Venezuela's Troublesome Sovereignty: The Old Politics of the Pax Americana

Venezuela has not challenged the authority or sovereignty of the United States, nor has it committed any acts that directly threaten the territorial, political, or human integrity of the United States. There has been no violation of the rights of U.S. citizens, nor any concrete action that could be classified as an existential threat to U.S. security.

Originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique

By Laura Ludovico

Under the accusation that Venezuela was becoming a "narco-state," then-President Donald Trump announced, through his social network Truth Social, an attack that would have bombed a port in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, in addition to the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his first lady. The information was confirmed by Nicolás Maduro's government, which classified the episode as a serious military violation. According to Venezuelan authorities, the US action also allegedly hit civilians in the regions of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.

The current scenario can be interpreted as yet another manifestation of the Trump administration's efforts to reassert a hegemonic leadership that is increasingly contested in the international system. His administration faces a structural tension in trying to restore the logic of power characteristic of the post-Cold War period, a time marked by the consolidation of the Pax Americana doctrine, consolidating unquestionable and impenetrable hegemony. Although the instruments mobilized remain fundamentally the same—coercion, strategic intimidation, and exceptionalism—the international context has transformed significantly, producing a mismatch that helps explain the reactive and, to some extent, desperate character of these actions.

Venezuela's Role in the International System Has Represented, Since Hugo Chávez's Government

A turning point in relations between Caracas and Washington. Chávez not only implemented a series of internal policies based on income redistribution and the expansion of social services, such as the so-called Bolivarian Missions—which contributed to the reduction of poverty from 48.6% in 2002 to about 29.5% in 2011, in addition to advances in education and health—but also repositioned Venezuela on the regional and global stage, largely in opposition to US hegemony. Chávez's policy transcended the country's own borders; he was even responsible for implementing a program of free gas distribution to US citizens.

In the external sphere, Chávez articulated a policy of South-South integration and solidarity that expanded Latin American cooperation. He was one of the main architects of regional structures such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and energy initiatives like Petrocaribe, through which Caracas offered oil on preferential terms to numerous Caribbean and Central American countries. This "oil diplomacy" did not have merely immediate economic ends: by strengthening political and social ties with other governments in the region, Chávez sought to create an alternative to integration guided exclusively by market logic and influenced by the United States.

This strategy did, in fact, generate "discomfort" for Washington, as it represented an alternative model of regional cooperation and a challenge to traditional Latin American dependence on the power circles of the Global North. Venezuelan foreign policy under Chávez openly criticized initiatives such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and proposed, in its place, forms of integration that placed the State and regional solidarity as vectors of economic and social cooperation.

With Nicolás Maduro's succession in 2013, the internal and external landscape changed in tone, but not in direction. Maduro reaffirmed Bolivarian rhetoric and continued to be seen by allies and opponents alike as the political heir to that project. The economic crisis that deepened during his government—marked by hyperinflation, falling oil production, and international sanctions—limited Caracas's capacity to fully sustain the pace of redistributive policies and regional cooperation that characterized the more prosperous years of Chavismo.

Nevertheless, Maduro remains symbolically associated with the ideal of resistance to external tutelage. The relationship with the United States remains marked by diplomatic confrontations, sanctions, and mutual accusations, and his continued hold on power is often interpreted by international allies as an element of continuity of Venezuelan sovereignty in the face of external pressures.

The attempt to keep the United States in the position of rule maker in a deeply interdependent global economy reveals the limits of a strategy anchored in unilateral assumptions. The diffusion of power, the strengthening of regional arrangements, and the growing centrality of the Global South restrict the capacity to impose norms in isolation. In this sense, multilateralism—even though it is traversed by crises of legitimacy and effectiveness—functions as a containment mechanism for traditional hegemonic practices, hindering the erosion of state sovereignty under justifications of security, combating drug trafficking, or defending order.

It is observed that the political and economic emancipation of Latin America has always been perceived as a direct threat to US commercial and strategic interests. In this context, ideologies of a social nature and political projects that escape Western hegemony come to be framed as risks to the supposed stability of US power. Faced with this scenario, operations aimed at containing this autonomy and growth are structured. Initially, soft power instruments cloaked in diplomatic rhetoric are used; however, such strategies quickly give way to political, military, and systematic interventions.

Credit: Paulisson Miura/Wikimedia Commons

It was within this framework that Operation Condor developed, in the 1960s and 1970s. What is currently observed is the reenactment of this same anti-democratic and violent ideal, adapted to the conditions of the 21st century. The attack on Venezuela should not be interpreted as an isolated event, but as the harbinger of a new offensive against Latin America at a time marked by the rise of the Global South and the relative weakening of the unipolar order.

This is a situation still ongoing, which imposes analytical caution. Still, it is essential to avoid naive or reductionist readings based on the simplistic dichotomy between "Good" and "Evil." What is observed is a scenario characterized by the violation of state sovereignty, in which instruments of coercion are mobilized outside the traditional frameworks of international law.

Venezuela did not provoke the authority or sovereignty of the United States, nor did it commit acts that directly threatened the territorial, political, or human integrity of the US state. There was no violation of the rights of US citizens nor any concrete action that could be framed as an existential threat to US security. The factor that places Venezuela at the center of this offensive does not reside, therefore, in its political-ideological articulation alone, but in the autonomous management of its strategic reserves, especially in the energy sector.

In the context of the intensifying economic and commercial dispute between the United States and China, Washington faces a relative loss of advantage, whether in terms of productive capacity or in the diplomatic and normative fields. This relative decline in power is reflected in increasingly assertive and coercive strategies. In this sense, controlling the world's largest proven oil reserve becomes more strategic than establishing balanced trade relations or partnerships based on interdependence.

To make this strategy viable, the US began, over the course of weeks, to build a narrative centered on the so-called "war on drugs." Under this pretext, they carried out the—legally questionable—interception of Venezuelan vessels in waters under Venezuelan jurisdiction, testing the reaction of the international community and public opinion. The absence of a forceful response functioned, in practice, as a sign of permissiveness. This dynamic shows how US foreign policy has historically been directly articulated with its economic and strategic objectives, instrumentalizing security discourses to support the resurgence of a supposed Pax Americana.

It is in this context that the invasion fits in: not for the Venezuelan people, nor as a defense of democracy, freedom, or human rights, but as an expression of a commercial and geopolitical war. When these values lack material and legal backing to sustain the intervention, a persistent colonial logic reappears: that of treating Latin America as a subordinate space, available for external interference.

Although, so far, there are no clear signs of an open and prolonged military escalation, there is evident action aimed at the political, economic, and strategic control of a sovereign state, in stark contrast to the formal principles of multilateralism and the rules-based international order.

In an analysis of the first year of the Trump administration, it becomes clear that Venezuela figures as yet another recurring target of US foreign policy. In this set of countries under pressure, Brazil also fits in, not because of its energy resources or normative concerns about democracy, but because of its role as an actor with leadership potential in the Global South.

The political autonomy of Latin America comes to be perceived as a strategic threat insofar as it challenges the United States' capacity to exert normative and economic influence over regions considered central to its food, commercial, and geopolitical security. In this sense, US foreign policy mobilizes securitization processes by framing certain states as risks to order, legitimizing containment, coercion, or intervention actions.

Such dynamics reveal that the conflict is not organized around universalist values, but around disputes over power, influence, and the definition of the rules that structure the international political economy.

Laura Ludovico is a lawyer, Director of Projects and Research at the BRICS Tech Forum, and a contributor to Tarpan magazine.