As the Economist reported this week, the Trump administration’s decision to overthrow and abduct Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro—bombing the country and killing more than 80 people—has alarmed much of Latin America. As in the United States, where most Americans oppose U.S. military involvement in the hemisphere, opposition is widespread across Latin America, where countries over the past century have repeatedly been subjected to U.S.-imposed military dictatorships or proxy rulers.
That is especially true in Brazil, where Lyndon B. Johnson and the CIA installed a repressive military dictatorship that imposed mass censorship and killed, disappeared and tortured tens of thousands of people.
Condemning the U.S. operation in Venezuela, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the attack had crossed “an unacceptable line,” representing “a grave affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty and set yet another extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.” He wrote that “attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” and said the incident recalled “the worst moments of interference in the politics of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Bruno Teixeira, a Rio de Janeiro resident who identifies as left-wing and previously worked at the World Bank, said the operation reinforced longstanding regional fears about U.S. power. “I have no sympathy for Maduro, a dictator responsible for countless atrocities against the Venezuelan people,” Teixeira said. “But the way he was removed raises serious concerns.”
“We are already witnessing consequences,” says Teixeira, noting that the EU–Mercosur trade deal, stalled for more than two decades, was approved just days after the Venezuela strike. “Other nations may now increasingly pursue globalization without relying on U.S. leadership.”
Teixeira said U.S. intervention in Latin America has been a constant since the Monroe Doctrine, but acknowledged that this case was distinct in its candor. “What distinguishes this operation is Trump’s openness about his motives,” he said. “Rather than invoking democracy or human rights, he spoke openly about taking control of Venezuela’s oil and said the United States would ‘run the country.’ He even dismissed the Venezuelan opposition leader as unfit to govern.”
While many on Brazil’s left either oppose or express skepticism toward US military action in South America, smaller factions of the political right, aligned with the Bolsonaro political movement that has been completely neutered by the country’s chief judge and chief censor Alexandre de Moraes, welcome the United States’ role.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro and supposed successor to his father, celebrated the intervention on his YouTube channel, and posted on social media that with Maduro’s capture “now Lula, Petro,” and the left-wing “São Paulo Forum… face terrible days ahead.”
But it is hard to believe Lula in particular has anything to worry about, having defeated the Trump administration’s sanctions and tariffs regime only a few months after they were put into place. Alexandre de Moraes, the individual most directly responsible for Bolsonaro’s jailing, completely dodged Magnitsky Act penalties and has consolidated control over the country’s top court. He now travels freely around the world while protecting his corrupt banking executive friends.
Talking to people on the streets of Brazil, it is hard to find anyone who goes as far as Eduardo Bolsonaro. Henrique, 63, who operates a newsstand in Rio and said he voted for Jair Bolsonaro in the last election, supported the U.S. operation and said it should have happened years ago, describing Maduro as a tyrant. But asked whether the United States should intervene directly in Brazil, unlike the supposed new leaders of Brazil’s right, he sees a distinction. Brazil, he said, “is not Venezuela—at least not yet.”
In the U.S., the Trump administration’s overthrow and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was followed by a week of public celebration from government spokesmen, both official and de facto. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) both praised the strike. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote on X that with Maduro’s fall “an evil, narcoterrorist dictator has fallen, creating a path for freedom for the … hard working people of Venezuela,” and urged that the United States “bring justice” and confront the drug networks he claimed Maduro had led. Matt Walsh, a conservative podcaster at the Daily Wire, called Maduro’s capture “one of the most brilliant military operations in American history” in a post on X. But the enthusiasm heard in Washington and on American cable news is difficult to find in Brazil.
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