The Week Magazine

Why did Donald Trump direct the military to invade a sovereign country and drag its head of state away in a blindfold and handcuffs? Oil and hemispheric control may have been contributing factors, but Trump’s fundamental motivation in seizing control of Venezuela was quite simple: to show us all that he can! The commander in chief of the world’s mightiest military has demonstrated he can do whatever the hell he wants—and that anyone who defies his demands may wake up to explosions and automatic weapon fire. The politically independent generals who repeatedly restrained Trump in his first term are long gone, and his cosplaying “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, enthusiastically shares his boss’s fixation with martial flexing. Maduro “f’d around and found out,” Hegseth chortled. “America can project our will…

What happened Confusion reigned in Venezuela this week after the U.S. toppled President Nicolás Maduro in a lightning military operation, with President Trump saying the U.S. would now “run” the country while the remaining leaders of the autocratic regime insisted they were in charge. Trump gave no details of how the nation of 28 million would be governed, following an early-morning raid that seized Maduro and brought him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to New York City to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges. But, Trump asserted, “We’re going to run it, fix it.” Elections, he said, would be held “at the right time.” Trump demanded “total access” to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves (see Talking Points, p.16) and announced the interim government would give the U.S. up to 50 million barrels…

Maduro and Flores were arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom this week, kicking off the U.S. government’s “most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state,” said Michael R. Sisak in the Associated Press. A 25-page indictment charges them and other regime figures with working with cartels to ship thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S., and ordering the beatings, kidnappings, and murders of those who hindered them or owed drug money. In leg shackles and “jail-issued garb,” they pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, a “new wave of repression” is being unleashed, said María Luisa Paúl in The Washington Post. The regime “moved quickly to suppress any public expression of support” for Maduro’s ouster, with pro-government paramilitary groups setting up checkpoints where residents were questioned and had…

What happened An emboldened President Trump threatened this week to take over Greenland, saying that the U.S. “absolutely” needs the semiautonomous Danish territory for national security purposes—prompting Denmark to warn that such an annexation would destroy NATO. Trump said Denmark lacked the ability to defend the vast, resource-rich island from Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic. “You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland?” he said. “They added one more dogsled.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government was taking Trump’s threat seriously. If the U.S. were to attack a NATO ally, “everything would come to an end,” she said. “The international community as we know it, democratic rules of the game, NATO, the world’s strongest defensive alliance—all of that would collapse.” Secretary of…

What happened The death toll mounted in Iran this week, as the regime used live fire to try to put down the most widespread protests in years despite President Trump’s threat to intervene if demonstrators were killed. At least three dozen Iranians have been killed in the protests, which began last month among shopkeepers in Tehran angry over the deep devaluation of the currency and have since spread across the country. The rial has lost half its value in the past year, and the price of cooking oil tripled in just the past week. Crowds chanted “Death to the dictator!” and “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran,” a reference to the Islamic Republic’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Security forces responded with tear gas and live ammunition, even…

President Trump “used to offer only vague answers” when asked to explain the U.S. military campaign against Venezuela, said The Economist in an editorial. He’d cite the need to stop drugs, or to reclaim oil assets. “Rarely, if ever, did he mention regime change.” But after last week’s “stunning predawn raid” that captured President Nicolás Maduro, Trump laid out “an extraordinary view of the use of American power,” saying he would impose “American dominance” over the entire “Western Hemisphere.” Under this muscular revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, now the “Donroe Doctrine,” all countries from Canada to Argentina will yield to Washington. Venezuela will sell oil on terms set by the U.S. Cuba’s leftist regime will be replaced. Troops could be deployed against the cartels “running Mexico,” Trump said, while…