Full Transcript:
The Real Meaning of Trump’s Venezuela Attack
By Vlad Vexler, 4 Jan 2026
[Transcript made by Google’s Gemini]
“It was dark and it was deadly”
– Trump
Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the remarkable capture of Maduro.
It was an incredible thing to see.
– Trump
It is less a triumph of American power than a symptom of its contraction. It indicates a weakening U.S. power, expanding its regional sphere of influence while abandoning its global one. This is the biggest redefinition of the U.S. role in the world since World War II.
“I mean, I watched it literally like I was watching a television show. And if you would have seen the speed, the violence—it was an amazing thing.”
– Trump
This is theatrics. Trump is intoxicated by the theatrics of war; he relishes the spectacle, the momentary surge of dominance, like a more dramatic version of a TV rating spike. He acts with the knowledge that his act of war will eventually slide out of the news cycle, only to return later as material for him to reframe as myth.
The United States is shedding its claim to global stewardship and retreating into dominating its own sphere of influence. This retreat carries a dangerous corollary because, of course, Russia and China must therefore have a sphere of influence of their own. America asserts its control over its backyard from South America to Greenland; China asserts control in East Asia; Russia in Eurasia. India is in between. And then there is Europe. Europe is, in theory, America’s ally, but in practice, it is neither ally nor foe, but a kind of irrelevant, expendable space from Trump’s point of view.
Now, it’s funny and unfunny that as Trump attacks Venezuela and captures Maduro, Europe’s response is to escalate its degree of “monitoring the situation very closely.”
“I want to ensure that I’ve got all the facts at my disposal.”
– UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, 4 January
In a world sliding into a politics of spheres of influence, Europe does not obviously have a sphere of influence of its own. Indeed, Eastern Europe and Western Europe can’t even agree on what constitutes Europe proper. Europe’s response to the collapse of the post-1989 global order is to pretend that this collapse is happening more slowly than it is. Europe’s incapacity to condemn Trump’s action normatively weakens the grounds on which Europe condemns Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. To change this, European leaders would have to get themselves on a stronger footing in their domestic politics. Democratic centrist leaders who are besieged by a crisis of legitimacy in their domestic politics are not going to make good strategic leaders on the international stage.
Now, where are the Russians in this? Putin, like the Chinese, has backed Maduro for years. Only a few months ago, Putin and Maduro signed a strategic partnership and economic cooperation agreement, and their last official phone call dates back to December 11th. Moreover, the image of Maduro blindfolded and in handcuffs is the stuff of Putin’s nightmares, because that is Putin’s ultimate fear about his own potential end.
But Ukraine matters to Putin a thousand times more than Venezuela. While Russian officials have condemned Trump’s actions, Putin, as yet, hasn’t. Moreover, in recent history, Putin hasn’t done much to help Maduro. Contrast this with 2018 when, upon the U.S. declaring the election in Venezuela illegitimate, the Russians sent 100 military personnel and two strategic bombers. Essentially, Putin is admitting the Monroe Doctrine here. He knows that the corollary of America running its backyard is that Russia may be allowed to run its own backyard.
There is then a challenge that Trump’s action presents for Putin, namely, it generates pressure on Putin from the “Z-radical” side. There are many disanalogies between Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s attack on Venezuela; however, one thing that stands out pictorially is Trump’s sublime and instant success versus Putin’s spectacular incapacity to overwhelm Ukraine in four years of war, having lost hundreds of thousands of personnel and a whole army’s worth of military equipment. Several Z-radical accounts mocked the Kremlin on Telegram, and even Mr. Dugin’s account posted: “Do as Trump does.” But overall, this is a net gain for Russia because Trump’s actions advance Putin’s vision of the world.
Now, where or who is next?
First, everybody in South America and Central America knows that their sovereignty is now more fragile than it used to be.
Second, Greenland’s annexation is now a serious risk. There is no reason why Trump can’t declare the U.S. military bases there to be sovereign American territory. Three questions matter to Trump: Is Greenland in our sphere of influence? Do they have resources we can exploit? And will it make good TV? The answer to all three of these questions is yes.
Thirdly, Trump’s action can’t embolden Putin in Ukraine because he’s already maximally emboldened, but it can embolden Putin to escalate his hybrid war against Europe. Because if Venezuela is Trump’s, then Putin can think that Estonia and Poland are certainly Putin’s.
Fourthly, it’s important for us to keep two things in mind at the same time: On the one hand, Maduro is an illegitimate authoritarian and a political disgrace. On the other hand, Trump’s actions make the world a more dangerous place, make America weaker, and do nothing to help democratic forces in Venezuela. Understand that from “Maduro is bad,” it does not follow that Trump’s actions are good.
Fifth, Trump’s remark that America will run Venezuela is magical thinking. Decapitating the regime does not eliminate the regime; it’s still there without Maduro. Eliminating the regime is not something you can do without collapsing the state, so there is no plan whatever for what happens next.
Sixth, the attack on Venezuela captures a rare convergence inside the Trump administration. Here, Donald Trump’s “might is right” politics align with the interests of the neocons inside the administration. Venezuela and Iran function as a kind of ideological reservation for neocons marginalized on China and compelled to tolerate grotesque indulgence of the Kremlin. Submissive neocons in the Trump administration, led by Marco Rubio, are allowed to have a little party in this limited domain.
Having analyzed Trump’s action politically, I want to ground it ethically for us. The attack on Venezuela is an arbitrary political action inspired not by lies, but by power that stops even pretending to tell the truth and relies on spectacle to make truth irrelevant. Its actions are justified not by lies, but by the performance itself. We’re not going back to the 1930s, but this particular element of fascism will be part of the authoritarianism to come in the West—the idea that doing bad things with shiny success makes them right.
This power is scornful not just of international norms, U.S. citizens, Venezuela’s citizens, and America’s allies, but of truth itself. In some respects, this is special to our post-truth age, but it is also universal. When empires decline, they become insular and lose patience with reality. Trump’s politics are repellent because they embody decay and post-truth with such unembarrassed brashness. Yet their ugliness should not obscure the ideological logic at work—a logic which Trump himself does not understand. But if you want to understand it as Trump doesn’t, then watch this video next.