behave more aggressively, violate laws and norms themselves. Some people might argue that it might motivate China to behave more aggressively towards Taiwan, because the message is international law and international norms don’t count for as much anymore.
Immediately after the Venezuela action, the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, quipped and said, if going abroad and abducting foreign heads of government is what we are doing now, Russia might do the same to the German head of government. So that shows at least, in terms of narrative, people see it as an attack of international law.
As of Feb. 12, the United States still has Maduro in custody. At his first court date, Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro both pleaded not guilty. The next court date is on March 17.
Josie Adjanohoun can be reached at [email protected].