The January 3 US military operation in Venezuela seizing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, was in equal measure audacious and illegal under international law.

It’s even more breathtaking that the Trump administration now says it “will run” Venezuela on an interim basis. The US will also seek to control the country’s vast oil interests.

Irrespective of its contested domestic politics and the chequered record of the Maduro regime, Venezuela remains a recognised sovereign state under international law. This includes permanent sovereignty over its natural resources. Any US seizure of Venezuelan oil would be a further violation of international law.

But the US hasn’t tried to justify its strikes with international law. Instead, the Trump administration is using domestic laws to ignore global rules entirely. It’s a new strategy, but one with no international legal basis, regardless of how you slice it.

Both the first and second Trump administrations have shown animosity towards the Maduro regime.

The US government has consistently raised two key issues: the role Venezuela has played in illegal Latin American migrants entering the US, and........

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