Trump Tells Everyone Why He Illegally Invaded Venezuela

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

The U.S. invasion of Venezuela that overthrew President Nicolas Máduro was one of the most egregious violations of international law in recent memory. The illegality of the invasion is plain enough to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Baddie Exception to international law and norms, which supposedly can be overcome by calling some leader a Baddie. But it doesn’t work that way. Calling a foreign leader a Baddie is not a permission slip to unilaterally violate a state’s national sovereignty. One can either believe in a rules-based global order that binds and protects all states equally, or one can believe that some states can decide for themselves who the Baddies are and remove them at will. It is not possible to believe both.

It is also not possible to seriously believe the coup d’état was about drug trafficking, which President Donald Trump originally said was the issue. He’s largely dropped this talking point, even as his lickspittles in right-wing media continue to repeat it. But the thing is, it’s been bogus from the beginning.

Trump does not care about drug trafficking. If Trump cared about drug trafficking, he wouldn’t have pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving 45 years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to distribute 400 tons of cocaine in the U.S. If Trump cared about drug trafficking, he wouldn’t have pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence after founding a black market website on which more than $200 million worth of illegal drugs were sold. If Trump cared about drug trafficking, he would criminally prosecute the Sackler family, who got rural America hooked on OxyContin. If Trump cared about drug trafficking, he would crack down on cryptocurrency, which is a boon for drug traffickers to launder money, instead of having his own cryptocurrency firm.

All those boat bombings that killed more than 100 people were meant to goad Maduro into a response, as were the seizures of two Venezuelan oil tankers. Maduro didn’t take the bait, but he did do a dance that reportedly played a role in Trump’s decision to abduct him.

Speaking of opioids, Venezuela does not produce fentanyl, which is by far the deadliest illicit drug in the U.S. The sources of fentanyl are China and Mexico. Insisting that the U.S. invaded Venezuela to protect Americans from drugs is farcical. The people claiming the invasion was about drug trafficking should stop. They are embarrassing themselves.

Venezuela, however, is a source of oil, which Trump has remained laser-focused on in his public remarks. He even suggested American taxpayers would reimburse oil companies that rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector. America first, baby.

As for another Baddie charge, the one that Maduro was a dictator, so what? There are dictators in this world, some of whom the U.S. supports, such as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who also sits atop an ocean of crude oil. It would be nice if this weren’t the case, but it is. Not only does MBS oppress his people, but he also ordered a Washington Post columnist to be chopped up into pieces. No coup for him, though. Instead, he got a fist bump from Joe Biden and a suggestion from Trump that the columnist had it coming.

There is one thing that the crown prince has going for him that Maduro didn’t. No one has ever accused MBS of rigging an election to stay in power. That’s because, as an absolute monarchy, Saudi Arabia doesn’t bother holding elections to determine who runs the place.

It is not morally serious to claim it’s good that the U.S. overthrew a leader who was oppressing his own people while the U.S. simultaneously supports other oppressors. That’s not a principled foreign policy. It’s just doling out patronage to client states and punishment to those who don’t toe the Washington line, especially if they cannot fight back. One can defend this system, and indeed, many do. But let’s not pretend there’s anything righteous about this, especially with Trump saying of Venezuela, “We’re going to keep the oil.”

And yet with all this talk about Maduro being a Baddie, it’s entirely possible that his vice president and successor, Delcy Rodriguez, turns out to be a Baddie herself. Regardless of whether they supported the invasion or not, almost everyone seems to agree that Venezuela is better off without Maduro. But this betrays a lack of imagination. Things can always deteriorate. They may get better, worse, or more or less stay the same, but saying Venezuelans are better off is an unbelievably premature assessment of the situation.

For his part, Trump has issued three immediate demands of Rodriguez: cracking down on illegal drugs, expelling foreign operatives from countries the U.S. deems hostile, and ceasing the sale of oil to said countries. As for democratic elections, those are not “imminent” and can come “eventually.”

That’s because Maduro’s ouster is not about bringing democracy to Venezuela. Trump immediately ruled out Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado as the next head of state, saying, “She doesn’t have the support, or the respect, within the country.” Instead, Trump is leaving Rodriguez and the rest of the chavismos in power because keeping in place the holdovers from the previous Baddie regime is easier for continuity’s sake. Why screw around with elections and a slew of candidates running on anti-imperialist, Trump-can’t-take-our-oil platforms when maybe – just maybe – Rodriguez will play ball?

It would defeat the whole purpose.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.