The Venezuelan attack is the beginning of a tragedy which could impact the globe, a reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to inflict danger and chaos on the world.
By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.
In the chaotic theatre of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the curtain has risen on a spectacle of hubris and hypocrisy. Just one year into his second term, Trump has orchestrated an illegal military raid on Venezuela, violating international law by capturing President Nicolás Maduro in a brazen act of gunboat diplomacy that reeks of 19th-century imperialism.
Trump crowed about the operation from his Mar-a-Lago lair, declaring that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe transition” could be engineered—presumably one that hands Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to American corporations on a silver platter. But why now? Why expend energy and resources to meddle in a sovereign nation’s affairs when Americans are buckling under the weight of Trump’s disastrous economic policies? The answer is as cynical as it is transparent. This fiasco is a desperate smokescreen to distract from the Epstein files, those damning documents that threaten to expose Trump’s sordid ties to the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s re-election in 2024 was sold on the promise of “America First”—a slogan that evoked isolationism and a focus on domestic issues. What Americans have gotten instead is a deranged president who struts like a would-be emperor, now threatening Colombia with invasion on the same pretext he used to abduct the Venezuelan president, while musing about using military force to annex Greenland. This isn’t remotely close to the leadership for which Americans voted. It’s a reckless grab for resources that endangers global stability and betrays the very voters who put him back in the White House. At a time when tariffs have ignited inflation, gas prices are far higher than he promised they would be, and the economy teeters on the brink of recession, Trump’s foreign adventurism is not just irresponsible, it’s an epic betrayal of his MAGA base.
On the economy Trump’s tariff policy, hailed by the president as a masterstroke to punish foreign competitors, has boomeranged into a punishing blow for everyday Americans. Economists warned that these levies would act like a hidden tax, and they’ve been proven right. Inflation, which dipped to 2.3% in April 2025, climbed as high as 3% by September 2025, fuelled directly by higher import costs. Gas prices, averaging US$2.94 a gallon in December 2025, are up from pre-tariff levels, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attributing the spike to Trump’s policies. The effective tariff rate has ballooned to 18%, pushing consumer prices higher across the board—coffee, bread, appliances, electronics, you name it. Goldman Sachs estimates that tariffs could add 0.3 percentage points to core inflation in 2026, with households bearing up to 70% of the US$1.2 trillion cost.
Trump claims that managing the economy has been one of his crowning achievements. But that claim has been proven to be a bald faced lies with economists and experts refuting the assertion. Economic growth projections have been slashed, unemployment is ticking up as tariffs hammer industries reliant on imports, and the Tax Foundation warns that these policies will shrink America’s GDP by 0.5% before foreign retaliation affects the US. Trump’s boastful claims that prices are “coming down tremendously” are pure fiction. Core inflation peaked at 3% year-over-year in September 2025. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of Americans—about 24% of households—are living pay cheque to pay cheque, a figure that has risen steadily under Trump’s watch. Lower-income families have been hit hardest, with 29% scraping by as wage growth stagnates. This isn’t a “winning” scenario, it’s lousy, incompetent economic stewardship by a president who has left millions one missed pay cheque from disaster.
Yet instead of fixing this domestic debacle, Trump turned his gaze to South American, proclaiming he’ll “run Venezuela” like it’s some sort of Trump business franchise. The Venezuela fiasco isn’t about democracy or halting drug trafficking, it’s an attempt to distract the American public’s attention from the Epstein scandal which is festering like an open wound.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to declassify and release the full Epstein files, vowing transparency on the late pedophile’s web of elite enablers. He signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025, mandating full release by December 19 in a searchable format. But deadlines have come and gone. As of January 2026, the Justice Department has admitted that less than 1% of the documents have been released, citing endless redactions to “protect victims” as the reason. But what is really being protected are revelations about Trump’s close connections to Epstein that could rupture his Republican base.
The files, heavily blacked out and incomplete, hint at Trump’s deep ties to Epstein. They include flight logs, grand jury testimony, and communications that could unravel his carefully curated image. Reports reveal Trump was briefed in May 2025 that his name appeared in the files multiple times, prompting a pivot from promises of full disclosure to downplaying their importance. Victims and bipartisan lawmakers have decried the stonewalling as a cover-up, a stunt orchestrated just as speculation mounted that the files would implicate Trump in Epstein’s depravity. This isn’t a coincidence? This is deflection and misdirection on steroids, a wag-the-dog maneuver to shift headlines from Trump’s deep ties to Epstein to an act of imperialism out of the darkest chapters of the colonial era.
In addition, Trump’s threats against Colombia—calling President Gustavo Petro a “sick man” involved in cocaine trafficking and hinting at military action—echo his Venezuelan aggression. Petro, a leftist leader, has pushed back fiercely, deploying troops to his country’s borders and vowing to take up arms if invaded. Meanwhile, Trump’s renewed obsession with annexing Greenland, citing “national security,” has escalated to White House discussions of military options. Denmark’s leaders have condemned the “threats,” along with their European allies France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland rallying against this neo-colonial fantasy. This isn’t isolated blustering by Trump, but rather part of a pattern tying aggression against other nations to an agenda of evading transparency on a domestic crisis that could destroy Trump politically.
Furthermore, the attack on Venezuela is unconstitutional to its core. The US Constitution vests Congress with the sole power to declare war, a check on executive overreach that Trump has shredded. He launched this military attack without consulting members of Congress or Senators, let alone securing authorization—a blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires presidential notification within 48 hours and withdrawal after 60 days absent congressional approval. Congress neither knew nor approved this raid, making it illegal under domestic law. Trump’s flimsy justification—drug charges from a 2020 indictment against Maduro—doesn’t hold water. You don’t invade a nation to arrest its leader based on domestic US law.
While there’s no argument that Maduro is a corrupt thug, the same can be said of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Putin, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And there have been no invasions launched against those countries and neither have their leaders been abducted to stand trial in the US. Disliking a leader doesn’t grant the US or any other nation the right to overthrow governments or abduct heads of state.
Internationally, Trump’s actions are a grotesque breach of the UN Charter. Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity, a cornerstone of global order that Trump has spit upon. Legal experts decry the invasion as the “crime of aggression,” no different than Russia’s assault on Ukraine or Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. By ignoring international law, Trump has made the world exponentially more dangerous. Vladimir Putin can now point to American actions in Venezuela to justify escalating Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping could cite it as justification for moving on Taiwan. Additionally any terrorist group or rogue state might invoke “Trump logic” to launch attacks on those they deem to be threats or enemies. What Trump has done isn’t a demonstration of strength or an act of self-defence, it’s recklessness that invites global chaos and armed conflict.
At its heart, the US attack on Venezuela is blatant imperialism in support of America’s oil companies. The oil in that nation belongs to Venezuelans, not US corporations salivating over potential profits, oil that Trump has claimed belongs to the US. As the world pivots to renewable and green sources of energy, propping up fossil fuels is economic idiocy and climate suicide, an energy strategy that would fuel catastrophic climate change.
This hypocrisy guts Trump’s campaign persona, the one where he ran as the “no more wars” candidate, slamming endless foreign interventions and pledging “America First.” But in his first year since being re-elected he has launched attacks on Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, with Colombia and Greenland now in America’s cross-hairs. With 60% of Americans living month to month amid rising inflation and a wobbly economy, Trump should be laser-focused on addressing domestic issues. Instead, he’s destabilizing Venezuela while he bungles the management of domestic affairs in the US, proving again that he’s inadequate and ill equipped to manage one country, let alone two.
Americans and the global community deserve far better than this imperialistic farce. Trump’s dangerous and sociopathic leadership has impoverished Americans, eroded democracy in the US, and endangered the globe—all to dodge accountability for his ties to Epstein. For the sake of the world it’s time for the US Congress to reclaim its war powers, for the international community to sanction American aggression, charge Trump at the International Criminal Court, and for US voters to demand a leader who puts their interests first, rather than feeding his own ego. The Venezuelan attack isn’t triumph, it’s the beginning of a tragedy that is the first domino falling which could impact the globe, a stark reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to destroy nations and inflict danger and chaos on the world.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
Trump crowed about the operation from his Mar-a-Lago lair, declaring that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe transition” could be engineered—presumably one that hands Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to American corporations on a silver platter. But why now? Why expend energy and resources to meddle in a sovereign nation’s affairs when Americans are buckling under the weight of Trump’s disastrous economic policies? The answer is as cynical as it is transparent. This fiasco is a desperate smokescreen to distract from the Epstein files, those damning documents that threaten to expose Trump’s sordid ties to the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s re-election in 2024 was sold on the promise of “America First”—a slogan that evoked isolationism and a focus on domestic issues. What Americans have gotten instead is a deranged president who struts like a would-be emperor, now threatening Colombia with invasion on the same pretext he used to abduct the Venezuelan president, while musing about using military force to annex Greenland. This isn’t remotely close to the leadership for which Americans voted. It’s a reckless grab for resources that endangers global stability and betrays the very voters who put him back in the White House. At a time when tariffs have ignited inflation, gas prices are far higher than he promised they would be, and the economy teeters on the brink of recession, Trump’s foreign adventurism is not just irresponsible, it’s an epic betrayal of his MAGA base.
On the economy Trump’s tariff policy, hailed by the president as a masterstroke to punish foreign competitors, has boomeranged into a punishing blow for everyday Americans. Economists warned that these levies would act like a hidden tax, and they’ve been proven right. Inflation, which dipped to 2.3% in April 2025, climbed as high as 3% by September 2025, fuelled directly by higher import costs. Gas prices, averaging US$2.94 a gallon in December 2025, are up from pre-tariff levels, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attributing the spike to Trump’s policies. The effective tariff rate has ballooned to 18%, pushing consumer prices higher across the board—coffee, bread, appliances, electronics, you name it. Goldman Sachs estimates that tariffs could add 0.3 percentage points to core inflation in 2026, with households bearing up to 70% of the US$1.2 trillion cost.
Trump claims that managing the economy has been one of his crowning achievements. But that claim has been proven to be a bald faced lies with economists and experts refuting the assertion. Economic growth projections have been slashed, unemployment is ticking up as tariffs hammer industries reliant on imports, and the Tax Foundation warns that these policies will shrink America’s GDP by 0.5% before foreign retaliation affects the US. Trump’s boastful claims that prices are “coming down tremendously” are pure fiction. Core inflation peaked at 3% year-over-year in September 2025. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of Americans—about 24% of households—are living pay cheque to pay cheque, a figure that has risen steadily under Trump’s watch. Lower-income families have been hit hardest, with 29% scraping by as wage growth stagnates. This isn’t a “winning” scenario, it’s lousy, incompetent economic stewardship by a president who has left millions one missed pay cheque from disaster.
Yet instead of fixing this domestic debacle, Trump turned his gaze to South American, proclaiming he’ll “run Venezuela” like it’s some sort of Trump business franchise. The Venezuela fiasco isn’t about democracy or halting drug trafficking, it’s an attempt to distract the American public’s attention from the Epstein scandal which is festering like an open wound.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to declassify and release the full Epstein files, vowing transparency on the late pedophile’s web of elite enablers. He signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025, mandating full release by December 19 in a searchable format. But deadlines have come and gone. As of January 2026, the Justice Department has admitted that less than 1% of the documents have been released, citing endless redactions to “protect victims” as the reason. But what is really being protected are revelations about Trump’s close connections to Epstein that could rupture his Republican base.
The files, heavily blacked out and incomplete, hint at Trump’s deep ties to Epstein. They include flight logs, grand jury testimony, and communications that could unravel his carefully curated image. Reports reveal Trump was briefed in May 2025 that his name appeared in the files multiple times, prompting a pivot from promises of full disclosure to downplaying their importance. Victims and bipartisan lawmakers have decried the stonewalling as a cover-up, a stunt orchestrated just as speculation mounted that the files would implicate Trump in Epstein’s depravity. This isn’t a coincidence? This is deflection and misdirection on steroids, a wag-the-dog maneuver to shift headlines from Trump’s deep ties to Epstein to an act of imperialism out of the darkest chapters of the colonial era.
In addition, Trump’s threats against Colombia—calling President Gustavo Petro a “sick man” involved in cocaine trafficking and hinting at military action—echo his Venezuelan aggression. Petro, a leftist leader, has pushed back fiercely, deploying troops to his country’s borders and vowing to take up arms if invaded. Meanwhile, Trump’s renewed obsession with annexing Greenland, citing “national security,” has escalated to White House discussions of military options. Denmark’s leaders have condemned the “threats,” along with their European allies France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland rallying against this neo-colonial fantasy. This isn’t isolated blustering by Trump, but rather part of a pattern tying aggression against other nations to an agenda of evading transparency on a domestic crisis that could destroy Trump politically.
Furthermore, the attack on Venezuela is unconstitutional to its core. The US Constitution vests Congress with the sole power to declare war, a check on executive overreach that Trump has shredded. He launched this military attack without consulting members of Congress or Senators, let alone securing authorization—a blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires presidential notification within 48 hours and withdrawal after 60 days absent congressional approval. Congress neither knew nor approved this raid, making it illegal under domestic law. Trump’s flimsy justification—drug charges from a 2020 indictment against Maduro—doesn’t hold water. You don’t invade a nation to arrest its leader based on domestic US law.
While there’s no argument that Maduro is a corrupt thug, the same can be said of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Putin, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And there have been no invasions launched against those countries and neither have their leaders been abducted to stand trial in the US. Disliking a leader doesn’t grant the US or any other nation the right to overthrow governments or abduct heads of state.
Internationally, Trump’s actions are a grotesque breach of the UN Charter. Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity, a cornerstone of global order that Trump has spit upon. Legal experts decry the invasion as the “crime of aggression,” no different than Russia’s assault on Ukraine or Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. By ignoring international law, Trump has made the world exponentially more dangerous. Vladimir Putin can now point to American actions in Venezuela to justify escalating Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping could cite it as justification for moving on Taiwan. Additionally any terrorist group or rogue state might invoke “Trump logic” to launch attacks on those they deem to be threats or enemies. What Trump has done isn’t a demonstration of strength or an act of self-defence, it’s recklessness that invites global chaos and armed conflict.
At its heart, the US attack on Venezuela is blatant imperialism in support of America’s oil companies. The oil in that nation belongs to Venezuelans, not US corporations salivating over potential profits, oil that Trump has claimed belongs to the US. As the world pivots to renewable and green sources of energy, propping up fossil fuels is economic idiocy and climate suicide, an energy strategy that would fuel catastrophic climate change.
This hypocrisy guts Trump’s campaign persona, the one where he ran as the “no more wars” candidate, slamming endless foreign interventions and pledging “America First.” But in his first year since being re-elected he has launched attacks on Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, with Colombia and Greenland now in America’s cross-hairs. With 60% of Americans living month to month amid rising inflation and a wobbly economy, Trump should be laser-focused on addressing domestic issues. Instead, he’s destabilizing Venezuela while he bungles the management of domestic affairs in the US, proving again that he’s inadequate and ill equipped to manage one country, let alone two.
Americans and the global community deserve far better than this imperialistic farce. Trump’s dangerous and sociopathic leadership has impoverished Americans, eroded democracy in the US, and endangered the globe—all to dodge accountability for his ties to Epstein. For the sake of the world it’s time for the US Congress to reclaim its war powers, for the international community to sanction American aggression, charge Trump at the International Criminal Court, and for US voters to demand a leader who puts their interests first, rather than feeding his own ego. The Venezuelan attack isn’t triumph, it’s the beginning of a tragedy that is the first domino falling which could impact the globe, a stark reminder that power left unchecked has the potential to destroy nations and inflict danger and chaos on the world.
© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
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