Over the weekend, the United States invaded Venezuela, captured its leader, and then declared itself to be in charge of South America’s fifth-largest country.

And no one — not even the US government — seems entirely sure why.

The Trump administration has offered multiple high-minded explanations for its toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, none of which make much sense.

Vice President JD Vance suggested, for example, that the operation was about bringing drug kingpins to justice: In 2020, a US court indicted Maduro on charges of trafficking cocaine to the United States, among other offenses. “You don’t get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas,” Vance declared on X.

In this account, President Donald Trump is fiercely committed to imprisoning Latin American leaders who export drugs — so committed that he’s willing to risk American lives and nullify the UN charter to bring them to justice.

But we know this isn’t true. Just last month, Trump pardoned a former Honduran president who’d been convicted of trafficking narcotics to the United States.

If this wasn’t about drugs, perhaps it was about democracy?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued Sunday that Maduro was “an illegitimate president,” since he had refused to accept his defeat in Venezuela’s 2024 election. Only through Maduro’s ouster and “a period of transition and real elections” could Venezuelans achieve a legitimate “system of government,” Rubio said.

Yet Trump obviously has no principled objection to incumbent presidents ignoring election results they dislike. And Trump isn’t even pretending to care about Venezuelans’ democratic freedom.

In his press conference following Maduro’s capture, Trump:

• did not mention “democracy” once;
• argued that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado........
  

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