UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Both allies and adversaries of the United States used an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday to express opposition to the bold U.S. military operation in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.
Before the UN’s most powerful body, the countries have criticized – if sometimes obliquely – President Donald Trump’s intervention in the South American country and his recent comments that signaled the possibility of expanding military action in countries such as Colombia and Mexico over drug-trafficking allegations. The Republican president also renewed his threat to seize the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of US security interests.
Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the mineral-rich island, has carefully denounced US prospects of taking over Greenland without mentioning its NATO ally by name.
“The inviolability of borders cannot be negotiated,” said Christina Markus Lassen, the Danish ambassador to the UN.
She also defended Venezuela’s sovereignty, saying “no state should try to influence political outcomes in Venezuela by using the threat of force or other means inconsistent with international law.”
US allies reject Venezuela
While French President Emmanuel Macron recently supported Maduro’s capture, his UN representative was a bit more critical on Monday, saying any violation of international law by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which includes the US, erodes “the very foundation of international order”.
“The military operation that led to the capture of Maduro goes against the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes and goes against the principle of non-use of force,” said Jay Dharmadhikari, France’s deputy ambassador to the UN.
US Representative Mike Waltz defended the operation in Venezuela as “law enforcement surgery,” calling out the 15-member council for criticizing Maduro’s targeting.
“If the United Nations in this body gives legitimacy to an illegitimate narco-terrorist with the same treatment in this book of a democratically elected president or head of state, what kind of organization is this?” said Waltz, who is Trump’s former national security adviser.
Maduro’s re-election in 2024 has been widely contested.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned that the rules of international law were not respected with regard to the military action on January 3”. He said the “serious” US action could set a precedent for how future relations between the nations play out.
Venezuela calls on the UN to take action
Even with strong support for Venezuela’s sovereignty, his envoy called on the UN to move beyond veiled comments and condemnations. Ambassador Samuel Moncada called on the Security Council to ask Washington to release Maduro and his wife.
“If the kidnapping of a head of state, the bombing of a sovereign country, and the open threat of further armed action are tolerated or minimized, the message sent to the world is a devastating one: that law is optional and that force is the true arbiter of international relations,” Moncada said.
He warned that other countries could not afford to look away: “To accept such logic would be to open the door to a profoundly unstable world.”
Neighboring Colombia described the raid as reminiscent of “the worst interference in our area in the past”.
“Democracy cannot be defended or promoted through violence and coercion, nor can it be replaced by economic interests,” said Ambassador Leonor Zalabata.
China and Russia are expectedly critical
The biggest critics of US foreign policy, China and Russia, who are also permanent members of the Security Council, called on the UN body to unite in rejecting America’s return to an “age of lawlessness”.
Maduro, like his predecessor, forged a close relationship with Russia, while China was the main destination for most of Venezuela’s oil.
“We cannot allow the United States to proclaim itself as a kind of supreme judge, which alone has the right to invade any country, label guilty, pronounce and apply punishments, regardless of the notions of international law, sovereignty and non-intervention,” said Russian Ambassador Vasili Nebenzia.
His own country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has drawn widespread condemnation from the U.N. and the U.S., although the Trump administration is engaging with Russia in hopes of ending the fighting.
The US captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday from their home on a military base and put them aboard a US warship to be prosecuted in New York in a Justice Department indictment that accuses them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. Maduro pleaded not guilty during his first appearance in a Manhattan court on Monday.
His stunning departure came after months in which the US built up a military presence off Venezuela’s coast and blew up suspected drug-trafficking boats. Trump has insisted that the US will rule Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the US will impose an oil quarantine that was already in place on the sanctioned tankers and use that leverage to press for policy changes in Venezuela.
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This article has been edited to correct the spelling of Russian Ambassador Vasili Nebenzia’s name.