The United States violated both international and domestic law by kidnapping Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro. The operation, which followed months of bombing small vessels in the Caribbean Sea, strikingly demonstrates that undermining democracy at home and the erosion of the rules-based order are two sides of the same coin.
International law has always been fragile, selectively applied, and a reflection of power and interests, not just norms and ideals. Even the imperfect application of these principles requires the support of democratic states and international institutions. Yet most European reactions to the US move have not offered the necessary defense.
Apart from more explicit statements by France, Norway and Spain, most European governments have shrugged off US President Donald Trump’s violations of international law, accepting the situation as a fait accompli and only expressing the hope that international norms and the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people will now be taken into account. The end result is a familiar compromise between avoiding the wrath of the US president and repeating the usual list of principles. That, in short, is the story of how Europe has dealt with Trump’s second administration in 2025.
The restrained European reactions reflect the overwhelming shadow of Washington's influence over the continent, fueled by fears that Greenland could be the next stop on Trump's adventurism or that America's abandonment of Ukraine would have disastrous consequences.
Some argue that support for a rules-based order is a sign of weakness and naivety. Geopolitical times have changed, the argument goes: we should align ourselves with the powerful and reject the principles of the old international order.
Territorial revisionism in Europe, without international principles and a rules-based negotiating terrain, could have potentially disastrous consequences not only in fragile, divided regions, such as the Balkans and the South Caucasus, but also for existing EU members.
Others will argue that Trump’s action in Venezuela is just another episode in a long line of violations of international law, from the invasion of Iraq to the recent coups in Iran, not to mention the two-hundred-year history of American military interventionism in Latin America. In this view, the American move is morally no different from Russia in Ukraine or Israel in Gaza; the international order never really existed, and to cling to its dusty principles is to deny reality.
However, there are many strategic and pragmatic reasons why Europe should stand up more decisively for international norms in the world that Washington is rapidly shaping. The military operation in Venezuela is an application of the recent US National Security Strategy, with its “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which aims to “restore American primacy in the Western sphere.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who later justified the operation in Venezuela as an anti-drug operation, sees the Western Hemisphere as a space for legitimate US action regardless of international law. This reflects the geopolitics of spheres of influence, in which great powers assert control over their neighborhoods and allow territorial revisionism within them: Russia in Eastern Europe, China over the South China Sea, and the United States in the Western Hemisphere.
The European Union, thanks in part to its ability to attract new members, has a kind of sphere of influence on the European continent. However, it must be able to govern this space in accordance with the rules and constitutional order that it has democratically and collectively adopted, rather than being shaped by American civilizational ideology or big tech companies. It must respect the United Nations Charter to protect Greenland and Denmark, to ensure that the fate of Ukraine is based on international law and justice, to manage relations with partners such as the United Kingdom, and to pursue its ambitions for future enlargement to the Balkans, Ukraine, and Moldova.
Territorial revisionism in Europe, without international principles and a rules-based negotiating terrain, could have potentially disastrous consequences not only in fragile, divided regions like the Balkans and the South Caucasus, but also for existing EU members whose constitutional status remains disputed, such as Cyprus, and even for the United Kingdom and Spain.
Another strategic reason why Europeans should steadfastly support international principles is to build better relations with countries in the so-called Global South. European messages to them are imbued with rhetoric derived from the UN Charter, but the practical application of these principles is far from satisfactory, to say the least. Europe’s credibility in the world has long been undermined, and this has jeopardized the search for partners in support of Ukraine, as well as the effort to find new trading partners at a time when the United States is reshaping the global economy according to its protectionist interests.
The EU has always been torn between a regional and a global focus. It has recently been leaning towards the former, but geopolitical and economic realities show that this is a false dilemma. If the United States embraces spheres of influence and Russia and China embrace multipolarity, Europeans must build deeper ties with like-minded people around the world who are promoting new approaches to climate change, international justice, and economic development. Above all, Europeans must be much more open to reforming the international system to make it more inclusive.
Another reason to defend the principles of a rules-based order is to reclaim the language of rights and democracy from those who currently abuse it. Subsequent justifications for Maduro’s ouster have ranged from claims that he lacks democratic legitimacy to his role in the drug trade, for which he was already accused by the first Trump administration.
US Vice President J.D. Vance’s Munich speech in February 2025 and the US National Security Strategy are full of references to free speech and political freedom, emptied of their original meaning. President Trump’s “deal” language has turned diplomacy and mediation into a business transaction. Pro-Russian politicians in Europe use the word “peace” as a synonym for Ukraine’s capitulation.
The imperceptible appropriation of the language of international principles and human rights risks emptying these norms of their fundamental value, but also depriving the actors dedicated to their defense of the arguments for their struggle. The consequences of the erosion of democratic norms at home and abroad will outlive the current European fear of the geopolitics of spheres of influence, or the attraction it evokes.
The author is the director of Carnegie Europe
Translation: A. Š.
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