– Trump’s Spectacle of Domination in Venezuela
The recent U.S. actions in Venezuela reveal a consistent pattern in American foreign policy: the war on drugs is often a pretext, not a primary driver. Venezuela plays a limited role in global cocaine trafficking, with most supply heading to Europe and Brazil, not the United States. A genuine focus on drug enforcement wouldn’t prioritize intervention there.
This is particularly striking given former President trump’s pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the ex-Honduran president convicted of narco-trafficking in a U.S. court. While framed as a move toward political stability, the pardon appears to have been intended to influence Honduran elections. Taken together, Hernández’s release and the pursuit of Venezuelan President maduro demonstrate a troubling shift: law enforcement is no longer a check on executive power, but a tool to advance personal and political agendas.
law has become flexible and easily manipulated. This trend began during the first Trump management, but has now become central to its operation. As Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor and professor of legal ethics at Fordham Law school, explained:
Trump thinks he can use federal criminal prosecutions for any purpose, which is to say to promote his foreign policy views, to promote his vendettas, to promote his self-interest and to promote his perceived political interests.
This represents a moment where law ceases to be a constraint and rather accelerates political action. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this signals a further erosion of the state’s independence, with legal structures openly serving imperial ambitions and executive displays of power.
The consequences of this shift were quickly apparent. Journalist Jack Paulson noted in a January 3 Substack post that Enrique de la Torre, a former CIA chief of station in Venezuela, publicly announced…