The initial reaction of European leaders to Donald Trump’s illegal military intervention in Venezuela was not only weak, it also had the briefest of shelf lives. Refusing on Sunday to condemn the attack as a breach of international law, European Union member states called hopefully for “a negotiated, democratic, inclusive and peaceful solution to the crisis, led by Venezuelans”. The delusional nature of that response was laid bare as Mr Trump told reporters the same day: “We’re in charge.”
So much for the restoration of democracy. The US president also repeated threats of further military action, should the repressive regime left behind when Nicolás Maduro was seized fail to do Washington’s bidding. As Mr Trump’s marginalising of the Nobel prize-winning opposition figurehead María Corina Machado illustrated early on, the will of Venezuelans is not on his list of priorities. Operation Absolute Resolve was about exercising raw power to dominate a sovereign nation, and controlling Venezuela’s future oil production.
Faced with such nakedly imperialist ambitions, and a brazen contempt for rules-based multilateralism, Sir Keir Starmer and his European allies need to do much better than cover their eyes and disingenuously shift the focus of discussion. Having initially emphasised the need for a democratic transition in Venezuela, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Monday that he “neither supported nor approved” the manner of Mr Maduro’s removal. Sir Keir, whose evasions and obfuscations on the matter up to now have been painful to witness, should do the same. When Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, warns that US actions in Venezuela will only embolden other global bullies to trash international norms, he must know that she is right.
For their part, European governments urgently need to plan for a world in which the west, as traditionally conceived, is no longer a useful concept. The reluctance to criticise Mr Trump is partly about keeping the US president on side, at a crucial moment for Ukraine. It is true that without meaningful White House security guarantees for Kyiv in the future, Vladimir Putin’s ability to pursue his own revanchist project of regional domination would be hugely strengthened. But unchecked and unchallenged, “America first” expansionism is becoming a geopolitical menace in its own right.
Along with the United Nations, Europe has a duty to push back against the subjugation of international law to the whim of rogue superpowers policing their “spheres of influence”. Its leaders must also ensure the rapid development of sufficient hard power to exert some influence of their own. They may have no choice: note Mr Trump’s renewed claims on Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. In a radio interview, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said that the US threat needed to be taken seriously. That such a statement can be sincerely and justifiably made is jaw-dropping.
Regime change in Caracas came weeks after the publication of a bellicose national security strategy that pledged to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”. Colombia and Cuba have now been put on notice, and in Denmark, so has a Nato ally. With Washington in the vanguard, a dangerous new world order is forming at pace. Within it, Europe urgently needs to speak up for its values, while building the capacity to defend its own interests.
