Bycapturing Venezuela's president, Washington sent shockwaves felt far beyond Caracas.
The United States stunned the world on Saturday by launching military strikes in Venezuela and seizing President Nicolás Maduro, swiftlyending his 13-year rulein an operation the Trump administration framed as a demonstration of American power, asPresident Donald Trumpboasted that the U.S. possessed "capabilities and skills our enemies can scarcely imagine."
America's adversaries heard him loudest.
Russia and China swiftly condemned the strikes and called for the release of Maduro, who hasbeen brought to the U.S.to face criminal charges. Iran and Cuba denounced what they called a violation of international law, their objections carrying an edge of unease that they, too, could find themselvesin Washington's sights.
Even major European allies, more cautious and measured in tone, carefully signaled concern aboutthe operation's legalitywhile largely aligning with the U.S. on policy.
Taken together, these responses suggest the revival of old fears of American interventionism, prompting allies and adversaries alike to ponder where Washington might act next.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise to "demolish foreign drug cartels" by going after Maduro. She said on X that the operation would "keep our citizens safe" in keeping with Trump's "America First" agenda.
For Tehran, the fall of a close ally comes as it grapples with internal unrest of its own, just a day after Trump warned Iran it could face U.S. action if protesters were harmed.
"The American military attack on Venezuela is a clear violation of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter and the fundamental rules of international law," it said in a statement published by Iran's semiofficial news agency Tasnim on Telegram.
In Havana, Cuba's leadership labeled the attack "state terrorism," acutely aware that both Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have openly questioned how long the Cuban government itself should remain untouched.
Rubio's "primary interest is in Cuba, not in Venezuela," said Michael Paarlberg, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy, noting that Rubio sees Venezuela "as the chief patron of the Cuban regime."
Asked during an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" whether the Trump administration's next target is the Cuban government, Rubio said that "the Cuban government is a huge problem."
He said: "I'm not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard. But I don't think it's any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime."
"We are at war against drug trafficking organizations, it's not a war against Venezuela," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the intervention. "We are enforcing American laws with regards to oil sanctions."
While past U.S. regime-change efforts in Cuba have failed, dating back decades, Paarlberg told NBC News the Cuban government would still likely "be worried about something like a direct parallel."
The United States' traditional adversaries were not alone in their condemnation, with several left-leaning governments in Latin America warning the move risked destabilizing the region.
Brazil said the U.S. had crossed an "unacceptable line," warning the attack set an "extremely dangerous precedent for the international community." Other democratic leaders in the region, including Colombia's Gustavo Petro, Mexico's Claudia Sheinbaum and Chile's Gabriel Boric, joined in denouncing the U.S. intervention.
Legal experts alsoquestioned the operation's legality.
The use of military force to remove Venezuela's president is effectively a "kidnapping" and violates core principles of the United Nations Charter, said Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School.
"If you detain someone unlawfully, if you take someone into your custody and you do not have the legal right to do that, then what else would you call it?" she told NBC News.
"The U.N. Charter makes it very clear that there are very few times when a country has the right to carry out military force on the territory of another country," she added. "And it never has the right to do that in order to bring an individual out to stand trial before their courts."
Many European allies struck a careful balance, nodding to international law but without dissent in an effort to avoid upsetting the U.S.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country would "shed no tears" about the end of Maduro's regime before reiterating his "support for international law," without saying what that support entails.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the operation "complex," and said his country "will take our time," to evaluate it, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she supported a peaceful and democratic transition of power, and that "any solution must respect international law and the U.N. Charter."
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the military operation in Venezuela "contravenes the principle of non-use of force, which underpins international law," while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said it violated international law.
But as reactions to the Venezuela strike largely fell along predictable lines, the precedent it sets has left others wondering how vulnerable they might be, said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank in London.
"European countries were counting on the U.S. and certain types of U.S. behavior that perhaps they can't do anymore," he told NBC News, noting that Denmark had been careful in its response because "they know that Greenland is in the firing line."
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea ofbuying or taking Greenland, treating it as a strategic asset for the U.S. in the Arctic.
Denmark's ambassador to Washington, Jesper Møller Sørensen, shared what he said was a "friendly reminder" on X Saturday that "we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark," pushing back at Trump-aligned figures who had raised the issue in the wake of the Venezuela strike.
Many of the reactions to the Venezuela strike, Hellyer noted, "have very little to do with Maduro and have everything to do with, you know, lining up with the U.S. on a particular issue." Europe, he said, was "expressing support for international law, but without wanting to be identified as opposing the U.S.," raising the question: "What's the point of invoking a system that isn't backed by the strongest power in the world?"
But recent history shows that even as the rules-based order struggles, the U.S. has frequently acted unilaterally, with the Venezuela strike reflecting enduring patterns of intervention in Latin America, according to retired Col. Gregory A. Daddis.
"In many ways, U.S. actions in Venezuela follow a long history of American interventionism in the Western Hemisphere," he said, "where we have argued that the Western Hemisphere, in its entirety, falls within our jurisdiction to protect U.S. interests."
