{"id":196584,"date":"2026-01-12T01:12:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/today-an-illegal-coup-in-venezuela-but-where-next-donald-trump-talks-peace-but-he-is-a-man-of-war-simon-tisdall-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T01:12:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:12:47","slug":"today-an-illegal-coup-in-venezuela-but-where-next-donald-trump-talks-peace-but-he-is-a-man-of-war-simon-tisdall-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/today-an-illegal-coup-in-venezuela-but-where-next-donald-trump-talks-peace-but-he-is-a-man-of-war-simon-tisdall-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Today an illegal coup in Venezuela, but where next? Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war | Simon Tisdall – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflict
T<\/span>he overthrow and reported capture<\/a> by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela\u2019s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, ignores sovereign territorial rights, and potentially creates an anarchic situation inside Venezuela itself.
It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in \u2013 the world according to Donald Trump<\/a>.
The direct attack on Venezuela marks an extraordinary, dangerous assertion of unfettered US power and comes in the same week that Trump threatened military strikes against another unpopular anti-western regime: that of Iran<\/a>. It follows months<\/a> of escalating US military, economic and political pressure on Maduro, including lethal maritime attacks on the boats of alleged drug traffickers.
Trump claims to be acting to prevent illegal narcotics flowing into the US via Venezuela<\/a> and to halt an alleged influx of \u201ccriminal\u201d migrants. In an echo of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is also accused of coveting Venezuela\u2019s huge oil and gas resources \u2013 suspicions reinforced by repeated, illegal US seizures of Venezuelan oil tankers.
But Trump\u2019s primary motives appear to be personal animosity directed at Maduro, and a desire to revive the 19th-century Monroe doctrine by creating a US sphere of influence<\/a> and dominance throughout the west.
Regional leaders, including Colombia\u2019s president, Gustavo Petro, who has clashed with Trump in recent months, greeted the coup with outrage and alarm; not least, perhaps, because they fear they too could become victims of Washington\u2019s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba\u2019s leftwing government has particular cause for concern. It relies heavily on Venezuela\u2019s regime for cheap energy and political and economic support.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has made no secret<\/a> of his wish to see regime change in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be running high. Trump has previously threatened military action there, over control of the Panama canal. Indeed, the reported capture of Maduro recalls the 1989 US invasion of Panama and the toppling and arrest of its then dictator, Manuel Noriega.
Authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes around the world will be carefully watching Trump\u2019s next steps, as will Washington\u2019s democratic allies. Iran condemned the coup. It has good reason to be fearful. But Vladimir Putin<\/a>, Russia\u2019s president, may not be totally displeased by the defenestration of his Venezuelan ally.
Trump\u2019s unprovoked resort to violence is not so very different from Putin\u2019s actions in invading Ukraine. Both have illegally attacked a neighbouring country and sought to remove its leadership. For China\u2019s Xi Jinping, whose forces were last week<\/a> practising military action against the \u201cseparatists\u201d of Taiwan, Trump has just set a precedent he may one day gladly follow.
Trump\u2019s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and western democracies. They should, and must, unequivocally condemn it. It directly challenges the rules and principles of the international order they hold dear. The US has once again ignored the UN and traditional methods of addressing inter-state grievances. And it is acting with apparently scant regard or thought for what happens next in Venezuela.
The Caracas government has been decapitated, but other senior members of the regime appear still to be in place. They are urging resistance and, potentially, retaliation against the US. There are unconfirmed reports of civilian casualties. If a power vacuum develops, public order could collapse<\/a>, sparking civil war or a possible military coup. And it is unclear whether the latest US military action has ended, or may escalate further.
The idea that exiled opposition leaders, such as the 2025 Nobel peace prizewinner Mar\u00eda Corina Machado<\/a>, will swiftly return and that full democracy will now be restored is naive. The coming days will be critical. And it\u2019s all down to Trump.
Trump\u2019s reckless action should finally lay to rest his always misleading characterisation of himself as a \u201cglobal peacemaker\u201d. It\u2019s high time Keir Starmer and other European leaders publicly recognise him for what he is \u2013 a global warmaker, a universal menace.
Each time he blunders noisily into conflict zones, such as Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Palestine, setting deadlines, issuing ultimatums, picking favourites and monetising misery, the quest for just and lasting peace is set back.
Little wonder peace is elusive. And bizarrely, even while posing as a disinterested peacemaker and non-interventionist, Trump simultaneously wages war on the world. The US conducted record numbers of air strikes<\/a> in the Middle East and Africa last year, surveys show.
Since returning to office a year ago, peace-loving Trump has bombed Yemen, carelessly killing numerous civilians after loosening rules of engagement; bombed Nigeria, to counter-productive effect; bombed Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and bombed Iran<\/a>, where he mendaciously exaggerated the success of US strikes on nuclear facilities. He even refuses to rule out bombing Greenland, a sovereign territory of Nato ally Denmark.
What\u2019s going on inside Trump\u2019s head? A benign interpretation is that in matters of war and peace, he has no idea what he is doing \u2013 no strategy, no clue \u2013 and makes up policy as he goes, depending on how he feels.
The sinister interpretation says he knows exactly what he\u2019s at, that more and worse is to come. Like previous second-term presidents who ran out of road domestically, Trump finds the world stage offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and ego. He is building a legacy in blood.
Trump\u2019s irresponsible, dangerously erratic behaviour is getting measurably worse. His Venezuela \u201csuccess\u201d may encourage him to attempt more and bigger, unhinged outrages. Like Mark Antony minus the toga and brains, he struts and preens, cries havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflictThe overthrow and reported capture by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela\u2019s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}