Trump’s Venezuela Strike Was Not Law Enforcement—It Was Unilateral War

Trump’s Venezuela strike triggered an immediate constitutional crisis, beginning with his early morning Truth Social post declaring “we got him” and continuing through a chest-thumping Mar-a-Lago monologue that followed. The announcement did not read like a national security briefing. It read like a president auditioning for the role of Caesar with a cable-news highlight reel, except the Constitution was not a suggestion box and “details to follow” was not a legal theory. By Trump’s own account, the United States launched a large-scale military assault on Venezuela, captured its sitting president, and declared it would now “run the country.”

If Trump’s description was taken at face value—air, land, and sea attacks; disabled defenses; boots on the ground; a seized head of state; and plans for U.S. oil companies to “go in” and “start making money”—the operation was not a narrow, time-limited response to an imminent threat. It was unilateral war-making paired with regime change and occupation talk, announced like a luxury resort press event. Continue reading “Trump’s Venezuela Strike and the Constitutional Crisis of Unilateral War”