US President Donald Trump has openly questioned the relevance of international law, asserting that his own “sense of morality” is sufficient to guide Washington’s increasingly forceful foreign policy moves following the dramatic seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
“I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people,” Trump said in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.
When asked if he was bound by international law, Trump responded that he was- “depending on your definition of international law.”
The remarks come as the United States steps up military assertiveness to achieve strategic goals overseas. Last Saturday, Venezuela’s capital Caracas and several military installations were rocked by pre-dawn explosions as US forces launched a surprise operation. Maduro was subsequently taken into US custody, an action critics describe as a direct breach of the UN Charter, which bans the use of force against the sovereignty and political independence of states.
The Venezuela operation appears to have emboldened the US president, who last month received FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize Award. Shortly after the assault, Trump declared that Washington would “run” Venezuela and tap into the country’s vast oil reserves. While the administration has indicated it would work with interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, White House officials have also threatened a “second wave” of attacks if US directives are ignored.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump warned in an interview with The Atlantic on Sunday.
The US president has also hinted at further unilateral actions, suggesting possible strikes against Colombia’s left-wing president Gustavo Petro. He has simultaneously revived interest in obtaining Greenland and earlier this year ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, joining Israel in military operations.
Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller has criticized the global system built after World War II, arguing the US will now act without apology to secure its strategic interests in the Western Hemisphere. “We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” he told CNN.
But specialists caution that normalizing the dismissal of international law poses grave risks. International law includes UN mandates, multilateral agreements and rules that govern relations among states.
Margaret Satterthwaite, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told Al Jazeera that such rhetoric is “extremely dangerous,” warning it could push the world back toward a new era of imperial competition.
She noted that although international law cannot always prevent atrocities, abandoning it entirely would remove essential safeguards. “We’ll simply be going down a much worse kind of slippery slope,” she added.
Yusra Suedi, an international law lecturer at the University of Manchester, said the idea that “might makes right” could embolden other major powers, citing potential flashpoints such as Taiwan and Ukraine.
Political analyst Ian Hurd of Northwestern University pointed out that Washington’s record in Latin America – from Panama to Haiti, Nicaragua and Chile – illustrates the long-term fallout of interventionism, saying the US often later regretted such actions.
“These never work well,” Hurd said, observing that current policies in Venezuela are consistent with past attempts to dictate political outcomes in the Americas.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan migrants in Trinidad and Tobago continue to face uncertainty as Caracas grapples with political upheaval and external pressure.
