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Will Trump’s military campaign in Venezuela help or hurt him politically? What will the international consequences be? What does it mean for the Venezuelan people? In the following short Q&A, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, Peter Trubowitz, addresses these questions.

Will President Trump’s military campaign in Venezuela help or hurt him politically? 

In the short term, it helps Trump by changing the political conversation at home—talk of “affordability”, his age, and the Epstein files have suddenly subsided. That is unlikely to last for long. Nor is Trump likely to get much of a bump in the polls from the seizure of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Prior to the invasion, Americans were overwhelmingly opposed to the possibility of the Trump administration taking military action against Venezuela, including to remove Maduro from power. Most are likely to continue viewing the invasion as unwise, if not illegal, including those in Trump’s MAGA coalition who oppose US military interventionism and voted for him thinking that he did too.

What impact will President Trump’s actions against Venezuela have internationally?

Trump’s actions are likely to further erode an already weakened rules-based international order, where the first “thou shalt not” rule is that countries do not attack other nations without any kind of provocation. This is why the US opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and it’s why Washington has sought to discourage China from moving against Taiwan militarily for decades. Trump’s actions will make it harder for the United States to credibly insist that others follow the rules.

What does America’s seizure of President Nicolás Maduro mean for the Venezuelan people?

Certainly, many in Venezuela will be happy to see Maduro gone. But Trump has uncorked something that could easily spray all over the place. Many in the Trump administration are hoping that this will be a replay of George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US toppled Manuel Noriega, quickly exited, and the country took a turn for the better. But there is, of course, his son, George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. That invasion quickly went south, leaving a trail of death, destruction, and instability behind for years to come.

Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the LSE’s Phelan US Centre