During a typically meandering press conference on Saturday, Donald Trump addressed the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He remarked, “It’s all a deal. Life is a big deal,” encapsulating his belief that everything in life is negotiable, and positioning himself as the ultimate dealmaker.
This notion isn’t new for Trump. Last year, he echoed a similar sentiment, proclaiming, “That’s what I do. I do deals. My whole life is deals.” To him, the art of negotiation is a defining feature of his identity and career.
Indeed, deals hold a significant place in our lives. The esteemed 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson once observed that “there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.” This highlights the innocent pursuit of financial gain through deals and negotiations.
However, equating life solely to deals oversimplifies the complexity of human existence. As Trump suggests that “life is a big deal,” this outlook becomes particularly precarious when applied to international relations. Such a mindset can lead to instability and conflict between nations.
The recent abduction of Maduro and his wife from Caracas, although executed with precision, challenges the foundation of the rules-based international order. This act could embolden authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, making them feel less obliged to adhere to international norms.
There is speculation that Trump’s actions signal an intent for regime change in Venezuela. However, his recent statements suggest otherwise. During the Saturday press conference, Trump expressed intentions to negotiate an oil deal with Maduro’s staunch deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, and the remnants of the current regime, aiming to secure financial benefits for the United States.
Maybe they’ll play ball. Maybe they won’t. In either event, it’s clear that Trump is not remotely interested in restoring democratic rights to the Venezuelan people.
On Saturday, he dismissed the opposition, preposterously claiming that its main leader, Maria Corina Machado, ‘doesn’t have the support or the respect inside the country’.
Smoke rises from Caracas during the US’s military action on January 3, which resulted in the capture of Venezuela’s president
President Nicolas Maduro after his capture, in an image posted on Donald Trump’s social media website Truth Social
I sense that the Right in Britain, and even what one might call the decent Left, are divided about Trump. Everyone except Labour’s deluded hard-Left (which has long worshipped Maduro) can agree that the now ex-president of Venezuela is a bad and corrupt man whose catastrophic rule has impoverished his country.
But I believe those on the Right who champion Trump without reservation, and fail to see the dangers that this myopic deals-based leader of the Free World poses to the international order, are profoundly mistaken.
Let me appeal to the example of Margaret Thatcher. In October 1983, the United States invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada, whose Head of State happened to be Her Majesty the Queen.
The US government was fearful that communists might take over there. However, President Ronald Reagan didn’t bother to consult Mrs Thatcher in advance, not least because he was rather frightened of her.
She was incandescent when she learnt what had happened. For the most part she managed to conceal her true feelings in public, while in private letting them be known to Reagan. However, in a BBC World Service interview at the time she was unable to equivocate any longer.
First she referred to the Falklands War, which had taken place the previous year, with America for a time a less than rock solid ally. ‘Britain went to get its territory back . . . That has no parallel whatsoever with Grenada.’
She continued: ‘I am totally and utterly against Communism and terrorism. But . . . if you are pronouncing a new law that wherever Communism reigns against the will of the people . . . there the United States shall enter, then you are going to have really terrible wars in the world.’
Margaret Thatcher was upholding the rules-based order, which had prevailed since the Second World War, with one or two hiccoughs such as the 1956 Suez Crisis (when, ironically, the US claimed to defend that order after the British government of the time had seemingly undermined it).
President Trump addresses the press from Mar-a-Lago, alongside defence secretary Pete Hegseth
President Trump watches the raid that captured Maduro with CIA director John Ratcliffe standing behind
‘Those on the Right who champion Trump without reservation are profoundly mistaken’
There have been a few hiccoughs since, most notably in Iraq in 2003, when America and Britain invaded that country without justification. By this I mean that, contrary to false propaganda pumped out by the likes of Tony Blair, the Iraqi regime, however disagreeable, didn’t actually menace any Western power.
So it is with Venezuela, which is more than 1,000 miles away from the nearest US coastline. Maduro was not threatening America or preparing an act of war against it. His alleged encouragement of the narcotics trade, though abhorrent, doesn’t legitimise invasion and abduction.
Thatcher was right to uphold sovereignty after the US invasion of Grenada. You can’t go around attacking countries whose governments you happen not to like. This is a fundamental principle which, with his avaricious eye always on the next advantageous deal, the amoral American President cannot grasp.
China and Russia have both had a mild fit of the vapours over Trump’s adventure in Venezuela, but deep down their leaders are, of course, only too happy to witness this naked display of power.
President Xi Jinping will argue that, if American aircraft and helicopters can mount a raid on Caracas and capture the President and his wife, the United States and the West will be in a less strong position to object should China attack Taiwan, or anywhere else that might take its fancy.
Similarly, President Putin will attempt to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a more favourable light. Of course the comparison is a poor one, since Trump has no intention of permanently occupying Venezuela or of killing thousands of its citizens.
Nonetheless, by using force in shameless defiance of accepted norms, Trump has given the bullies and brutes of this world, of whom there are many, a convenient precedent with which they will seek to justify their future excesses.
To put it another way, the blinkered President has recklessly sacrificed America’s moral leadership. It’s true that this was sometimes more honoured in the breach than in the observance – witness the Iraq War. All the same, the US still stood for something precious. Until now.
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All this of course puts Sir Keir Starmer, as Trump’s unofficial butler and cringingly sycophantic acolyte, in a delicate position. He knows that the American President has acted precipitately and rashly but is too frightened to say so.
If he had any guts, he would stand up and declare that in this matter Trump is wrong – just as Margaret Thatcher was prepared over 40 years ago to chide her friend Ronald Reagan, who happened to be a far nicer and infinitely wiser man.
But I don’t suppose that Starmer will dare take Donald Trump to task and say what he should: that America is our closest ally but it must support the international order, which is the only defence against a lawless world in which might is right and the strongest take whatever they want.
Trump isn’t a wicked man, in the way that Vladimir Putin is. But with his emphasis on dealmaking, and his conviction that money should be made out of every crisis, he is a terrifyingly limited one.
