Tag: donald trump

From Noriega to Maduro: The Long US History of Kidnapping Foreign Leaders

While it has undoubtedly shocked the world, the Trump administration’s abduction of President Nicolás Maduro fits into a long history of United States kidnapping of foreign leaders.

On January 3, U.S. Special Forces entered Venezuela by air, captured Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, killing around 80 people in the process. They were flown to the United States, where Maduro was put on trial on spurious drug trafficking and possession of firearms charges.

Despite President Trump himself declaring that “kidnapping” was an appropriate term for what happened, corporate media around the world have refrained from using the obvious word for what transpired, preferring to use “capturing” or “seizing.” These terms reframe the incident and cast doubt on its illegality, helping to manufacture public consent for a grave breach of international law. Indeed, managers at the BBC sent out a memo to its staff, instructing them in no uncertain terms to “avoid using ‘kidnapped’” when reporting on the news.

Targeting Venezuela

Maduro is not the first Venezuelan official Washington has helped kidnap. In 2002, the Bush administration planned and executed a coup d’état that briefly ousted Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, from power.

The U.S. government had been organizing and financing the ringleaders of the coup for months, flying the key players back and forth to Washington, D.C. for meetings with top officials. On the day of the coup, American Ambassador Charles Shapiro was at the mansion of local media magnate, Gustavo Cisneros, the headquarters of the coup.

Two U.S. warships entered Venezuelan waters, moving towards the remote island of La Orchila, where Chavez was helicoptered to. Chavez himself stated that senior American personnel were present with him during his abduction. Unsurprisingly, the Bush administration immediately endorsed the proceedings, describing them as a return to democracy.

Chavez was only saved the same fate as Maduro after millions of Venezuelans flocked into the streets, demanding a return of their president. Their actions spurred loyal military units who retook the presidential palace, and the project fell apart. After the coup, the United States quadrupled its funding to the coup leaders (including Maria Corina Machado) through vehicles such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

A further kidnapping of a Venezuelan official occurred in June 2020, when the United States downed the plane of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Saab was in Cabo Verde at the time, traveling back from a diplomatic mission to Iran, where he has been helping break American sanctions. He was only released in 2023, after Venezuela negotiated a prisoner swap which included a number of CIA agents captured in Venezuela in the act of carrying out terror attacks against the country’s infrastructure.

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Iran’s Inflation Protests Turned Into an Uprising. Will Trump Get Involved?

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who made Iran an Islamic republic in 1979, famously said that revolution was “not about the price of watermelons.” He held economics in contempt as the science of feeding donkeys. As his successor, Ali Khamenei, is learning, people will make a revolution about the price of watermelons. Demonstrations against inflation in late December have become some of the most violent unrest in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

The country has been under a total communications blackout since January 8, but the information that has emerged from Iran indicates that there has been a massive, bloody crackdown. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a nonprofit in Virginia, has verified 483 civilian deaths and 47 deaths of police and military personnel. On Sunday, Iranian state television broadcast video from a morgue in Tehran overflowing with bodies; authorities claim that the situation is now under control and hosted a progovernment rally in Tehran on Monday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran if the government kills protesters. He told reporters on Sunday that “it looks like” his line has been crossed, and that he “might meet” with Iranian negotiators, or that “we may have to act because of what is happening before the meeting.” His cabinet is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss options, including war, to support the protesters.

Trump’s promise to intervene “encouraged [Iranian authorities] to act much more aggressively and brutally,” Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Professor Vali Nasr said during a panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, where I used to work. “You just end the protests quickly and take this off the table, so if that’s the excuse for intervention, it’s not going to be there anymore,” he explained, quoting a hypothetical Iranian official. 

As the space for political dissent has shrunk in Iran, protests have become more frequent and violent. In 2009, around 72 people were killed in protests by the reformist movement against a contested presidential election. In 2019, the government responded to protests about fuel prices by shutting down the internet, killing at least 321 people, and banning reformists from parliament. In 2022, when Iranians rose up against mandatory hijab laws, the crackdown killed at least 551 people.

This round of protests began with a merchants’ strike that was triggered by the Iranian rial hitting a record low against the U.S. dollar. (Unlike many of Iran’s self-inflicted economic problems, economist Esfandyar Batmanghelidj pointed out, the currency crisis has been directly caused by U.S. economic sanctions.) In the midst of the protests, the government announced that it would cut billions of dollars from import subsidies—increasing prices in the short term—and instead give citizens an additional $7 per month.

The unrest suddenly escalated in the second week of January. Video evidence from before the communications blackout, compiled by military observer Mark Pyruz, shows that protest sizes ballooned by five times between January 5 and January 7. Then, several Kurdish parties and Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince exiled in 1979, called for their followers to come out on the night of January 8. At that point, authorities shut down the internet.

It’s unclear how much control Pahlavi actually has on the ground. Last summer, after the Israeli war with Iran, he claimed to have recruited 50,000 defectors from the Iranian government online. On Sunday, the former crown prince called on oil workers to go on strike in a video message. There’s no evidence that Pahlavi has been able to summon either the defectors or the strikes; on Sunday, he went on Fox News to appeal publicly to Trump, who has refused to meet with him, for help.

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The Rubicon crossed – Team Trump’s nihilistic anti-values paradigm

So, finally an act of unvarnished predatory action by Trump and his team – the abduction of President Maduro in a lightning night-time military strike – has launched 2026 into a pivotal moment. A pivotal moment not just for Latin America, but for global politics.

The “Venezuela method” is aligned with Trump’s “business first” approach which is rooted in constructing a “financial reward system,” whereby diverse stakeholders to a conflict are offered financial benefits that permit the US to (ostensibly) achieve its own objectives, whilst locals continue to extract rewards from the exploitation of (in this case) Venezuelan resources – under US close supervision.

In this template, the US does not need to create a new governing régime from scratch, nor put “boots on the ground” – for Venezuela, the plan is that the existing government of the newly-sworn in President, Delcy Rodriguez, will remain in control of the country – so long as she follows Trump’s wishes. Should she or any of her ministers fail to follow that blueprint, they will receive the “Maduro treatment,” or worse. Reportedly, the US has already threatened Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, that he will be targeted by Washington unless he helps President Rodriguez meet US demands.

Put another way, the plan comes down to a single underpinning premise that the only thing that matters is the money.

In this context, the US approach to Venezuela resembles that of a Vulture Hedge Fund “buy-out”: Remove the CEO and co-opt the existing management team with money to run the company to new dictates. In Venezuela’s case, Trump likely hopes that Rodriguez (who has been “talking” with Secretary Rubio via the Qatari royal family, and who is also the Minister responsible for the oil industry) has squared off all the factions that compose the Venezuelan power structure to accept the relinquishment of state sovereign resources to Trump.

What is so pivotal here is the shedding of all pretence: The US is in a debt crisis and wishes to seize – for exclusive US use – Venezuelan oil. Submission to Trump’s demand is the only variable that matters. All masks are off. A Rubicon has been crossed.

“Venezuela will be turning over 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil to the United States of America, sold at market price with the money controlled by me,” Trump has written on Truth Social.

The erasure of the American “project” – the substituting of self-interested hard power for the American narrative of it being “a light to all nations” – constitutes a revolutionary change. Myths and their supporting moral stories provide the meaning to any nation. Without a moral framework, what will hold America together? Ayn Rand’s celebrated belief that rational selfishness was the ultimate expression of human nature cannot reconstitute social order.

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Trump 2.0, Year 1: A Libertarian Nightmare

A decade into his capture of our political attention spans, there is no longer anything new that can be said about Donald Trump in a big-picture way about his nature as a person or his larger meaning as a political phenomenon. His audacity, so bold at first, and so lubricated in his second go-round, can no longer shock or surprise; his crudeness, so initially colorful, just fades into the dark background of his actions; his bottomless sea of toddlerish willfulness and grievance, so curious and compelling in 2015–16, becomes as notable as water to a fish. We all swim in Trump now, surrounded by his turbulent, turbid murk, descending to fathomless depths, his surface marking the end of what we can know.

Near the end of the first full year of his second administration, Donald Trump has demonstrated his core authoritarianism so completely and consistently that his personal character and comportment peculiarities lose significance.

Just in the past week, since his piratical and unconstitutional imperial conquest of Venezuela, he’s declared that he, from his own personal ukase, is taking command of a dizzying range of economic and foreign policy matters, from his planned further imperial conquest of Greenland (accompanied by declarations from his satrap Steven Miller and himself that no external force or authority holds back his powers to conquer and wreak destruction on the world) to dictating how weapons contractors can compensate their executives or deal with their stocks, the interest rate credit card companies can charge, and whether certain companies can buy houses.

While he’s gone hog wild so far in 2026, the pattern of his core authoritarianism was already well demonstrated in 2025. Trump wielded state power to punish enemies and reward friends, sent the military into city streets under bogus pretenses and over the objections of local elected officials, authorized masked cops to enforce “papers, please” policies on U.S. citizens moving in public (the loosing of such largely undisciplined shock troops in American cities where they are not wanted has predictably resulted in the unconscionable murder of a citizen), ordered the serial murder of suspected drug smugglers, and disrupted the global economy by making Americans pay sharply increased taxes on imported goods, for starters. 

He has concentrated what was supposed to be the competing branches of the federal government into the whims of one man, and erased distinctions between federal and state, public and private. America has never had a president who acted more like a monarch.   

Not all of Trump’s actions and statements are mired in his core authoritarianism. This does not absolve him. Not everything negative reported about Trump’s actions, or the specifics or reasonable implications of something he said or did, ultimately bears out. This does not make him acceptable. Yes, previous administrations have also violated Americans’ and the world’s economic and political liberties and lives. This does not mean Trump deserves a pass. His specific, documented exertions of state power over the past year should be enough to declare him a dangerous foe of American liberty. 

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President Trump Posts Picture of Himself as ‘Acting President of Venezuela’

President Trump on Sunday shared a picture of a fake Wikipedia page that described him as the “Acting President of Venezuela” as he continues to push the idea that the US is “running” the country following the attack to abduct President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump has insisted that the real acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president, is willing to go along with his plan, which has received a cool reception from US oil companies.

While Rodriguez has said she’s willing to cooperate with the US, her government has maintained a message of unity and defiance in the face of US aggression and continues to call for the release of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

“In these difficult times our country is experiencing, Venezuelans have once again demonstrated that our greatest strength is national unity and historical awareness,” Rodríguez said in a post on Telegram on Monday.

“The collective response has been one of firmness, serenity, and determination to preserve peace, raise our voices for the release of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, and defend the constitutional order, which guarantees protection and social justice for our people,” she added.

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Trump orders plan to invade Greenland – media

US President Donald Trump has ordered his senior commanders to draw up a plan for a potential invasion of Greenland – a move that could potentially lead to a complete collapse of NATO, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday, citing sources.

The US president has long sought to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory under Danish sovereignty, citing security concerns and the need to deter Russia and China, while not ruling out a military option to capture the island. This stance has put him at loggerheads with the European members of NATO, which have rallied behind Denmark.

According to the Daily Mail, Trump asked the Joint Special Operations Command to prepare invasion plans, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff are pushing back, arguing that the move would be illegal and lack congressional support. One source told the paper that senior generals “have tried to distract Trump by talking about less controversial measures,” such as a “strike on Iran.”

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Banning Wall Street From Buying Houses Is Great, But Trump Needs To Do More

While walking through a very Midwest USA mid-tier neighborhood in an outer suburb last summer, a young couple passing by with two young children told me they were admiring all the “beautiful houses.” The father was a union worker and did jobs on the side to earn more. The mother stayed with the small children. They lived in an apartment. 

There are many young American families like this — doing everything right, but still, unless given money from parents for a down payment, priced out of home ownership. Home prices relative to incomes have soared since the market bottomed in 2012, especially since the 2020 Covid panic. From 2022-2023, even as home prices relative to incomes continued to climb higher, mortgage rates doubled and remain at this higher level today. Obviously, mortgage rates have been much higher in the past. But the toxic combination is the high price of homes relative to incomes, paired with these higher mortgage rates. 

That’s why it’s encouraging that President Trump is moving to make homes more affordable. Last week, Trump announced he is “taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes.” Trump specifically mentioned young Americans struggling with housing affordability and said the administration would launch more proposals in the next several weeks to make housing more affordable. The White House’s proposals need to be hard-hitting and not tinker around the edges of a major problem.

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Secret Service Finds “Suspicious Object” on Trump’s Motorcade Route at Palm Beach

A “suspicious object” was reported on President Trump’s Presidential motorcade route while the President was en route from Mar-a-Lago to Palm Beach International Airport on Sunday.

President Trump has faced numerous attempts on his life, including one at his golf club in West Palm Beach in September 2024, when a man was found in a sniper’s nest with a rifle aimed at the President.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, would-be assassin Ryan Routh was found by a jury guilty on five federal counts, including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and other gun charges, in September 2025.

Previously, on July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks shot President Trump in the ear from a nearby rooftop as he was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One rallygoer was killed in the shooting, and two were injured.

Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper at the scene, and then-candidate Trump was rushed to the Hospital.

The President took a different route to the airport, and an investigation was launched, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“During advance sweeps of PBI airport, a suspicious object was discovered by the U.S. Secret Service,” Leavitt said in a statement on Sunday evening.

“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly.”

The motorcade took a “circular route around town,” and drivers in the motorcade were instructed to “keep it tight,” according to the White House press pool.  “Take off – at 6:48 pm – was fast and steep. A Secret Service agent was on the plane’s phone during take off,” the New York Post’s Emily Goodwin reported.

Further details on the incident are still unclear.

President Trump safely returned to the White House later on Sunday evening.

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Trump Says He Will Speak to Musk About Restoring Internet Access in Iran​

President Donald Trump said on Jan. 11 he was planning to speak with tech billionaire Elon Musk about restoring internet access in Iran after the regime blocked online services amid protests.

“As you know, he’s very good at that kind of thing. He’s got a very good company. So we may speak to Elon Musk, and heck, I’m going to call him as soon as I’m finished with you,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Musk’s SpaceX company offers the Starlink service, which allows users access to the internet without any wired connection via a constellation of satellites surrounding Earth.

The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout since Jan. 8.

Neither Musk, who also owns social media platform X and electric car company Tesla, nor Starlink has yet commented publicly on Trump’s statement about the use of the technology in Iran.

The Epoch Times contacted SpaceX for comment but received no comment by publication time.

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U.S. Failed To Install the Pro-US Opposition in Venezuela

The United States decapitated the Venezuelan regime and is dictating policy in Venezuela, running the country like an American colony. But the regime remains in place. Washington has been forced to exercise its dominance overtly through thuggish economic and military coercion rather than covertly by installing the pro-U.S. opposition.

There are at least four reasons for this failure. The first is past failures. Many of them. Guillaume Long, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and currently a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told me that “regime change (meaning getting the pro-US opposition into power) failed in Venezuela, because there have been so many US-supported failed coup attempts in Venezuela in the last few years, that there is literally no one left to organize and support a coup attempt.” That means that to pull off complete regime change would have required a military uprising or coup in Venezuela that the U.S. could support. “The Venezuelan security apparatus,” Long says, “is too tight for that right now.”

The second is that the most recent failures of U.S. supported coups in Venezuela left the Trump administration feeling that the opposition was incapable of taking over the country. The Trump administration had consistently asserted that Nicolás Maduro was an illegitimate leader who had stolen the last election from the María Corina Machado led opposition. Following the capture of Maduro, Machado declared that “Today we are prepared to assert our mandate and seize power.” But if she was, Trump wasn’t. Trump spurned Machado, saying “it would be very tough for her to be the leader if she doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect within [Venezuela].”

That reversal and rejection “blindsided Machado’s aides” and “landed like a gut punch” for Machado. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump was leery of the Machado led opposition “after concluding it failed to deliver in his first term.” The U.S. had broken Venezuela with sanctions that had reduced oil production by 75 percent, that led to the “worst depression, without a war, in world history,” and caused tens of thousands of deaths. They had, to a large extent, diplomatically isolated Maduro, and they had done everything they could to catalyze a military uprising. But the armed forces did not rise up, the people did not rise up, and the opposition failed to take power. The Trump administration assessed “the opposition overpromised and underperformed.”

“Senior U.S. officials had grown frustrated with her assessments of Mr. Maduro’s strength, feeling that she provided inaccurate reports that he was weak and on the verge of collapse,” The New York Times reports. They had become “skeptical of her ability to seize power in Venezuela.” After repeatedly asking Machado for her plan “for putting her surrogate candidate, Edmundo González, into office,” they came to the realization that she had “no concrete ideas” on how to achieve that goal.

The third reason is that Machado is too radical to unite the opposition and the people of Venezuela. She “represents the most hardline faction” of the opposition, William Leo Grande, Professor of Government at American University and a specialist in U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America, told me. Yale University history professor Greg Grandin says, Machado has “constantly divided… and handicapped the opposition” by advancing a “more hardline” position.

When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize, Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, reminded me that Machado supported a coup against a democratically elected government, was a leading organizer of the violent La Salida insurrection that left many dead, and endorses foreign military intervention in her country. She was a signatory to the Carmona Decree, which suspended democracy, revoked the constitution, and installed a coup president.

Machado has supported the painful American sanctions on Venezuela. According to The New York Times, this strategy lost her support among the people and the elite. The business elite were threatened by sanctions and had “built a modus vivendi with Mr. Maduro to continue working.” The general population were anxious to improve living conditions, and Machado’s message alienated them. But as Trump tightened sanctions, Machado “remained largely silent.”

Her loss of support led to the loss of control of the levers required to come to power. Leo Grande told me that Machado’s hardline approach made her “the least acceptable to the armed forces.” “Trying to impose her,” he said, “would be very risky.” Tinker Salas told me that Machado is both “unacceptable to the military and the police forces” and to the ruling PSUV party structure. “Her imposition,” he said, “would have been a deal breaker.”

A classified U.S. intelligence assessment came to the same conclusion. The CIA analysis recommended working with the vice president of the current regime over working with Machado. The assessment convinced Trump “that near-term stability in Venezuela could be maintained only if Maduro’s replacement had the support of the country’s armed forces and other elites,” which Machado did not.

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