What a start to the New Year! The shocking invasion of Venezuela by the U.S. and the brutal kidnapping of the head of state and his wife, the by ICE of a 37-year-old mother of three on the streets of Minneapolis followed the very next day by a Border Patrol agent shooting of a couple in Portland, Ore., and then another ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
2026 started with the Venezuela outrage. The U.S. invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president and his wife are the actions of a racist rogue state headed by a convicted criminal and should be sanctioned by the United Nations. The Trump regime brazenly and blatantly violated international law and killed dozens in its attack.
The run-up to the incursion were the Trump-ordered boat strikes that have so far killed 115 people. The U.S. military has declined again and again to providence any evidence to justify its slaughter on the seas. The reason being that there is no evidence to condone the wanton murders.
For this reason alone, Trump and the U.S. military should have been charged with war crimes before the appropriate tribunal of the United Nations. But no case was ever brought, as it should have been, by the countries of which these poor souls were citizens. The Trump regime was let off the hook for these dozens of homicides by the international community. The killings were simply a pretext for more imperialist atrocities.
In the wake of these continuing murders, which began in September, the war criminal Trump planned further outrages, culminating so far in the bloody, illegal raid of Jan. 3. This was emblematic of a shameless imperialism that knows no boundaries when it comes t international law. That it was illegal is beyond any sensible doubt. Remember, also, that the issue of whether the killing of two survivors of a Sept. 2 boat strike was a war crime has been dropped from the news feeds.
There was never any evidence to substantiate the barbarous boat strikes, and even if there was some so-called evidence, it still would not justify the summary boat strike executions.
If the same standards were applied to the United States which it holds over other countries, it would suffer the condemnation of the international community followed by appropriate and severe sanctions. Trump and his cohorts would be charged formally as war criminals and have their assets frozen. This would extend to the U.S. military personnel who followed illegal orders.
These sanctions would be directed against not only Trump and his immediate partners in crime, such as Hegseth and Rubio and the military, but also against members of Congress who support his lawless, imperialist terrorist actions and corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle.
The United States would be treated like the international outlaw that it is. Nations would terminate diplomatic relations with the U.S. and expel its ambassadors. U.S. games and tournaments would be boycotted, including the future World Cup and Summer Olympics. The countries of the world would be issuing travel advisories to their citizens discouraging visits to the U.S. in order to negatively impact its tourism industry.
If the U.N. gave some teeth to its pronouncements, the U.S. would certainly feel some pain for violating the U.N. Charter and international law.
Moving forward, the argument that the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was a justifiable “law enforcement” procedure is beyond being legally absurd. That simply is not how international law works. One country cannot simply indict a citizen, a national living in another country, and proceed to physically remove said citizen. International law mandates that such a removal must take place by utilization of an extradition treaty for that purpose, if one exists between different sovereign nations.
To invade and abduct is blatantly illegal by any stretch of the imagination, to say the least. This is against the policy of international peace embodied in the U.N. Charter.
But, alas we live in a world where imperialist outlaws like Trump hold sway. We live in a world where there is no effective opposition party in the U.S. to step forward. We live in a world where the power of mass protests, the raw power of the people, must come forward to confront the raw, naked power of brazen imperialism represented by the Trump regime.
This writer, who is also a former public defender, has taken the time to examine and review the indictment against Maduro, his wife Flores, and others of his government. The indictment says precious little about Maduro. It is a kangaroo court document of only 25 pages. It is legally inadequate to substantiate criminal charges against Maduro even if he had been residing in the United States. There are even some who opine that Maduro can beat the charges in a court proceeding. That is if the court is fair.
On the comical side of matters, Trump has just said that the “only thing” restraining his actions is his “own morality.” Trump—a convicted felon, a sexual predator, a purveyor of the foulest racism, a fraudster, a misogynist, and flagrant imperialist—has no morality. Or, should I say, no decent morality.
More comedy, this on the international level, is exhibited by right-wing Venezuelan political figure María Corina Machado, who just gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump. How much more absurd is the world of the right wing going to get? First, I did not know that a Nobel Peace Prize could be so passed on so routinely to another party. Second, the Nobel Peace Prize has been forever tarnished by it being awarded to Machado in the first place. Third, to even think of giving the Peace Prize to the most bellicose political figure in U.S. history is absurd. If anything, Trump should be awarded the Nobel War Prize, if such existed.
Equally absurd is the response evinced by Trump and his underlings to the murder of 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good. They call her a “domestic terrorist” to supposedly justify her killing. Incredibly, the next day after her homicide, Border Patrol agents shot a couple in Portland, alleging that the vehicle they drove was “weaponized.” This was also alleged in the murder of Good, which seems to be the standard pretext in these heinous shootings. Now, there’s been another ICE shooting in Minneapolis, an event sure to spark more protests.
But back to international affairs. Perhaps the global community, as represented by the United Nations, should level severe sanctions against the United States government to bring its politicians to their senses. Absent that the world is headed on an unalterable course of slaughter and carnage, with Trump on a steamroller course to full-blown fascism the likes of which have not been seen the days of Hitler. Also, as crazy and demented as Trump seems, he is but the representative of the political, economic, and military aims of the far-right section of the U.S. ruling class.
What is needed is not just the removal of Trump, which would mean only a leadership change, but a regime change—which means the removal of his whole administration. With the Democratic Party also controlled by billionaires at the national level and seen by many as a lite version of the Republicans these days, it’s easy to conclude the U.S. has no effective opposition party. But there are Democrats—the liberated, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid politicians who run on the Democratic ticket—who can be a force in the people’s movement for liberation from the Trump tyranny.
But it must be noted that sanctions are a two-way street. The Trump regime is not immune to the actions of the international community if the latter has the courage to step forward. The world is beset by an imperialist monster the likes of which has not been seen in decades. The world must rise to the occasion for the sake of humanity.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
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