The legality of the United States’ intervention in Venezuela has come under intense scrutiny after President Donald Trump defended the military operation to seize President Nicolás Maduro by invoking what he called the “Donroe doctrine,” a modernised version of the 19th-century Monroe doctrine. Trump’s argument seeks to recast long-standing U.S. claims of influence over the Americas as legal justification for acting unilaterally in Venezuela, challenging both international law and constitutional limits on presidential power.
The Monroe doctrine, first articulated in 1823, warned foreign powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Trump has now extended that logic to argue that the United States has the right to act decisively against what it sees as threats within its sphere of influence. The White House says this framing rebuts accusations that Washington violated the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, and undermined the postwar legal order designed to restrain powerful nations.
Domestically, the administration has leaned on criminal charges rather than a declaration of war to justify the operation. An updated U.S. indictment released on Saturday accuses Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking and weapons offences, and for the first time links them as co-defendants with Héctor Guerrero Flores, leader of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. Prosecutors allege Maduro collaborated with the group to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into the United States.
That case is complicated by U.S. intelligence findings released earlier this year. A memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that the Maduro government probably did not have a policy of cooperating with Tren de Aragua or directing its operations in the United States. Maduro’s lawyers are also expected to argue that, as a sitting head of state at the time of his arrest, he is immune from prosecution, invoking a defence unsuccessfully used by Panama’s former leader Manuel Noriega after his capture by U.S. forces in 1989.
The administration’s broader legal defence rests on expansive interpretations of presidential authority. A memo written in 1989 by Bill Barr, later attorney general under Trump, argued that a president has inherent constitutional power to seize individuals abroad even if doing so violates international law. While the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, it also grants the president authority as commander-in-chief, creating a tension the White House has used to argue it did not need congressional approval.
Senior officials have offered multiple reasons for keeping Congress in the dark. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted the operation was a law enforcement action supported by the military, not a war, pointing to images of Maduro arriving in New York under escort by Drug Enforcement Administration agents. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said congressional approval would only be required for sustained ground operations, while Trump himself claimed lawmakers could not be informed because “Congress will leak.”
International reaction has been sharply critical. The United Nations warned that the intervention set a dangerous precedent, with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman saying the action risked eroding respect for the UN Charter. Trump, however, has dismissed such concerns, arguing that Venezuela under Maduro was hosting U.S. adversaries and acquiring weapons that threatened American interests. He has framed the move as part of a broader campaign to assert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, particularly against the influence of Russia and China.
As U.S. officials prepare to defend the action at the United Nations, the episode has opened a far-reaching debate over whether Washington has established a new precedent for the use of force, one that redefines sovereignty in the Americas and tests the boundaries of both international law and America’s own constitutional order.
