The military operation that removed Nicolas Maduro is not an aberration. It is the clearest expression yet of the foreign policy Donald Trump intends to project across the Americas and potentially the wider world - blunt, transactional and unconstrained by international norms based on law and order.

Trump won office promising restraint: no new foreign wars, no drawn-out occupations, and no nation-building. Yet, as El Pais has reported, within weeks of returning to the White House he authorised strikes in Yemen and Syria before he expanded operations touching Iran and Nigeria, and then launched a full-scale intervention in Venezuela without congressional approval - or even awareness.

In ambition and consequence, however, the Venezuela operation stands apart. It revives a playbook Washington once used routinely in Latin America, updated for a president who sees power as something to be exercised rather than not managed.

Within hours of Maduro’s capture late last week, Trump signalled that Venezuela would be administered by Washington for an open-ended period. The message is unmistakable: the country will function as a de facto protectorate, with US energy firms restored to a dominant position and local political actors expected to comply.

Rubio’s reinforcement

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reinforced that approach. A naval and air presence in the Caribbean remains in place, while pressure is being applied through restrictions on Venezuelan oil shipments - gunboat diplomacy in its purest form meaning that might-is-right and control of trade routes and resources remains a tool of coercion providing you have the hardware.

Oil is central, and the Trump administration has been unusually candid about it. Yet the intervention is about more than just energy security or allegations of narco-trafficking. Venezuela has become the testing ground for a broader world view in which the United States asserts undisputed primacy in the western hemisphere.

At the heart of this strategy is a reassertion of hemispheric dominance. The administration has revived the logic of the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century claim that external powers have no legitimate role in the Americas, and modernised it into what is being described as a Trump corollary. The National Security Strategy published in December, El Pais adds, makes the case explicitly: the Americas come first, rivals are excluded, and force is an acceptable instrument to enforce order.

Under this doctrine, alliances are conditional and obedience is rewarded. Governments that fall into line receive backing; those that resist will be isolated, sanctioned or threatened. China and Russia, both of which have cultivated ties across Latin America, are treated not as diplomatic competitors but as intruders to be pushed out - or paid off, China with a tacit nod that similar actions against Taiwan may now be ignored, and Russia with some under the table gifts of Ukrainian territory in the ongoing talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

The next step

Closer to home for Trump, the rhetoric has been matched by warning shots elsewhere. Trump has again raised the prospect of unilateral action against drug cartels in Mexico, despite the country’s supposed status as a close partner. He has also directed personal threats towards Colombia’s president, a move that underscores how ideological alignment now shapes Washington’s tolerance for dissent, even among allies.

Meanwhile, Rubio has argued that depriving Havana of Venezuelan oil would undermine the Cuban government, with Nicaragua potentially next. At the same time, Trump has publicly celebrated conservative victories in Honduras, Chile and Argentina, framing them as evidence that US intervention produces the “right” outcomes. In his own eyes he probably thinks he is on a roll.

For supporters too, Trump is showing decisive leadership after years of drift under Biden. For critics, it is a recipe for instability.

Regime change is often the easiest phase of intervention. What follows is messier. Venezuela’s institutions are already hollowed out, its economy shattered and its armed forces fragmented. Power vacuums invite criminal networks and the risk of prolonged internal conflict. History offers few examples where external control produces durable, democratic outcomes under such conditions.

There is also the question of legitimacy. The administration’s statements and strategy documents devote little attention to the preferences of people living under this emerging Pax Americana.

Latin America has a long memory of foreign intervention, and past assertions of US dominance fuelled nationalist and insurgent movements that shaped the region for decades. Repeating that pattern in the region or even allowing it to happen in Asia - read: between Taiwan and China - risks reigniting the same dynamics, this time in a far more interconnected and volatile geopolitical world.

Trump has made clear that Venezuela is not an endpoint. It is a demonstration. Whether this approach consolidates US influence or accelerates resistance will depend on what comes next, where, and how far the administration is willing to go to impose order by force or ignore others such as China when they follow suit.