What is the impact of the US invading Venezuela and kidnapping its president and first lady? How might it affect international law, regional security and the American reputation?

President Trump has declared he is the “Peace President” and claims to have ended 8 wars. While this is a dubious claim, he did become the first President to bomb 8 different nations in his first year in office. He then started 2026 with an invasion of Venezuela and a kidnapping of its President Nicolas Maduro as well as his wife Cilia Flores. They await trial in Brooklyn. The President has declared that the US will run the nation and will seize whatever oil it desires. The violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, the colonial approach to its resources, and the precedent this invasion is setting for the US throughout the Western Hemisphere is both significant and potentially quite threatening to peace. On today’s show, we will explore the legal, political and security implications of this brazen invasion. And we will explore what the future of US relations in the hemisphere as well as the President’s rampant use of the military means for the immediate future. [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Gabor Rona is Professor of Practice at Cardozo Law School. He is the author of Venezuelan Boat Attacks: Utterly Unprecedented and Patently Predictable ,Is There a Way Out of the Non-International Armed Conflict Detention Dilemma? and State Responsibility to Respect, Protect and Fulfill Human Rights Obligations in Cyberspace .
• Carol Wise is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Dragonomics: How Latin America is Maximizing (or Missing Out) on China’s International Development Strategy and “Conceptualizing China-Latin America Relations in the 21st Century: The Boom, the Bust, and the Aftermath” (with Victoria Chonn Ching).
• Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the co-author of “Problems with President Records are Not Just About Trump” with Kenneth Osgood. He is also the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office. He is the host of the podcast This is Democracy.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Politics and Activism, War / Weapons, Venezuela

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