In the first days of 2026, President Donald J. Trump launched a raid that captured Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro and asserted that the United States will “run” Venezuela. He and key aides then repeated their demands for the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland, threatening aggression against NATO ally Denmark. The move against Maduro was as audacious as it was legally questionable, albeit successful insofar as he was removed from the country to face trial in the United States. What’s more, the “day-after” planning seems sketchy and the risks large. Worse, there is no good reason for the threats against Greenland and Denmark; that demand for territory is mere ugliness that, if acted on, puts the United States in the company of 19th century imperialists and the 20th century’s worst tyrants.
Less noticed, however, was the continued progress made by the Trump administration, working with allies, on a framework to support Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in the war with Russia, a plan that could include European and even U.S. forces in Ukraine.
With all that, Trump’s foreign policy remains an inconsistent array of initiatives and adventures: bold but seemingly ill-considered assertions of strength in Latin America, wanton threats of aggression against a democratic member of NATO and withdrawal from international bodies and the U.N. climate treaty, but also work with friends and allies that — with some glaring exceptions — was often constructive to thwart the aggressive designs of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a way that sounds almost as if the United States still believed in the “free world.”
The Bold: Venezuela
The Jan. 3 military operation to capture Maduro was a clear violation of the U.N. Charter and questionable under U.S. domestic law as well. It resulted in at least seven injured U.S. service members and likely killed as many as 80 people in Venezuela to capture two people indicted under U.S. law. And it also set an enormously dangerous precedent for removal of a sitting head of state – albeit a dictator – through unlawful military force. But on one score, it was astonishingly successful – Maduro and his wife have already been presented to a U.S. court for prosecution. It is not clear, however, what happens next in Venezuela.
The closest analogy to Trump’s move against Maduro was the much larger and longer invasion of Panama by the administration of President George H. W. Bush in December 1989. As with Trump’s move, the United States captured and put on trial Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. And, like the Venezuela raid, the Panama operation had questionable legal basis and generated wide international opposition (including condemnation by fellow U.N. members – at the Security Council in the case of Venezuela and the General Assembly in the case of Panama).
The Panama invasion was ultimately successful, however: Panamanian opposition leader Guillermo Endara, who had probably won Panama’s presidential election earlier in 1989, assumed power. The transition was relatively orderly; in that sense at least, while deep antipathy about U.S. military intervention in the region remained (and remains today), this actual “regime change” worked so well that few in the United States recalled the U.S. invasion of Panama until this week’s events.
It is not clear whether the Venezuela operation will end up so well. So far, the operation has removed the head of Venezuela’s regime but, unlike in Panama, the regime remains in place, and the Trump administration seems in no hurry to remove it. Unlike the Bush administration in Panama, Trump has belittled the head of Venezuela’s opposition, Nobel Peace laureate Maria Machado, and done nothing to support her political ally, Edmundo Gonzalez, who probably won Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections. On the contrary, the Trump administration appears to be prepared to work with acting President Delcy Rodriguez, a stalwart of the Maduro regime. Trump himself has focused on U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil reserves rather than a stable transition to a viable and productive government.
While it is early to draw conclusions, the United States may intend to work with the Maduro regime minus Maduro for the sake of U.S. access to Venezuelan oil. Rather than “run” Venezuela directly, as Trump mentioned, the U.S. may be counting on Rodriguez being a pliable client. This would risk putting the United States on the side of an unpopular and repressive regime that lost (and had to steal) national elections in 2024 after running Venezuela’s economy into the ground. U.S. policy in Latin America has often followed the course of supporting one or another dictator who promised to take care of U.S. business and other interests. It seldom ended well. In the case of Venezuela, the massive investment in its oil industry that Trump says he seeks and would be needed to restore the country’s economic health requires a degree of internal stability and predictability that the old regime, even with U.S. backing, may not be able to provide.
A better alternative would be for the United States to help organize a transition to a more sustainable government through free elections. There is precedent for negotiated transitions from dictatorship to democracy in Latin America, though not under the coercive hand of foreign intervention. Such a wiser course could yet emerge from the Trump administration, although it will require a significant step back from its current threats and promises on Venezuela’s oil. (Going after “shadow fleet” tankers, especially those with ties to Russia, may be a useful tactic, if combined with an effort to regularize Venezuela’s oil exports as part of a transition to a democratic and responsible government.)
It is likely that the administration did little planning for “day-after” scenarios in Venezuela; for good operational reasons, knowledge of the raid against Maduro was kept to a small group and the confusion in U.S. policy since Maduro’s removal may reflect Trump’s improvisational style, which might yet be righted at least to some extent, rather than a bad course set in stone.
The Bad: Greenland
There is no reasonable case to be made for the Trump administration’s demands to acquire Greenland. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the United States needs to annex Greenland because Russian and Chinese warships were concentrated near it and offered other security rationales. But U.S. security interests can be addressed under the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement, which gives the United States extensive military basing rights on the island. Denmark’s government has made clear that it would be open to greater U.S. military presence on Greenland. But neither Trump nor his administration have presented any example of unmet U.S. security requests. Neither has the Trump administration cited any specific requests it has made of Denmark that Denmark has refused either with respect to security or Greenland’s minerals.
In an interview with CNN, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made another case for U.S. acquisition of Greenland: the “iron laws” of the world, he asserted, include strength, force, and power, and little else, and that therefore the United States can take Greenland if it so decides. Miller thus bases his claim on might-makes-right, an assertion of the rights of power without restraint or relationship to values. Instead, he argues that sovereignty and might are their own justification. In doing so, he negates the foundational principle of the United States, from the Declaration of Independence, that sovereign rights and power are subject to higher principles, including the consent of the governed and respect for the self-evident truth of human equality. His argument for U.S. conquest of Greenland is thus un-American.
The renewed U.S. threats against Greenland triggered alarm in Denmark, whose prime minister issued a statement about the consequences of U.S. aggression against her country. Denmark found support among not only its Nordic neighbors but also other key European countries such as the U.K., France, Germany, Poland, Spain, even including Italian Prime Minister and otherwise Trump ally Giorgia Meloni — they issued a statement expressing commitment to Arctic security (addressing the ostensible U.S. concern about Greenland) while backing Denmark’s sovereignty.
European resistance – and hopefully U.S. congressional resistance – to the prospect of such U.S. aggression may deter the Trump administration from acting on its threats with military force, though the latest statements still refer to buying the territory. But the impact of any such takeover threats will trigger mistrust in allies and partners around the world that will last at least as long as the Trump administration is in power, likely longer. The situation in which NATO allies need to defend themselves against potential attacks against their own NATO ally and key member of the alliance since its founding, the United States, is profoundly damaging. In U.S. threats toward Greenland, there is no upside or mitigating circumstance.
The Constructive: Security for Ukraine
In the United States, the news about Venezuela and Greenland obscured continued constructive talks about a framework for Ukraine’s security. Leaders from the U.K.- and French- led “Coalition of the Willing” met in Paris on Jan. 6, with special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner representing the United States. The meeting resulted in a statement that indicated significant progress in outlining European and even U.S. backing for Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in Russia’s now nearly 12-year assault on the country, beginning with the 2014 seizure of Crimea and parts of the eastern region of Donbas. The statement outlined general pledges including a U.S.-led ceasefire monitoring mechanism, long-term military assistance for Ukraine; a “multi-national force for Ukraine” that would be European-led and with “proposed support of the U.S.” including for deterrence; and “binding commitments” to support Ukraine in case of future armed attack by Russia.
These arrangements fall short of NATO’s article 5 commitments of collective defense for its own members, and there continues to be no near-term prospect of Ukraine gaining membership. The commitments also are not “Article 5 like,” as Steve Witkoff has extravagantly suggested. And they have the weakness of being contingent on a ceasefire, a condition that gives the Kremlin an incentive to avoid a ceasefire altogether.
But they are much more than anything Ukraine has had before. The notorious Budapest Memorandum of 1994 that provided U.S. and U.K. security assurances for Ukraine in return for its agreement to give up its nuclear arsenal included nothing like this announced framework. Putting the United States in the lead of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism inside Ukraine would be a significant deterrent to future Russian aggression against Ukraine. Having European forces in Ukraine would be another.
Doubts about U.S. reliability as an ally have grown, especially since the current round of threats against Greenland. But having two inner-circle Trump allies representing the United States suggests that Stephen Miller’s “might-makes-right” defense of U.S. aggression is not the only word within the administration. The constructive meeting in Paris also indicates that the Kremlin attempt to derail the NATO talks about security for Ukraine through bogus charges of a Ukrainian attack on a Putin palace has failed. That Russian attempt, ill-prepared and hasty – suggests alarm within the Kremlin about the progress being made among the United States, key Europeans, and Ukraine about post-conflict security. The test before the United States will be whether Putin’s refusal to take seriously Trump’s efforts to end the conflict will trigger a U.S. reaction, such as increased economic pressure, for which there are many options.
Melding Different — and Incompatible — Traditions
So at the end of the first week of 2026, U.S. foreign policy is an inconsistent collection of initiatives and threats. The Venezuela operation still has potential to lead to a stable Venezuelan government with a democratic mandate, but the Trump administration risks aligning itself with the regime it supposedly acted against. The United States and Europe are making steady progress for Ukrainian security, far beyond what the Biden administration even considered, but Trump’s commitment to Ukraine’s security and to staring down Putin’s stonewalling has yet to be tested. And U.S. aggression against Greenland remains a possibility, which is a shameful and dishonorable situation for the United States to be in.
The Trump foreign policy includes different and incompatible traditions of U.S. strategic thinking over the past 100 years. One of them is isolationism in its original, “America First” guise, which was anti-European and indifferent to the fate of democracies facing aggressive dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. Another is fortress America, a related school of thought that held essentially that the United States could strengthen its hemispheric position — including through raw power — and thus shut out the dangers that the world might pose. These foreign policy options led to disaster: U.S. indifference to the rise of Hitler and thus to World War II.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the folly of such options was laid bare. On Dec. 9 of that year, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave one of his radio “fireside chats” that included the following:
“There is no such thing as security for any nation – or any individual – in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning. We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack – that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more.”
America’s interests are best served by opposing gangsterism. In Venezuela, the United States needs to rediscover its values and side with the people there; in Greenland, the United States needs to pursue its interests without threat of aggression; in Ukraine, the United States should push forward for the sake of security, working with friends and allies against gangsters. And the United States should never, as it contends with gangsters, become one.
FEATURED IMAGE: (L-R) White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine listen as U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the media during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club on January 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Florida. During the remarks, Trump confirmed that the U.S. military had carried out a large-scale strike in Caracas overnight, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Great Job Ambassador Daniel Fried & the Team @ Just Security Source link for sharing this story.
