In a stark rebuke to Washington, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs has condemned a recent U.S. military operation that he says seized Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife and brought them to the United States for trial. Speaking to Chinese outlet Sanlihe and at a United Nations Security Council briefing on January 5, Sachs described the operation as "thoroughly barbaric" and without legal basis, framing it as part of a long pattern of U.S. interventions aimed at regime change.
Sachs, who has for decades been a prominent public intellectual on development and international affairs, told Sanlihe that the Trump administration and its allies appear intent on eroding the institutions of international law and the UN itself. He accused Washington of using force, covert action and political manipulation repeatedly since 1947, citing an estimate that the United States attempted some 70 regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989, and argued that last year alone the U.S. bombed seven countries without Security Council authorization.
The scholar urged the Security Council to act immediately to demand that the United States cease all threats and military coercion against Venezuela, lift any maritime blockade, and withdraw forces and pre-positioned assets used for intimidation. His plea rested on a simple premise: the Council's role is not to pass judgment on the domestic legitimacy of the Maduro government but to defend the legal architecture that constrains interstate force.
Sachs placed blunt motive behind the operation: he said the U.S. core interests in such actions are oil, bullying and national vanity. He warned that the intervention risked deepening instability across Latin America, undermining regional integration and security cooperation, and forcing states to pick sides — a dynamic he said had already pressured countries such as Argentina and El Salvador.
The episode revives long-standing legal and diplomatic questions. Under the UN Charter, interstate use of force is permitted only in self-defence or when authorized by the Security Council; forcible capture of a sovereign leader on foreign soil, absent consent or a clear mandate, would amount to a grave violation of norms governing sovereignty and non-intervention. Sachs cited historical analogies — from the U.S. capture of Panama leader Manuel Noriega to assistance in the removal or killing of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi — to underline what he regards as a pattern of extrajudicial tactics.
Beyond the legal framing, the operation has geopolitical ripple effects. Venezuela sits at the nexus of great-power competition and energy markets; any perception of U.S. disregard for international law will be seized upon by Moscow and Beijing to justify deeper ties with Caracas and to delegitimise Western leadership. It may also harden domestic politics in the United States, where executive overreach in foreign interventions often fuels both hawkish satisfaction and bipartisan institutional alarm.
The Security Council faces practical constraints in responding. As a permanent member, the United States can veto substantive measures, limiting formal collective action. Yet Sachs' argument aims at the court of global opinion: even if the Council cannot compel compliance, unanimous reinforcement of legal principles would raise political costs and complicate attempts to normalise such tactics.
For Latin America, the incident risks reversing a decade of cautious moves toward greater regional coordination on security, migration and trade. Governments that fear becoming the next target may accelerate military cooperation with non-Western powers, deepen arms procurement from alternative suppliers, and harden migration and asylum policies, creating a chain of instability that would extend far beyond Caracas.
Whether Sachs' urgent appeals will shift state behaviour is uncertain. His intervention underscores a wider anxiety: if powerful states treat international law as optional, the incentives for reciprocal breaches rise and fragile multilateral mechanisms fray. The immediate fallout will be diplomatic — expulsions, condemnations and new alignments — but the longer-term cost could be deeper erosion of the norms that have constrained interstate violence since 1945.