‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth’ – Mike TysonIt is the first time that the United States has attacked a South American country. The reasons for the aggression are open to debate. But the conditions that made it possible are clear. The main one is the dilution of liberalism, which is increasingly intertwined with the far right. When Israel bombed Iran, centuries of Islamophobia weighed more heavily than international law. The ‘free world’ that endorsed the genocide in Gaza acquiesced. At that moment, Russia’s and China’s friendship were not helpful. The Iranians were left to fend for themselves.The demonisation of Venezuela was political. It began when Hugo Chávez leaned to the left in response to the 2002 coup d’état. It continued as an ideology when the oil boom ended, and with it, the social momentum. The turning point was the 2015 election, in which the opposition won control of Congress. Anticipating a parliament determined to remove it from power, Chávismo twisted the democratic institutions it had erected and perpetuated itself in power.The impasse culminated in Juan Guaidó’s self-declaration as president in 2019. His recognition by the United States and most of the European Union defied legality and common sense, sharpening polarisation. For Nicolás Maduro, the cost of leaving power became greater than the cost of staying.Representing a coup-plotting right that never had widespread support, Guaidó urged the United States to invade the country. But at that moment, Donald Trump did not go along with it.What has changed since then?After seven years in free fall, Venezuela’s GDP showed a slight improvement in 2021. The decline had been unprecedented, but it had ceased. The sanctions aggravated a situation they did not create. They also fuelled the anti-imperialist rhetoric with which Maduro sought to compensate for his loss of legitimacy, in addition to repression. Consensus gave way to coercion. The repression was not comparable to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, but that is no consolation to its victims. Then the 2024 elections were rigged. And repression increased.It is not easy to defend Maduro, but that is not the issue. Discussing whether Maduro was betrayed, the character of the vice-president or the trial in New York is a way for journalism to cover up the American crime. The issue is Trump’s use of the Venezuelan situation and what this use reveals, because the fundamental change from Guaidó to here did not happen in the Caribbean.Exactly five years ago, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, incited by their leader. The act was frowned upon, and Trump seemed doomed to ostracism or jail. But that was not the case. If the first vote for Trump was also a rejection of the establishment, his return to the presidency revealed support for what he stands for. In this shift between protest and engagement, the adventure consolidated itself as a project.Meanwhile, the red carpet was rolled out for Trump’s return in Gaza. With the support of United States President Joe Biden and the free world, Israel exposed the obsolescence of international law and human rights. If the law of the strongest prevails, what good is liberal faith? Liberalism becomes obsolete and constitutions become museum pieces. Perhaps that is why Israel never had one.In the case of Venezuela, the signal for international complicity was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Corina Machado in 2025, which she dedicated to Trump. Awarding a frustrated coup leader was an announcement that the free world would wash its hands of Venezuela (Marine Le Pen stood out for criticising the attack). If this is what they call peace, it seems logical that Trump claims the prize.Still, few expected an attack. Because the dissolution of liberalism on the far right blurs: we still look at the world with eyes that say it won’t happen. There are many anti-democratic regimes in the world, most of them allied with Trump. Others are not. The other side of the liberal embrace of the right is the left that emulates China and Russia, countries that did not recognise Guaidó, as well as Turkey, where Maduro contemplated going into exile.In power for almost as long as Chávez and Maduro combined, Recep Tayyip Erdogan lives in a glass house. But the Turkish dictator can rest easy, because the blurring produced another argument. Maduro was accused of leading a drug cartel that does not exist (although others do), when it is known that Venezuela is not relevant as a trafficking route. The truth behind the lie was clarified weeks earlier, when Trump pardoned Honduran narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years in prison by the United States justice system. The truth is that the truth does not matter.We have already seen lies used to invade Iraq in 2003. We also saw 26,000 soldiers invade Panama in 1989 to capture Manuel Noriega, a CIA agent turned drug trafficker and dictator. The United States has a long history of crimes and lies. What is new under Trump?The novel is still being written, but the outlines are visible. The very strategy of the attack, executed as a capture without invasion, suggests experimentation. Did they want to test the Venezuelan military response? Gauge the popular reaction? In the latter case, the response was timid compared to the 2002 coup, when the population took to the streets en masse. The opposition had celebrated, but in the diaspora. In the country, Venezuelans watched in astonishment as their own history unfolded. The main reaction was to stock up on food. In the queues, there was silence. Beneath the silence, fear of repression.How the situation will evolve this time remains to be seen. For the United States, the equation is to subdue Venezuela at the lowest cost. And the lowest cost means operating within the existing structure. Unlike Panama or Haiti in 1994, where the invasion overthrew a regime and installed an elected leader, little has changed this time around. Except for who ‘runs’ the country, as Trump said. The plan is to steal the oil and manage Venezuela with a gun to its head. As in neighbouring Guyana, another round of fossil fuels is announced on a burning planet.Behind the ideological differences, convergences are revealed. The United States is not interested in democracy but in stability. Neither is Chávismo (Maduro’s political movement), whose main asset is social control. And so, Trumpism intends to operate through the gears of Chávismo. The attack served to strengthen its position, demanding Venezuela’s oil and a break with geopolitical foes.The occupying army is already there. Opposition leader Maria Corina is not in charge of it and was therefore discarded. Moreover, the empire is crossing its fingers that everyone will behave and the operation will be sold as a low-cost political success. That is the plan. It might change, as there is no shortage of cynicism. After the attack, Marco Rubio declared that the election in 2024 in which Edmundo González won was “illegitimate” and, therefore, he could not be president. And just like that, Rubio’s position up to that point was reversed.For the Venezuelan people, nothing has changed. Neither in the economy nor in politics. They are discovering that Chávismo without Maduro may be Chávismo with Marco Rubio. The repressive structures continue to operate. Political prisoners remain imprisoned. Frustrations are likely to accumulate.No one knows where this will lead. But the direction is indicated by the presidents who celebrated the attack: Daniel Noboa (Ecuador), Rodrigo Paz (Bolivia), Javier Milei (Argentina), Rodrigo Chaves (Costa Rica), Nayib Bukele (El Salvador). Several claimed, in Trump’s support, that Maduro rigged the elections. However, the case against Maduro is not political but criminal. The blurring is illegal and immoral, but it works. Perhaps Trump’s novelty is more visible in the blurring than in the outline.Trump disguised the political nature of the aggression as a war on crime. In El Salvador, which inspires others, the war on crime is more than policy – it subdues politics. Trump wants to subjugate Latin America through spectacular violence, just as Bukele subjugated El Salvador. And vice versa: In 21st-century imperialism, Bukelele’s example also complements Trump’s approach.As a spectacle, Maduro’s abduction was frightening propaganda for domestic and international consumption. The arbitrariness of the pretext and the surprise of the violence herald the Trumpist modality of ‘shock and awe’. As in Panama, which preceded Iraq, Maduro could have left power by other means. He could also have stayed, as he offered the United States concessions on oil and gold, in addition to terminating contracts with China and Russia to dispel hostilities.But the empire wanted to attack. Because that way, Trump’s unpredictability will be politically strategic. His bravado may be bravado – but it may not be. ‘Don’t play games with President Trump,’ the United States Department posted after the attack. Trump’s politics is to blur the gap between bluff and action, which is where politics used to take place. From now on, who will call his bluff?Maduro’s kidnapping will have a powerful deterrent effect in Venezuela and around the world. What does Cuba, which lost 32 soldiers in the attack, expect? (There were more than 80 fatalities in the attack, including at least four civilians). What is Iran to expect? Can we anticipate disillusioned populations in Iran or in Nicaragua clamouring for imperial intervention?The lobby of Trumpists without a throne must be boiling in Washington.In South America, a relatively peaceful region without nuclear weapons, the anxiety is palpable. There is uncertainty about the unfolding of the Venezuelan crisis in neighbouring countries and in the Amazon. But above all, there is fear of different forms of United States intervention.In the aftermath of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, the military refrained from joining Jair Bolsonaro’s coup out of calculation – not principle. Fundamental to its calculation was Biden’s recognition of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In 2025, Trump raised tariffs in defence of Bolsonaro, who had been arrested for inciting a coup – as Trump had done. The 2026 elections in Brazil will be close, and this time, the coup plotters will not be alone. Gustavo Petro’s situation in Colombia, a country with a long history of misinformation and violence, is even more delicate.All things considered, the possibility of a South America governed by the far right elected by popular vote, or almost so, in 2027 is real. Uruguay would be left as a relic. The possibility of Trump manipulating the election results with the support of loyal governors in his own country is also real.We do not know the limits of deceitful manipulation or violence in our time. In Gaza, we learned that it is not genocide. Soon, we risk paraphrasing Pastor Niemöller, saying that first it was the Muslims; then the leftists; and when it was the liberals’ turn, there was no one to defend them. Then the fog will dissipate, and the free world will not even survive as an ideology.Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos is professor of Latin American Studies at Unifesp and Prolam-USP. He is the author of Power and Impotence. A History of South America Under Progressivism (Haymarket, 2021)