News Beat
Trump wants to rule Venezuela by force – but he’s getting the US into a mess
Two different groups bustle up to the visiting foreigner, a gringo approaching the bridge from Colombia into Venezuela.
“Don’t go left or right of the road – you’re okay on the bridge – but don’t wander into these streets left or right. They’re controlled by Tren de Aragua gangsters who will rob you or kill you,” says a young woman sweeping drizzle out of her eyes.
The next, a young taxi driver, gets out of his car to explain: “You can cross the bridge to see the Venezuelan side but it’s not a good idea.
“The Colombian Army and the Venezuelan forces won’t come to get you if you get shot in no man’s land and everything under the bridge is controlled by guerillas.”
This is the world that Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio think they can run – and run remotely.
Nicolas Maduro was removed as president of Venezuela over the weekend. As he was being led blindfolded and chained, like a Guantanamo internee, from battleship to helicopter, from New York jail to courtroom, Trump was making plans for the country he’d ruled.
The invasion ordered by the US president was small scale and clinical. It decapitated a government he said ran “narco-terrorism” and had killed hundreds of thousands of Americans by drug overdose and through violence.
But the government was left intact. And Venezuelans in limbo.
“Everyone wanted to see the end of Maduro. But not like this. My country can fall into chaos. We don’t want to end up like Iraq,” says Sylvie, a beautician crossing into Colombia to buy supplies for her salon in Venezuela.
The Maduro regime persists – so Sylvie doesn’t want to be identified.
Crossing the bridge close by is Emanuel, who is equally anxious – and doesn’t want to be overheard.
He is hedging his bets because he does not know who is ruling his country anymore: “I support the government.”
The current government?
“The legitimate government,” he replies and then walks off.
Since Maduro inherited power from Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s late socialist strongman, almost 8 million people have fled poverty and political turmoil. Seven million of them have been hoisted in South America and the Caribbean.
For most Venezuelans and critics of the Maduro government – which is most western countries – his legitimacy evaporated when he stole the 2024 elections from Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
However Trump has said he doesn’t believe Gonzalez’s predecessor María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Laureate and internationally recognised opposition leader, has much support in Venezuela and so he’s going to take charge through the existing system of government.
For 48 hours there was a vacuum in Caracas. Soon after Maduro’s abduction, vice president Delcy Rodriguez came out to say she wouldn’t take over and called for national resistance against American colonialism.
But Trump was quick to spell out his 18th century approach to diplomacy in America’s back garden. If Venezuela’s remaining government didn’t fall into line then they risked being attacked, he warned.
“If they don’t behave we’ll do a second strike,” he said.
In a direct message to Ms Rodriguez, a socialist technocrat widely credited with stabilising the country’s economy, he added: “I just say that she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro.”
His threat struck home. By Monday morning, Rodrigez had sent out a social media post reversing her defiance.
“A message from Venezuela to the world, and to the United States: Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence. Our country aspires to live without external threats, in an environment of respect and international cooperation. We believe that global peace is built by first guaranteeing peace within each nation.”
Her reference to internal peace is telling. She’s asking the opposition not to rise against her government. This is a government Trump says is running drugs and spreading terror.
In return, Venezuela is being asked to open its economy, hit hard by Trump’s economic sanctions against it in his first term in office.
American firms will be given oil and national infrastructure and endless money-making opportunities if Caracas cooperates with Washington.
But there’s no wider plan for the economy. No plan for the political future of Venezuela. And no plan for how to stabilise a country that reluctantly hosts paramilitary drug organisations, illegal gold smugglers, and millions of ordinary people desperate for democratic change.
Trump, meanwhile, has stepped up his threats against Mexico, Colombia and Cuba and re-upped his demand that the US be given Greenland, a part of Nato-member Denmark.
Colin Powell once warned President George Bush Jr that invading a nation like Iraq meant the Pottery Barn rule applies – “you break it you own it”.
In Venezuela, and her neighbours, the speculation is over whether Trump is breaking pottery so that he can own it – or whether he’ll simply charge about smashing plates.
