How the US Turned Off the Lights In the Mission to Capture Maduro

Bloomberg's Jamie Tarabay dives deep on the military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, breaking down the play by play of the raid, as well as the tech and cyber capabilities used by the US military during the mission.

The US raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro put America’s allies and adversaries on notice: President Donald Trump has a new world order of his own.

In the aftermath of the stunning late night operation that saw Maduro and his wife whisked from a guarded military base near Caracas to a New York jail, Trump demonstrated just how far the US is willing to go to eliminate a leader seen as a threat to American interests and security.

“The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security,” Trump said in his news conference announcing Maduro’s capture. “These are the iron laws that have always determined global power, and we’re going to keep it that way.”

The toppling of Maduro will be seen as “a stark lesson in power politics,” Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, said in an interview. For global peers such as China, the move “accelerates a broader trend toward a reconfigured global order,” he added.

With Maduro awaiting trial in a New York jail, Trump wasted no time fueling speculation about where his next targets might be. They included Cuba, which suddenly lost its most important benefactor with Maduro’s jailing — “We want to help the people” there, Trump said Saturday — as well as a warning for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who should “watch his ass.” Then there’s Greenland, part of NATO-ally Denmark’s territory.

“We need Greenland from a national security situation," Trump said Sunday aboard Air Force One, adding that “Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Denmark's prime minister denounced the notion, saying the US “has no right to annex” any of its territory. On Monday, she warned that any attempt to take it by force would mean the end of the NATO alliance.

While a US military attack on an Arctic territory still seems farfetched, it’s hard to rule anything out now. The military isn’t the only tool at Trump’s disposal: he’s shown he’ll unleash trade sanctions and tariffs as pressure to achieve political goals. And Trump’s aides — particularly Vice President JD Vance — haven’t been afraid of signaling support for European opposition parties they think would better run the continent.

As much as the latest events seemed to contrast with Trump’s previous “peacemaker” claims, it dovetailed with the far more muscular approach to the presidency that he’s demonstrated in his second term. That includes his deployment of the National Guard to cities across the US and embrace of a campaign to force millions of immigrants out of the US.

The Venezuela mission — done without consulting allies or with clear outlines of what comes next in the South American nation — cemented the understanding that Trump moves first and sorts out details later.

“Much ink has been spilled on a rising multi-polar world, but the Trump administration is showing us the makings of an imperial order,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University and an associate fellow at Chatham House.

Under Trump 2.0, historic allies have been the targets of even more threatening language. The president has made asides about Canada becoming the 51st state and threatened to attack Panama to keep China from exerting too much influence over the Panama Canal. In a Fox News interview on Saturday, he even warned that “we have to do something” about Mexico given what he said was President Claudia Sheinbaum’s inability to clamp down on drug cartels.

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