The tiny, far-flung town of Afuá is situated in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, on the banks of the Amazon river. A three-hour boat ride from the closest city, Macapá, it is a town where everyone gets around by bicycle. Cars have been banned since 2002. Even the ambulance is a bicycle, called a bicylance. It is as isolated as one can be while still having some amenities of modern life.
That is where I found myself on January 3 after travelling through the Amazon rainforest and sailing on the Amazon river during December. When I looked at messages on my phone from South African friends asking if I was okay, my phone lit up with notifications of the US invasion of Venezuela and arrest (kidnapping, if you will) of its president (dictator, as some prefer to call him), Nicholas Maduro. Afuá is about 3,000km from Caracas, but their concern was appreciated nevertheless.
While all the world’s news outlets debated the legality of Trump’s actions, and the implications of his actions and which left-wing country might be next, the reaction in South America was starkly divided. Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei (who could win a Elvis Presley lookalike competition) was outspoken in his support for the fall of Maduro, calling it the advance of freedom in an expletive-laden tweet on X.
Disgraced and imprisoned former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s son and anointed successor, Flávio, criticised President Lula da Silva’s condemnation of Maduro’s arrest as being out of step with the subdued celebration on the streets of Caracas. He hinted on X that Lula might even be next as part of a general purge of leftist leaders.
He also tried to tie Lula to international drug trafficking, money laundering, support for terrorists and dictatorship and fraudulent elections — without providing any proof — for his allegations, possibly hoping Trump would take notice and send the same elite squad into the presidential palace of Brasilia to also kidnap Lula and take him to a prison cell adjacent to Maduro’s in New York.
None of that will happen. Trump and Lula are currently enjoying a bromance, though it may be short-lived, and Brazil is obviously militarily far stronger than Venezuela. So the Brazilian right-wing elements will be disappointed — Trump won’t come to their rescue. As things stand they will have to fight the presidential elections this September on some basis other than their usual hatred for, and false information about, Lula and the Brazilian left.
Who’s next?
However, Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro has more reason be concerned. Trump has already made unsubstantiated claims trying to tie him to the cocaine industry in that country, which may be laying the groundwork for future military action against Colombia and maybe even possibly Petro’s kidnapping by American forces as well.
Greenland and Canada also have reason to worry — it’s highly doubtful that Europe and Canada will have the guts to stand up to Trump.
It should now be clear to everyone that the rules-based system which served the world so well and led to unprecedented peace and economic growth after World War 2 has been torn up. The system worked, flawed as it was, because of respect by most members for the rules and an appreciation for the benefits that abiding by those rules brought the world. It required restraint by powerful nations as much as a commitment to follow the rules.
However, since Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and an inability or lack of willingness to hold him accountable, for his actions, it has become clear that powerful rulers can do as they please. Trump’s actions in Venezuela seem to copy from Putin’s book — at least as far as the disregard for not being constrained by international law is concerned. However, since there is no sign so far of a wholesale invasion of Venezuela and mass killings of civilians and other war crimes — which Putin continues to commit in Ukraine — it would be wrong to equate the US action in Venezuela with Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine.
The risk is that if Trump isn’t called to account, in whatever fashion, even if it is ineffective, nothing will stop him from repeating his Venezuelan actions in Greenland, Colombia, Canada or Cuba. Sadly, international law requires everyone to be gentlemen, abiding by it voluntarily, and not to be hooligans because they know no-one can or will stand up to them.
Ultimate hyprocrisy
While the legalities of Trump’s actions in Venezuela are being discussed, there is a long list of double standards that have surfaced. Nicholas Maduro was no doubt an authoritarian leader who could not respect the outcome of the elections he lost. He stifled freedom of speech, persecuted political opponents and in many respects was a caricature of the banana republic military leaders that dominated much of South America during the 20th century.
He also threatened to annex part of neighbouring Guyana, claiming that the country — coincidentally a region with huge oil reserves — was historically part of Venezuela. It is tempting to see Maduro as a left-wing counterpart of Donald Trump.
Similarly, Russia’s condemnation of Trump’s actions in Venezuela is about as cynical as it can get. If anything, it displayed how weak Russia really is. Putin must be green with envy of Trump for going in and out in a few hours, achieving in Venezuela what Putin has not achieved in almost four years in Ukraine.
But the ultimate hypocrisy of this belongs to Trump himself. While justifying his arrest of Maduro on the basis of drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism”, the same justification he will probably use in Colombia, he himself recently pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who ruled Honduras from 2014 to 2022.
Hernandez was extradited to the US and sentenced in 2024 to 45 years’ imprisonment for drug trafficking and firearms offences, the same charges levelled against Maduro. Trump pardoned him last month, saying he had been treated harshly and unfairly. By that reasoning, Trump should pardon Maduro immediately if he is convicted.
All of that is of lesser importance when looking at Trump’s stated intention to revive the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which essentially means the US treats the Americas as its back yard, no matter what the countries comprising the region think, demanding that they bend to the will of the US.
Outside interference, as interpreted by the US, must be fought in whatever way possible, even by interfering in elections, as Trump has recently done in Argentina and Honduras, which led to the victories of his favourites.
Myburgh is an attorney practising in Johannesburg and São Paulo (and the Amazon rainforest).
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