Latin America fears what comes next after the Venezuela raid

WHEN UNITED STATES forces swooped into Caracas overnight on January 3rd and seized Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump was watching live from his resort in Mar-a-Lago. “Gee, I don’t know, it was amazing,” he later gushed. “I watched it, literally, like I was watching a television show. And if you would have seen the speed, the violence.” The thrill appears to have whetted his appetite. In the days since he has suggested several other candidates for American intervention. When asked about whether the United States should carry out a military operation in Colombia, he responded: “Sounds good to me.” He asserted that “the cartels are running Mexico” and “we’re going to have to do something”. Cuba appears “ready to fall” while “we do need Greenland, absolutely”.

In the aftermath of the stunning operation, Latin America is divided. America’s allies in Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Panama and Paraguay celebrated news of Mr Maduro’s ousting. Yet the three biggest countries in the region, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, all run by left-wing leaders, condemned Mr Trump’s unilateral action. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, said the events “cross an unacceptable line”. “Unilateral action and invasion”, said Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, “don’t lead to peace or development.”

As the dust settled in Caracas, these governments were wondering if they could be next. “The vision now is that Latin America is a shooting-gallery and the United States can target whomever it pleases,” says Benjamin Gedan, formerly the director for South America in the Obama administration’s National Security Council.

Colombia has the most reason to be alarmed. Despite the country being the United States’s closest ally in the region for decades, Mr Trump hates its current president, Gustavo Petro. The two men have sparred on social media over Israel’s war in Gaza, Mr Trump’s migration policy and attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, which have killed Colombians. After Mr Maduro’s removal Mr Petro reacted with indignation. He compared the raid in Caracas to the Nazi bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war, warned that the United States had “pissed blood on the sacred sovereignty” of Latin America and called on the Venezuelan people to “take to the streets”. Mr Trump shot back that Mr Petro better “watch his ass” lest he provoke an operation on his own soil.

The most imminent risk may be that Mr Trump launches air strikes on gang-run drug laboratories inside Colombia. He has called Mr Petro an “international drug leader”—aping language used to describe Mr Maduro—despite there being no evidence for this. Last year he revoked Mr Petro’s visa for the United States and slapped sanctions on him on drug-related grounds. On January 4th he said that Colombia was run by “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”. A full-scale operation against Mr Petro himself is unlikely, thinks Ryan Berg of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington. Mr Maduro’s capture was complex and expensive, requiring months of planning. He was universally loathed and seen as illegitimate. That does not apply to Mr Petro, who was democratically elected.

Were Mr Trump to breach Colombian sovereignty and conduct air strikes on drug gangs, he might increase the chance that a leftist wins the presidential election in May (the constitution limits Mr Petro to a single term). Yet even if there is no military intervention in Colombia, the country will be hit by the fallout from its neighbour. It already hosts almost 3m Venezuelan migrants, far more than anywhere else. If Venezuela spirals into chaos, hundreds of thousands more people, and possibly violence, could spill over the border.

In Mexico City officials appear relaxed about the extent to which Mr Trump’s new posture changes the risks of a strike on their own territory. Ms Sheinbaum has fostered close relations with Mr Trump and has granted just about his every wish. She has ramped up action against drug gangs, tightened border enforcement, extradited kingpins to the United States and slapped tariffs on China. The cost of unilaterally striking Mexico, America’s largest trading partner, would be much higher than that of attacking Colombia. The two countries share a gigantic land border and co-operate across multiple areas besides security. This year they are due to co-host the football World Cup, along with Canada; the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), their free-trade pact, is also up for review. As long as Ms Sheinbaum continues to do almost everything Mr Trump asks of her, thinks Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, unilateral action remains unlikely. The big question is whether that might include allowing the Americans to operate more freely within Mexico. It is already allowing surveillance drones to fly over its territory.

Mr Trump may push Ms Sheinbaum harder to go after Mexican politicians suspected of colluding with drug traffickers, especially those within her own party, Morena. “Sheinbaum is between a rock and a hard place,” says Martha Bárcena, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States. “If she goes after corrupt politicians, she can increase her legitimacy and bargaining power with the US. But it would probably mean the end of Morena.” Ms Sheinbaum must also pacify the hard core of party cadres who are diehard leftists and admired Mr Maduro. A rare foray back into public life by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Ms Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, to condemn the operation, shows how delicate that task will be.

The greatest risk for Mexico probably comes from its relationship with Cuba. In recent years the country has helped to prop up the Cuban regime by sending it subsidised petrol from its debt-ridden state oil firm, Pemex (as Venezuela has also done). Between May and August 2025, Mexico sent more than $3bn in cheap fuel to Cuba, triple the amount sent under the administration of Mr López Obrador, and despite Pemex’s ailing finances. In 2024, Mexico’s government also hired more than 3,000 Cuban doctors.

Unlike most leaders in 2025, Brazil’s Lula stood up to Mr Trump’s bullying and his harsh tariffs. Despite this defiance, in recent months he has managed to improve his relationship with Mr Trump. His criticism of Mr Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has so far been stern but measured. Anything more strident would risk burying the good feelings just as Lula gears up for a re-election campaign before a vote in October. Already the country’s flagging right-wing opposition is emboldened, with a new issue on which to attack him. The president has long been sympathetic to the regime in Caracas, yet most Brazilians are not. A poll in October found that 55% of them supported American intervention in Venezuela.

Brazil’s biggest worry comes from the potential for increased migration and the displacement of criminal groups in the Amazon region, says Maurício Santoro of the Brazilian navy’s Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Venezuelan gangs often partner with Brazilian ones to export drugs and illegally mined gold, and to traffic arms and humans. This has turned Brazil’s remote and impoverished north into a hotspot of violence. If Venezuela descends into chaos and it spills over Brazil’s border, that hotspot might expand.

In the unlikely scenario that Mr Trump’s intervention leads to a transition to democracy in Venezuela, many of the 8m Venezuelan migrants abroad could return home. But his actions could yet backfire. The fact that he appears to care more about Venezuela’s oil than its democracy could swiftly sour those who were initially jubilant about Mr Maduro’s fall. His overt turn towards a coercive and violent foreign policy could push more of his neighbours towards China (even if China itself now feels more cautious about engaging in Latin America). Mr Trump may have thought Operation Absolute Resolve an entertaining show, but the next episodes may well be darker. ■