The 51st State

The response of the European leaders to Trump’s bombing of Caracas and kidnapping of Maduro is uniformly craven. Here’s Macron: “The Venezuelan people are today rid of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship and can only rejoice. By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro gravely undermined the dignity of his own people.”

“The upcoming transition must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We wish that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can swiftly ensure this transition. I am currently exchanging with our partners in the region. France is fully mobilized and vigilant, including to ensure the safety of its nationals during these uncertain times.”

While France is ‘mobilized and vigilant’ Britain is monitoring the ‘fast-moving situation’. Keir Starmer says that he will “establish all the facts” as if it’s a whodunnit. One of the first things our Prime Minister said after the events in Caracas was that the UK was “not involved” in the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. As if that was the relevant question. On Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer was not willing to condemn the US strikes on Venezuela or the kidnapping of the country’s serving President, Nicolás Maduro. Despite telling Laura Kuenssberg that he is “a lifelong advocate of international law”, he wouldn’t say that Donald Trump’s military action was a breach of his beloved international law.

When Labour MP Mike Tapp spoke to Sophy Ridge on Sky News, even she found it “extraordinary” that he couldn’t condemn Trump for threatening to annex Greenland.”

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, talked about “looking into the legality” of the US action, as if there were any doubt about its nature. Trump-super fan Giorgia Meloni went so far as to define this act of external military intervention as “legitimate” self-defence against narco-trafficking.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon was much better than most: “The intervention of the United States of America in Venezuela opens a new dramatic phase in the history of our world. The United States is returning to its most detestable imperial habits. Once again, it is oil that is the real cause of this intervention. The fight against drug trafficking is just a pretext. International law is the only guarantee of peace. No exceptions should be accepted.”

“There are only bad invasions, in Venezuela as in Ukraine and Gaza. That our country should abase itself before the Empire is unacceptable. We must demand the immediate release and return of Nicolas Maduro and his wife to Venezuela. The French should not believe that all of this does not concern them directly. In his latest statements, Mr. Trump considers himself the master of the Americas, both North and South, and of Europe. I affirm our full and entire solidarity with the Venezuelan people and with its legal government,  as well as with all those who are today threatened by Mr. Trump, including the governments of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. I call on the leaders of each country to carefully consider the threats that Mr. Trump has already made against some and others, including France.”

🔴 Jean-Luc Mélenchon : « L’intervention des États-Unis d’Amérique au Venezuela ouvre une nouvelle phase dramatique de l’Histoire de notre monde.

Les États-Unis renouent avec leurs habitudes impériales les plus détestables. Une fois de plus, c’est le pétrole qui est la cause… pic.twitter.com/e7c2coouXv

— L’insoumission (@L_insoumission) January 3, 2026

But, as Nathalie Tocci has put it, the European leaders are almost uniformly quiet and apologetic about Trump’s actions in Venezuela:

“After their complicit silence on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and their tacit acceptance of the US/Israel attack on Iran, Europeans now hesitate to condemn the US’s audacious military operation to bring about regime change in Venezuela. With few notable exceptions – such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway – most European leaders have fudged their response. Spain, in fact, has acted without its EU partners, condemning the US attack alongside a group of Latin American countries. European governments seem unable to utter in the same breath that, although Nicolás Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, the US attack to topple him is a gross violation of international law.”

Perhaps Tocci is right, that the European leaders have learned fealty through being quiet over Gaza, and are cowed by the prospect of the US backing out of Ukraine. But as the true reality of America’s naked imperialism is displayed and the prospect of the end of NATO becomes very real, a pan-European discussion will need to take place. The problem is that it is a continent racked with uncertainty, beleaguered by the populist right, threatened on its eastern border and paralysed by centrist orthodoxy amid collapsing social conditions.

For Scotland, given the lack of leadership by the British state, it seems that all the delusions from 2014 have melted away.

Image Credit: Cold War Steve