US President Donald Trump has rejected international law, saying only his “morality” can curb the aggressive policies he is pursuing around the world in the wake of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro’s abduction.
“We don’t need international law. We’re not going to hurt people,” Trump told the New York Times on Thursday.
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When asked if international law needs to be followed, President Trump said that it is, but that it “depends on the definition of international law.”
President Trump has demonstrated a willingness to use U.S. military violence to achieve his foreign policy goals.
On Saturday, the United States launched an early morning attack on Venezuela, with explosions reported throughout the capital, Caracas, and at Venezuelan military bases.
U.S. forces ultimately abducted Venezuelan President Maduro from Caracas, which critics say is a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
The attack on Venezuela appears to have further increased the bellicosity of the US president, who won the first FIFA Peace Prize last month.
Immediately after the attack, President Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela and exploit the country’s vast oil reserves, but said his administration would work with interim President Delcy Rodriguez.
Still, the Trump administration said it would “dictate” policy to the transitional government and repeatedly threatened a “second wave” of military action if it did not comply with U.S. demands.
“If she doesn’t do the right thing, she’s going to pay a very high price, probably more than President Maduro,” Trump said of Rodriguez in an interview with The Atlantic on Sunday.
Earlier this week, President Trump also hinted that the United States might attack leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, escalating efforts to acquire Danish Greenland.
In June, President Trump joined Israel in its unprovoked war against Iran, ordering the bombing of three of the country’s major nuclear facilities.
President Trump’s aide Stephen Miller criticized the post-World War II international order, saying the United States would “unapologetically” use military force to secure its interests in the Western Hemisphere.
“We are a superpower and we intend to act like a superpower under President Trump,” Miller told CNN on Monday.
But experts warn that ignoring international law could have devastating consequences for the entire international community, including the United States.
International law is a set of rules and norms that govern relations between states. This includes UN treaties and multilateral treaties.
Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told Al Jazeera earlier this week that U.S. statements denying international law were “extremely dangerous.”
Mr Satterthwaite said he feared the world was returning to an “age of imperialism” and stressed that changes in international law could encourage America’s adversaries to launch their own acts of aggression.
“If a state really does something terrible, international law cannot stop it,” Satterthwaite told Al Jazeera.
“And I think the world knows all of the atrocities that have happened in Gaza recently. Despite the efforts of many countries and of course the United Nations to stop those atrocities, those atrocities continued. But I think if we don’t insist on the international law that actually exists, we’re going to get even worse. We’re just going to go down a slippery slope of a worse kind.”
Yusra Suedi, assistant professor of international law at the University of Manchester, warned against the belief that “might is right” and the tendency to ignore international law.
“This suggests something very dangerous in that it basically gives other countries permission to follow suit. Countries such as China may be looking to Taiwan and Russia regarding Ukraine,” Suedi told Al Jazeera.
Ian Hurd, a political science professor at Northwestern University, said history shows the dangers of U.S. policy in Latin America.
For more than a century, the region has experienced repeated U.S. invasions and U.S.-backed military coups, leading to instability, repression, and human rights abuses.
“Historically, there are countless examples like this, from Panama to Haiti to Nicaragua to Chile in the ’70s,” Hurd told Al Jazeera.
He added that President Trump’s Venezuela policy is “consistent” with the way the United States has previously sought to determine how other parts of the Americas are governed.
“In each case, we see that the United States has come to regret its choice to intervene. These things never work.”
