Expressions of unbridled power don't come blunter thanabducting a sitting presidentfrom his capital in the dead of night.
President Donald Trump has shown in a 74-word social media post that he can act decisively, suddenly and perhaps recklessly, in pursuit of his varied and varying foreign policy goals, with little regard for precedent, consequence or it seems, international law.
The operation to take Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their heavily guarded location in Caracas to – presumably – face the American court system, does follow a predictable, albeit extreme, pattern for what the US calls a fugitive, with a $50 million bounty on his head.
But there is a grave exception here: Maduro is a head of state, whose nation is prey to various ongoing US political objectives. Whatever the indictments say, this will always feel political.
Successive White Houses have wanted to remove Venezuela's left-leaning, yet autocratic and at times violent, regime – whether for fighting drug trafficking, or for their oil, or for regional alignment.
The second Trump term promoted an end to Maduro's role as kingpin of a vast regional narco-trafficking network as key to its rationale. But they ran into a paradox when suggesting Maduro just leave power: He could not be both the kingpin and a man who could walk out on his role at the drop of a hat.
The evidence that Maduro was top of the regional tree was also not as substantial as the White House would have hoped. Yes, Venezuela undoubtedly permitted drug trafficking from its airspace and shores, with the top, global cocaine producer Colombia just over the border. But Mexico and Colombia's cartels were bigger players – yet seemed to attract less US military focus. The idea of somehow bringing this multi-billion industry to a close in Venezuela – an industry that millions of Americans are clients of weekly – is itself unrealistically ambitious. The incentives for traffickers are just simply too great. They could hope to disrupt, or inconvenience, but not stop.
Deep in the heart of this staggering operation lies Washington's wider ambitions for greater control of its near-abroad, for what they have termed an updated Monroe Doctrine – with a "Trump Corollary", to quote the latest White House National Security Strategy. They've offered bail out libertarian Argentinian president Javier Milei, scolded leftist Colombia leader Gustavo Petro, clashed with Brazil's Lula and cosied up to El Salvador's authoritarian Bukele. But the Caracas operation is not a rhetorical slight, rather the violent extraction of a political irritant.
A pliant Venezuela is better for US hydrocarbon markets, yet oil is less the guiding light of foreign policy in the United States, now a top producer itself. This is not 2003. Venezuela's resources would be helpful, but not the golden amulet its opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has touted.
A key, real Trump "corollary" to this action, is migration. At least 700,000 Venezuelans migrants are in the United States, despite a recent bid to remove their temporary protected status. A stable, prosperous and calm Venezuela is a place they could be returned to, forcibly or willingly. But we are far from that moment on Saturday morning.
As it stands, what comes next is wildly unclear. Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president, is likely Maduro's successor, but will she be willing to stomach the same risk of abduction, or seek an immediate détente with the White House? On the streets of Venezuela, it is also uncertain if this ignites anti-American fury as the toll of the operation becomes clear, or ushers in days of celebration at the end of a dictatorship that has mismanaged Venezuelans' economy into freefall.
One side-effect is the impact this move has for Trump's place on the world stage as a ditherer, lacking conviction, focus, or the ability to absorb (and keep secret) detail. The operation was daring, well-planned (in that it succeeded) and shows for the second time this year that Trump is willing to indulge ideas his predecessors would have laughed out of the Situation Room. Thestrikes on Iran's nuclear siteswere a similar outlying call, but, thus far, seem to have kept Tehran's program curbed. Yes, Trump can act in ways that are reckless, unprecedented and risk horrific escalation. But you cannot suggest he lacks the courage to act, even if it feels foolhardy at the time.
This sends a message to Moscow and Beijing – both allies to Maduro in varying degrees – who have let their comrade fall, without so much as a care package in the mail. Trump is not gun-shy, or unwilling to risk wider conflict, if the outcome is one he deeply yearns for, or thinks is in reach.
It also displays the ongoing, unmatched supremacy of the US military: whether it is Bin Laden in Abbottabad, or Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, or Maduro in his own capital. And while Putin's bid to decapitate the Ukrainian government were thwarted, leaving his armored vehicles aflame and log-jammed outside Kyiv, Trump's special forces have whisked Maduro likely to a New York courthouse. It will be clear in the months ahead whether this operation impacts any calculus in Beijing about testing Trump over Taiwan. But they cannot count on Washington sitting any invasion out.
The exhilaration of whisking away a dictator to trial will fade fast and the real, gaping problems of daily Venezuela loom large again. Maduro's departure is a win for Trump, but chaos or collapse after him would be a cascading loss. The plan for "what next" is more important than the staggering display of US might over Caracas' skies on early Saturday morning.
Maduro's removal does not anoint a successor with a real popular mandate. Or resolve where the military's loyalties now lie. Or hobble the narco-trafficker colossus the US says Maduro led. Instead, it demands fast answers to who leads, who fixes an economy with enduring, ghastly flaws, and who explains to the Venezuelan people the lasting benefits of the hours of terrifying explosions their young and elderly just had to endure in the dead of night.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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