The operation has ousted a South American strongman blasted by Trump’s administration as an “illegitimate” dictator and a “narco-terrorist,” a scourge responsible for a steady of stream of illegal drugs poisoning U.S. and Europe.AP reported.
“It was a brilliant operation, actually,” Trump told The New York Times shortly after U.S. forces were cleared from Venezuelan airspace. He later added in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” that some U.S. troops were injured in the strike but none were killed.
The operation to remove Maduro certainly marks another big moment for Trump’s foreign policy in his second term, as he hasn’t shied away from flexing U.S. military might even as he has vowed to keep America out of war.
Trump has now twice used U.S. forces to carry out risky operations against American adversaries. In June, he directed U.S. strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites.
Saturday’s action stirred fresh anxiety in capitals around the world that have sought to adjust to a new normal in Trump 2.0, where the idea of the U.S. trying to find global consensus on issues of war and peace is now passe. On Friday, Trump issued a new threat to Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters” — in protests sparked by the collapse of Iran’s currency — the United States “will come to their rescue.”
With the Venezuela operation, Trump followed through on a promise, spelled out in his National Security Strategy published last month, to assert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said the immediate path ahead for Trump in Venezuela could be more difficult to navigate than what he faced after the Iran strikes.
“Unlike the (Iran) strikes where Trump did the action and then said ‘fights over,’ he will not have that luxury here in Venezuela,” said Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank in Washington. “He needs to stay engaged in Venezuela to make sure that Maduro’s cronies — equally guilty of any crime he is — are also pushed out of power, and they may want to stay and fight as they don’t have too many places to run.”
European allies had expressed concern as Trump built up a massive presence of troops in the Caribbean in recent months and carried out dozens of lethal strikes on suspected drug smugglers — many that the administration claimed were effectively an arm of the Maduro government.
Maduro was hardly viewed as a choir boy by the international community. His 2018 and 2024 elections were seen as riddled with irregularities and viewed as illegitimate.
But many U.S. allies greeted news of Maduro’s capture with a measure of trepidation.
