By Jeremy Kinsman

January 5, 2026

What was Donald Trump’s lightning strike to abduct and extract Nicolás Maduro really about?

Trump says it was about deposing a “bad guy” whose drug exports represented a threat to US security.

Oddly enough for a case of regime change, the regime hasn’t changed. The acting president is Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, a long-time minister in the governments of Hugo Chavez and Maduro. Rodriguez has been sanctioned by several democracies for corruption (US) and “undermining democracy.”

Her brother Jorge Rodriguez is also a party mainstay, once the mayor of Caracas, serving now as President of the National Assembly, from which he directs much of the regime’s propaganda.

Trump has announced that the US would now “run” Venezuela. Rubio backed off the claim Sunday, saying that the current government would stay for now. Trump added that Rodriguez would” do what’s right” or face a fate harsher than Maduro, now being held in a notorious Brooklyn federal detention centre on multiple drug trafficking, weapons and conspiracy charges.

On one level, it makes sense for the Trump administration to work with the current government. The U.S. ran a successful military campaigns to remove dictators in Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011) but didn’t stabilize the countries.

In Iraq, the U.S. foolishly dismissed the existing military and government services, leaving a well-trained recruitment pool for the insurgency that for years plagued its local operations. In Libya, the US and others in NATO bombed Gaddafi out of office but put no troops in to assure order. Both broken countries succumbed to violence.

Many observers now ask, “What about restoring democracy?” Recently, with the exile of popular opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez to Spain, Marina Corina Machado has been the most prominent face and force of democracy in Venezuela, for which she was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize that Trump had openly campaigned for.

Still in hiding, Machado on Saturday released a letter on X lauding Maduro’s removal, saying it is now the time “for people,” and urging the installation of Edmundo Gonzalez, who had been Maduro’s official opponent in presidential elections in 2024, when Machado was banned from running. Trump said in his news conference on Saturday that Machado doesn’t have sufficient “respect” to run the country.

The Gonzalez/Machado team is believed to have won two-thirds of the votes, though official figures fraudulently deemed Maduro the winner.

The US has prioritized the seamless transfer of power from Maduro, using the existing Venezuelan government, to hasten the re-entry of major U.S. major oil companies (Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976).

Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are the world’s largest but production has dropped in the last 15 years from 3 million barrels a day to only one, making it the 21st biggest producer globally. It will be years before the national oil production infrastructure is able to lift its production back to peak levels.

For Beijing, Moscow, and Jerusalem, the operation will be processed as a license to do what they want in their own backyards.

So, if regime change, democracy, and a fast hit for the U.S. of more oil aren’t forefront prizes, what motivated the huge operation to unseat Maduro?

It’s a demo of U.S. intentions to show proof of concept at the core of Trump’s recently published, radical National Security Strategy. In his victory press conference on Saturday, Trump made explicit his intention to assert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, so that it would never “be questioned again.”

Referring again to the “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine (1823), he said: “For decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.”

In Latin America, where U.S. intervention has left a bitter legacy in an array of countries including Bolivia, Mexico, Chile, Guatemala, elsewhere in Central America, and of course, in Cuba, the Maduro removal has had a mix of reactions. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil declared bluntly that in the attack on Venezuela, the U.S. had crossed an “unacceptable line”. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the military action as a “clear violation” of Article 2 of the UN Charter.

European democracies regretted the intervention, emphasizing the necessity of deferring to international law, to which the Trump administration pays scant attention.

Prime Minister Mark Carney noted that “Canada has not recognized the illegitimate regime of Maduro since it stole the 2018 election. The Canadian government therefore welcomes the opportunity for freedom, democracy, peace and prosperity for the Venezuelan people.”

He added that all parties should “respect international law.” Of course, Carney has to be thoughtful about overtly condemning Trump for a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.

For Beijing, Moscow, and Jerusalem, the operation will be processed as a license to do what they want in their own backyards.

In a bigger and more historic picture, as Richard Haass put it on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show Sunday, “allies and institutions have been at the core” of U.S. foreign policy, devoted to the buttressing of a rules-based international order.

America’s erstwhile allies in that endeavour have to align themselves to pursue it now without the unilateralist and nationalist actions of a rogue American president. Multilateral cooperation has to remain basic to Canada.

If all democratic allies stand back from the destructive concoction brewing in this rogue administration of a return to spheres of influence, conferring carte-blanche legitimacy to the strongest, the rules-based order will descend into global anarchy in increasingly fatal steps.

For a start, it is time for NATO allies to tell Donald Trump, in private if necessary, to knock off the aggressive, offensive, and dangerous references to “getting” Greenland. President Trump seems, since the attack on Iran, to have found satisfaction in triggering U.S. firepower.

America’s longstanding allies must draw a line, before they cease to be allies.

Policy Contributing Writer Jeremy Kinsman served as Canada’s ambassador to Russia, high commissioner to the UK, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to the European Union. He also served as minister at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian International Council.