Why nations must call out Trump’s transgressions

Although consistent with the longterm trend in American foreign policy, the US's invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its leader Nicolas Maduro, break from the pattern of recent years.

- Atul Mishra

Since the end of the Cold War, the US had become less interventionist and more tolerant of ideological diversity in South America. More broadly, a wariness about foreign interventions took shape during the Obama years and was articulated clearly by President Donald Trump during his first presidency. For instance, Trump's first two speeches at the United Nations General ‘Assembly in 2017 and 2018 mount a strong defence of the principle of sovereignty of ali nations. Both Trump and Joe Biden wanted to scale down American entanglements in the Muslim world, as illustrated in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. During his reelection campaign, Trump was critical not only of American involvement in the Ukraine war but also of America’s “forever wars”. In Riyadh in May last year, Trump railed against “neocons” who had “wrecked far more nations than they had built” by “intervening in complex societies, that they did not even understand themselves”, And itis likely that he resisted Israeli pressure to wage an expansive war of regime removal and State degradation in Iran, limiting direct American military involvement to bombings of Iran's nuclear sites in June last year.