UN Security Council nations condemn US incursion in Venezuela
Jan. 6, 2026
Countries at an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York yesterday condemned the U.S. military action to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The U.N.’s top official, Secretary General António Guterres, said the Trump administration had violated the U.N. charter. Several countries, including U.S. allies Bahrain, Brazil and Mexico, agreed. (New York Times)
While French President Emmanuel Macron recently endorsed Maduro’s capture, its U.N. envoy was slightly more critical yesterday, saying any violations of international law by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which include the U.S., erodes “the very foundation of the international order.” (Associated Press)
The meeting had been requested by Colombia, which delivered a carefully calibrated rebuke of Washington, reports the Guardian. The country’s ambassador condemned the US action as a violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity.
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. defended his country’s actions, saying: “We are not occupying a country. This was a law enforcement operation.”
Trump administration officials have maintained this line on Capitol Hill, where the White House has come under fire for not consulting Congress ahead of the military incursion that deposed Maduro. (New York Times)
In parallel, also in New York, Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiring to import cocaine in a U.S. courthouse yesterday. He was insistent that he was not a common criminal defendant, but a “prisoner of war.” (New York Times)
“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still the president of my country,” Maduro — who entered the courtroom hackled at the ankles — said in Spanish. His wife, Cilia Flores also pleaded not guilty.
“The brevity and formality of the arraignment hearing in federal court in Manhattan – barely 30 minutes during which Maduro was asked to confirm his name and that he understood the four charges against him – belied the far-reaching consequences of the US action,” according to the Guardian.
The indictment names six defendants. They also include Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, known as Nicolásito; a former minister of the interior and justice, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín; Diosdado Cabello Rondón, the current minister of interior, justice and peace; and Héctor Guerrero Flores, the leader of Tren de Aragua. (New York Times)
Also yesterday, lawmakers aligned with the ruling party, including Maduro’s son, gathered in Caracas to follow through with a scheduled swearing-in ceremony of the National Assembly for a term that will last until 2031.
“If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today, it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit,” Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, said at the legislative palace in his first public appearance since Saturday. “This is not a regional problem. It is a direct threat to global political stability.” (Associated Press)
Donroe Doctrine
Trump’s 2025 military campaign—marked by deadly strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels and a major redeployment of U.S. forces—signals a shift toward asserting hemispheric military dominance rather than a limited operation aimed at Venezuela, writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review.
“Despite the events of the past year, the rest of the hemisphere—and indeed much of the world—has not yet adapted to Trump’s militaristic vision of power politics and spheres of influence. And realistically, there is little that America’s neighbors can do to respond in the short term. If Trump wants to use the U.S. military to take out future Venezuelan leaders, topple the Cuban regime, detain Nicaragua’s president, retake the Panama Canal or strike drug cartels in Mexico, Honduras and Colombia—he can,” argues Bosworth. (World Politics Review)
Indeed, the New York Times reports that Trump’s self-named “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine asserts a U.S. right to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and to deny “non-Hemispheric competitors” — namely, China — “the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets.”
“The return of the Monroe Doctrine is coming at a very inconvenient time for Latin America given the divisions in the region,” Benjamin Gedan, who served as South America director on the Obama administration National Security Council, told Político. “It’s a low point of regional cooperation and the U.S. is taking advantage of this. The instinct right now is for leaders to keep their head down since they know they’re likely alone if they protest, and therefore a target.”
Trump has signaled that Cuba could be a potential target for regime change, and his cabinet has a significant number of Cuba hawks, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But even without military action, “the ongoing U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil is cutting off an economic lifeline for the island, which it used to keep the lights on domestically and sold on international markets in exchange for hard currency to buy staples like medicine and food,” notes the New York Times.
In this context, Haiti might seem like a relevant place for a U.S. invasion, given its non-functional government, economic crisis and widespread gang territorial control. “Yet few analysts expect a U.S. military intervention in Haiti similar to the pre-dawn raid carried out in Venezuela. The reason, they say, lies in Haiti’s lack of strategic value to an administration that’s increasingly embracing a transactional approach to its foreign policy,” reports the Miami Herald.
Russian officials have publicly rejected Trump’s attack on Venezuela, “as a flagrant violation of international law and a dangerous precedent. But beyond the rhetoric, there is a sense of grudging respect – and even envy – at the effectiveness of the coup that Moscow itself once imagined, but failed to execute because of a series of intelligence blunders and Ukraine’s strong resistance,” reports the Guardian.
In a Guardian op-ed, UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk, argues that “beyond the legal arguments, history teaches us that while attempts at regime change may initially be greeted by relief, they often lead to massive human rights violations, dangerous chaos and protracted violent conflict.”
More Venezuela
A classified CIA assessment presented to U.S. President Donald Trump concluded senior Maduro loyalists, including Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, were best positioned to maintain stability if the Venezuelan leader lost power, reported Reuters, yesterday.
Now Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, “is a veteran politician, lawyer and diplomat who had served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018. She has deep family ties to leftist politics in Venezuela, though she was generally viewed as more pragmatic than other members of Maduro’s government. While Rodríguez played a key role in overhauling Venezuela’s economic policy, developing close ties with the business community, she has also been accused of corruption and human rights abuses as part of Maduro’s inner circle,” reports the Washington Post.
David Smilde pushes back against media characterizations of Rodríguez as “moderate,” arguing she should instead be considered a “new despot”: “These are authoritarians who instead of trying to close off and completely control their countries like traditional dictators, work to construct a competitive authoritarianism in which they seek relatively open relations with the world, including relatively open markets and some democratic spaces, while engaging in selective repression of civil society and political competitors and use the full apparatus of the state to reward their allies and punish their foes.” (Venezuela and the United States)
Despite having been snubbed by Trump, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said yesterday that Maduro’s ouster is the first step to a democratic transition. (El País)
At least 14 journalists and media employees, including 13 members of international media organizations, were detained in Caracas yesterday, according to the union representing Venezuelan reporters. (Guardian)
AFP reported last night that gunfire near the Venezuelan presidential palace was a response from local security forces to the appearance of unidentified drones over the Miraflores palace in central Caracas.
At least 16 oil tankers hit by U.S. sanctions appear to have made an attempt to evade a major American naval blockade on Venezuela’s energy exports since the Maduro rendition, in part by disguising their true locations or turning off their transmission signals, reports the New York Times.
James Luckey-Lange, a U.S. traveler who went missing in Venezuela in early December, is being held in the detention center run by the country’s military counterintelligence in Caracas, reports the New York Times.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan is in tatters, “in 2025, Colombia faced levels of violence not seen in years, driven by clashes among criminal groups that have strengthened their military power and territorial control in areas critical to illegal economies,” reports InSight Crime, part of its Game Changers series.
Mexico
A passenger train derailed in the Mexican state of Oaxaca on Dec. 28, killing at least 13 people, according to the Mexican authorities. (New York Times)
Regional
Cryptocurrency is increasingly relevant in Latin America’s criminal underworld: “From an unprecedented bank heist to nearly untraceable money laundering techniques, virtual currencies went mainstream” last year, reports InSight Crime.
Critter Corner
Studies on how the Monarch butterfly finds its way are helping scientists understand the “magnetic compass” that is the least understood sense that is used by some migrating animals - New York Times