What Does Trump Want?

Seven months after bombing distant Iran (June 2025) and about 23 years after invading equally distant Iraq (March 2003), the US intervened militarily in its own backyard in the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela’s ruler, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife were seized by US forces from their bedroom in Caracas and swiftly transferred -- via helicopters, an American warship, military aircraft, and another helicopter ride -- to a New York prison. 

“We will run Venezuela” until there is a “safe, proper, and judicious transition,” Trump has said, adding, however, that before that "We're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground, and that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela, and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement." 

Three large Latin American countries, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, quickly criticized Trump’s unilateral action in Venezuela, which goes against any reading of his own repeated declarations over the years against the US’s involvement outside its borders. 

At the UN, France was one of several countries that called the American action illegal, and Russia and China demanded the release of the Maduros. The intervention was praised, however, by Maria Corina Machado, widely regarded as the leader of Venezuela’s opposition, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize that Trump had openly coveted and assiduously worked for. 

Trump doesn’t want Machado to play a major role in a post-Maduro Venezuela. In his view, Machado is “a nice woman” but lacking in “the respect” that her country’s new leadership requires. We will soon learn how Trump wishes Venezuela to be governed. 

Trump’s annoyance with Maduro and with the late Hugo Chavez, the globally better known predecessor of Maduro, was never concealed. It also seems that in his own country Maduro has suffered a loss of respect and popularity because of major flaws in the 2018 and 2024 elections that made him president for a second and third term. 

The world has been well aware of Trump’s oft-declared curiosity about the underground wealth of foreign countries whether near or far from the US, Greenland being the most conspicuous example. 

THREE SCENARIOS 

Will there be serious defiance of de facto US rule by elements of the Venezuelan military who might feel loyal to Maduro? Or by a power from outside the Western Hemisphere? Going by what happened after the 2025 bombing of Iran, we should not expect that the criticism that China and Russia have made of Trump’s intervention in Venezuela will be followed by any military action by these rivals/adversaries of the US. 

Writing in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, Juan S. Gonzalez, a former State Department officer who had served on Biden’s national security team, speaks of three possible scenarios ahead. One, a “managed transition” where influential Venezuelans cooperate with a self-restrained American authority. Two, a “criminalized continuity” where rival Venezuelan groups contest roughly with one another for money and resources. And, three, “escalation,” where “power struggles turn violent, armed actors proliferate, and the United States—having claimed ownership—faces pressure to intervene again.” 

In this third case, writes Gonzalez, “what begins as stabilization” risks becoming “another open-ended commitment.” 

If Trump and his secretary of state of Cuban ancestry, Marco Rubio, handle the situation skillfully, says Gonzalez, “they will reshape hemispheric politics and validate a hard-edged vision of U.S. leadership. If they fail, the costs will echo for years—fueling migration, empowering adversaries, and reinforcing skepticism about American intervention.”

Nations that may be feeling targeted for similar action (some of them directly named by Trump following the seizure of Maduro and his wife) include Greenland, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Iran. “I may yearn for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I can also go down as the one who maximized American power across the globe.” Has such a thought entered Trump’s mind?

RULES OR PRINCIPLES? 

He has certainly spoken of what he calls a “Donroe” Doctrine, an alternative to history’s Monroe Doctrine, which was framed two hundred years ago, and which promised that the US would avoid entanglement outside the Western Hemisphere if European powers ended their involvement in the Americas. The “Donroe” Doctrine has not yet been spelled out -- its principles, if any, are not known. 

We must ask: Does the doctrine respect the autonomy of nations? Does it depend on one man’s whim? Does it recognize the need for multinational agreement on actions to be taken? Does the doctrine recognize the United Nations? Or the US law requiring the Congress to permit a war? Does it respect the dignity of the militarily weak? And the worth of human beings, wherever born? 

This “Donroe” Doctrine will be revealed not by any text but by the actions we will witness in the days and weeks to come. How Venezuela will henceforth be governed, and how Trump deals with Greenland, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Iran, will be watched with curiosity, anxiety, and suspense by the world. 

KIND CRITICS 

A few people in India whom I like and admire, and who want the Indian people to be more outspoken than they are about the curbs on democratic rights around them, were troubled by this sentence of mine in a column published on this site on December 3: “[Though] desired by a powerful section, and increasingly enforced, polarization and supremacy are not... the natural wish of the Indian people.” 

Mathew John, a marvelous and courageous writer with origins in Kerala and a creative life in northern India, commented as follows in The Wire: 

“In a recent piece titled ‘Is India a Democracy?’, Rajmohan Gandhi lays bare India’s continued persecution of Muslims but ends on a hopeful note by citing the case of a Hindu businessman, Kuldip Sharma of Jammu, coming to the aid of his Muslim neighbour, an intrepid journalist, whose house had been demolished by the government. In turn, an anonymous Kashmiri businessman donated prime land valued at Rs ten million to Kuldeep Sharma for his act of humanity. In Rajmohan Gandhi’s reckoning, that demonstration of humanity proved that ‘polarization and supremacy are not the natural wish of the Indian people.’” 

Continues Mathew John: “My dear Sir, to use the hackneyed phrase, one swallow does not a summer make! Today’s India is a fraught ecosystem where the disruptors of democracy and communal harmony hold full sway with the support of the dominant majority.” 

I thank Mathew John for the courtesy in his words of criticism, but I also urge him to recognize the compulsions of many in “the dominant majority” who seemingly allow disruptors of democracy and persecutors of Muslims to do what they want. Should blame be hurled at the poor women of Bihar who voted for the BJP after receiving a gift of ten thousand rupees in each of their bank accounts plus promises of more cash? Is it realistic or fair to expect fellow Indians to risk their lives by defying a mob of vigilantes who live in their neighborhood? 

People like Mathew John and myself have been able thus far to write fairly freely, but are the circumstances that compel some others to seal their mouths hard to comprehend? India’s dominant majority may not be ready today to take extreme risks, but many are quietly doing what they can. When the situation is ripe they will, I believe, tip the scale in favor of democracy, human rights, and communal harmony. 

The “dominant majority” which appears at this time to support persecution is actually a frightened and bullied majority. Injecting them with superlative bravery is not a skill that humans can quickly acquire. Meanwhile we can honor the brave Kuldeep Sharmas of our land, some of whom may also be found in India’s opposition parties. And we can extend understanding to the dissenting but helpless others, and continue to deplore the callous silence of those in positions of influence – in the judiciary, the bureaucracy, politics, the police, and elsewhere, including in Hindu religious organizations – who can impede India’s slide from democracy.  

Readers of this column should read Mathew John’s full piece in The Wire. He has ample grounds for writing these lines in his article: “Minorities are no longer safe in this country. Of a besieged lot, Muslims are clearly the forsaken! Short of being burnt at the stake, every possible atrocity and indignity have been inflicted on its members during the last decade. Outside their ghettoes, they are met with suspicion and hostility. Matters have come to such a pass that even Muslim children are made conscious of their otherness and the need to be on their guard. A school principal narrated instances of Muslim girls being mocked by their peers with the “Jai Shri Ram” chant (Victory to the Hindu deity Ram!). Where Muslims are concerned, there is now a dangerous brotherhood of animosity among Hindus that cuts across class, castes and age groups.”

UMAR AND SHARJEEL 

On January 5, a two-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court finally granted bail to a woman and four men who have been behind bars for five-and-a-half years or more after being arrested in 2020 under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, or UAPA, but their better-known fellow-prisoners, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Islam, were denied bail. 

According to ndtv.com, those freed on bail were Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman, Mohd. Saleem Khan, and Shadab Ahmad. Shifa Ur Rehman's wife welcomed the verdict and thanked the legal team for their efforts. "We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court and thank the lawyers...May Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam also get bail at the earliest," she said.

In all these five-plus years, no trial in any court has commenced anywhere in India of any of these seven accused. 

In an article published in the Indian Express, Professor John J Kennedy, retired dean, South Indian in origin, of Bengaluru’s reputed Christ University, comments on a letter that Zohran Mamdani, New York’s new mayor, wrote in his hand for Umar Khalid (who before his arrest had researched the lives and conditions of Jharkhand’s Adivasis). 

“Dear Umar,” Mamdani’s letter said, “I think of your words on bitterness often, and the importance of not letting it consume one’s self.” It ended simply: “We are all thinking of you.”

Observes the Bengaluru professor: “In a world saturated with press statements and tweets, handwritten letters feel almost anachronistic. But they carry the unmistakable imprint of a person who sat down, pen in hand, and thought of another human being. That is what makes this note remarkable. Not because of who wrote it, not even because of who received it, but because of what it represents: Moral presence in a time of isolation.”

ABSORB THE IMAGE 

Sitting down, pen in hand, and thinking of an imprisoned human being. The picture is worth staying with. It summons, as Professor Kennedy points out, the reality of isolation. It also beckons empathy and even a suggestion of hope. Viewers can soak up a bond being knit between two far-apart individuals, one of whom is behind bars in India and the other recently scaled a bar in the US that had been deemed too high. 

The image with which this column started, of US forces spiriting away President Maduro and his wife from a well-guarded “fortress” in Caracas, may have been striking to some. Richer in meaning, however, is the picture drawn by the Bengaluru professor.