The United Nations Security Council heard fresh warnings Monday after the Trump administration said it captured Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro legally, a justification that prompted concerns among other countries that the move could erode the international rules limiting the use of force.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Rosemary A. DiCarlo told the 15-member Council that international peace and security depend on the continued commitment of all member states to adhere to all provisions of the UN Charter. The remarks came as Maduro faced proceedings at The Hague on Monday following his removal in Venezuela, with the capture and his transfer forming part of the diplomatic fallout.
In Washington, President Donald Trump has insisted that the capture was legal. The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration’s position, supported by a White House memorandum obtained in October, characterized the drug cartels operating out of Venezuela as illegal combatants and said the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them.
The mission to capture Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home on a military base in Caracas placed them in a posture to face charges related to an alleged narcoterrorism conspiracy, according to the report. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz defended the operation as a “surgical law enforcement operation,” presenting it as a targeted action grounded in enforcement.
The report said the approach fits the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, released last month, which sets a second-term goal of restoring U.S. “preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” Analysts and some world leaders, including China and Mexico, condemned the Venezuela operation and said they fear it could become a model for future interventions, contributing to further erosion of the global legal order.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the capture of Maduro “goes against the principle of no use of force,” which he said is the basis of international law. Barrot warned that a growing number of UN Security Council permanent members violating that principle would have “serious consequences” for global security and that the violations would not be forgiven.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said the Maduro capture mission amounted to a “return to the era of anarchy” by the United States. During an emergency Security Council meeting, Nebenzya urged the Council to “unite and reject” Washington’s methods and tools of military foreign policy.
In Kyiv, Volodymyr Fesenko, president of the Penta think tank in Kiev, said Russian President Vladimir Putin has long undermined the global order and weakened international law, adding that Trump’s actions “have continued this tendency,” according to the report.
Beyond Venezuela, the episode raised broader questions about how states might respond if “force makes power” shapes diplomatic behavior, with some European leaders and analysts pointing to future flashpoints. The report said Trump also speculated about Greenland’s future while returning to Washington from Florida, telling reporters the territory was strategic because it is “replete” with Russian and Chinese ships, and that the United States needs Greenland for national security while Denmark would not be able to handle it.
Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, responded in a statement that Trump “has no right to anexionar” the territory and said Denmark already provides the United States—an NATO member—broad access to Greenland through existing security arrangements. The AP report also said the Maduro operation sparked speculation about whether China could take similar action against Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, though it described such replication as unlikely and risky.
Beijing criticized the Caracas operation, the report said, calling it a “flagrant use of the force against a sovereign state” and saying Washington was acting as “judge of the world.” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Tuesday that the United States had “deliberately trampled” Venezuela’s sovereignty and security.
In the Middle East, the report contrasted the UN’s inability to stop a devastating conflict in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks led by Hamas with the Trump administration’s posture toward other adversaries. It said Trump had warned Iran that if it “kills violently” peaceful protesters, Washington would “come to their rescue,” and that activists said protests tied to Iran’s economic turmoil had caused at least 35 deaths as of Tuesday.
The report also said Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the “illegal attack of the United States against Venezuela.” At the same time, it reported that the European Union, while debating how to respond to its U.S. ally under Trump, said in a statement about the Maduro-capture mission that “the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected,” and that Security Council members bear specific responsibility for maintaining them.
The report cited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Trump, saying international rules do not govern decisions by many major powers and calling it “completely obvious,” underscoring the divide among governments over how international legal constraints should apply.
Periodistas de Associated Press en todo el mundo contribuyeron a este despacho. This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative AI tool.