Colonialism in the 21st Century?
Does Donald Trump’s decision to bring Nicolás Maduro before a U.S. court reveal how colonialism operates today? Theoretically, yes. If we take the meaning of the word “colonial” seriously, the abduction of a Venezuelan president and his transfer into a foreign legal system fulfills a central mechanism: an external actor decides who is allowed to govern.
When a president is seized as a “drug lord” and brought before a U.S. court, it is not the United Nations that has determined he is unfit to rule—it is the United States. This is not merely the preparation of a legal proceeding; it is a political statement. Removing a sitting head of state and placing him under the jurisdiction of another country is not simply a security operation. It is a direct intervention in the question of who governs Venezuela.
Control Over Political Decisions
In political theory—from Hobbes to Weber to Schmitt—one principle runs through the centuries: whoever has the power to remove a ruler exercises sovereignty. Maduro’s arrest prevents him from governing and shifts political authority from Caracas to Washington. A president is not only deposed; the power to shape Venezuela’s political future is redistributed. The decision over who can and cannot govern no longer lies with Venezuelan institutions but with an external actor.
This is why the operation fulfills the mechanism political science describes as colonial: control over political decision‑making. Removing a president means deciding not only his personal fate but the fate of an entire nation.
Control Over Institutions
But political control is only the first mechanism. Once a state assumes the power to determine who may govern, the next step follows naturally: capturing the structures that should normally make such decisions. This becomes clear when we examine which bodies were sidelined—and which replaced them.
Ordinarily, the International Criminal Court (ICC) would be the venue for such a case, or at least a multilateral process under United Nations (UN) oversight. Yet neither the ICC nor the UN plays an active role. Instead, the trial takes place in a U.S. federal court, while the UN merely expresses “deep concern” without issuing a resolution.
Checks designed to limit power are bypassed.
Safeguards meant to protect sovereignty are ignored.
Mechanisms intended to regulate conflict are replaced by the national courts of a powerful state.
The center of authority shifts away from internationally legitimized bodies toward a single nation acting unilaterally.
Control Over Narrative
Institutional control is only part of the pattern. Power unfolds not only through decisions and structures but also through the language used to justify them. Once a state replaces institutions, it also replaces the stories that explain why it may do so. This is where the third mechanism begins: control over interpretation.
Immediately after the operation, three competing narratives emerged. The United States framed the arrest as “justice delivered.” Parts of the international press described it as “liberation,” as if it were an act of rescue. The Venezuelan government called it “kidnapping.” These three words—justice, liberation, and kidnapping—do not merely describe different perspectives; they describe different worlds. Whoever defines “justice” determines how the event will be remembered. Whoever controls the narrative controls the legitimacy of the act. Here, political reality is shaped through language long before it is confirmed by any formal process.
Asymmetrical Power Relations
Yet even narrative control is not the end of the structure. Behind every story lies a relationship that remains unspoken but determines everything: the question of who has the authority to define. This is where the fourth mechanism emerges, condensed into a single sentence—a sentence that does not explain but commands: “We’re in charge.”
This is no slip of the tongue. It is a declaration of power. It marks a hierarchy that is not negotiated but imposed. In this sentence, the entire logic of asymmetrical relations is distilled: those “in charge” set the rules, assign the roles, and draw the boundaries. They decide what appears legitimate and what does not. In international politics, this is the language of hegemonic control—the language of an actor who not only acts but also assigns meaning to his actions. The sentence is not commentary. It is the reality itself.
The Real Question
Here, the four mechanisms converge: political control, institutional control, narrative control, and asymmetrical power relations. Together, they form a pattern political science describes as colonial—not in the historical sense of territorial occupation, but in the structural sense of determining another country’s political order without being part of it.
Externally imposed power shifts have rarely produced stability in recent history. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan—the examples are many, and the consequences well known. Instability produces migration, and migration produces new political tensions. Whether Venezuela will follow this pattern remains uncertain. But the structural risks are visible, and the historical parallels unmistakable.
In the end, one question looms larger than Venezuela itself: who decides the political future of a sovereign state? If that decision is not made in Caracas, not in The Hague, and not at the United Nations, but in Washington, then the real question is not whether we are witnessing a new colonialism. The question is whether the world order we thought we knew still exists—and who, within such an order, is truly “in charge.”
Practically, too.