What message does the U.S. capture of Maduro send to China?

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The decapitation of Venezuela’s leadership by capturing Nicolas Maduro is the first time U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has put its new National Security Strategy into action.

The planned mission, dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve,” underlines American primacy in the Western Hemisphere, but it also violates international law and could strengthen the hands of U.S. rivals in other regions, according to global affairs analysts interviewed by CTV News.

“We had China and Russia already operating on the principles of might makes right, but it was U.S. power that was restraining them. With the U.S. abandoning that, it’s really difficult to see where things will go in the next months,” says Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

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Nadjibulla says China will prioritize securing its economic and commercial interests in Venezuela. Trump has said that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and its oil industry, which could put it on a collision course with Beijing.

According to the United Nations COMTRADE database, in 2024, China imported US$1.6 billion in goods from Venezuela, most of which was oil trade.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that Caracas and Washington had negotiated a deal to export up to US$2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude oil to the United States. It’s a deal that would divert supplies destined for China.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a press conference that the actions “seriously violate international law, gravely infringe upon Venezuela’s sovereignty and severely damage the rights of the Venezuelan people.”

Roland Paris, the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, says that Trump is “emboldened,” not just sounding like his biggest adversaries, but acting like them.

“The vision of international affairs that Donald Trump is projecting through his actions and his words is a vision of spheres of influence in which powerful states can do whatever they want… That’s how Russia views its rights, and it’s consistent with how China views its own role within its own region.”

‘Operation Absolute Resolve’

The U.S. national security strategy was released in early December, one month before the stunning abduction.

It states that the U.S. will “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.”

The operation that deposed Maduro involved an armada of warships and 150 aircraft. The CIA fostered an inside source within the Venezuelan government that allowed the agency to track not just how Maduro moved, but also what he ate.

Electricity was cut, and military planes fired weapons to take out air defence systems to provide cover for dozens of specialized troops to storm Maduro’s residence.

The operation took place just hours after a meeting at the presidential palace in Caracas between Maduro and Qiu Xiaoqui, the special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

After the attack, the White House posted a crude warning on social media about testing the boundaries of the United States.

Paris says the U.S. operation was a clear violation of international law. The former foreign policy advisor to ex-prime minister Justin Trudeau points out that the U.S. did not get permission from Venezuela to use armed force on its territory and that there was no authorization from the UN Security Council. Nor can it be considered self-defence, because there was no “imminent armed attack” that the U.S. needed to protect itself from.

Trump’s template

While the aggressive tactics may deter foreign meddling in its declared backyard, the actions of the Trump administration also increase the danger to smaller nations which rely on the rule of law to safeguard their sovereignty from a superpower.

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Although China doesn’t consider Taiwan a sovereign state, Paris says Trump’s template could be used by Beijing to justify the toppling of a democratically elected leader.

“China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province, but you could ask yourself the question if China were, for example, to do some kind of snatch and grab operation to pick up the president of Taiwan and bring him back to China, on what basis would the United States object to that? On what principal basis would the United States be able to say that that was wrong?” Paris said.

Justin Logan, the director of defence and foreign policy at the Washington-based CATO Institute, says the U.S.’ ability to rein in China could be hurt by its lack of a plan in Venezuela.

The White House has not set a timeline for a democratic transition of power. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s new president, Delcy Rodriguez, was Maduro’s right hand, who helped prop him up despite a massive election loss in 2024.

Logan says Venezuela could turn into a lengthy distraction for the U.S.

“The big question is how the Trump administration gets off this merry-go-round. If the Venezuela campaign spirals into something where the United States is kind of chasing its tail in the Western Hemisphere, that’s all good from the point of view of Beijing. What they don’t want is a concerted effort focusing US military power on the Indo-Pacific,” said Logan.

At the end of December, China conducted two days of military exercises around Taiwan. Warships, fighter planes and submarines used live fire and rocket launches to practice blockading the island nation. The drills tested the ability of Beijing to destroy Taiwan’s weapons and cut it off from supplies from Japan and U.S. bases.

Taiwan called China’s war games “blatant provocation” and “military intimidation.”

It was the largest military drill by Beijing to date and came eleven days after the U.S. announced a record US$11.1 billion arms package to the island-nations.

Nadjibulla doesn’t expect China to launch a military attack, but she does expect China to increase “grey zone” tactics like the live fire drills and cognitive warfare to further isolate the people of Taiwan.

Based on the reading of the National Security Strategy, Nadjibulla says while the U.S. wants to assert its primacy in the Western Hemisphere, it doesn’t appear that the Americans intend to abandon the Indo-Pacific to China because of the region’s economic significance.

But it’s possible a different course could be charted between leaders. Trump and Xi are expected to meet several times in 2026, beginning with Trump’s state visit to China in April.

“I think that Russia and China would be happy to give up their influence in Venezuela if it means that the United States and others will give Russia and China an even freer hand in their regions,” Paris said.

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters