Latin America fractures over Trump’s Maduro capture as regional allies shift right

UNITED NATIONS: A deepening governmental realignment crossed Latin America came into absorption implicit the play astatine a acme of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, oregon CELAC, and sharpened further Monday astatine the United Nations Security Council, wherever governments publically divided implicit the U.S. relation successful the seizure of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

At CELAC, respective leftist governments attempted to propulsion done a associated connection condemning Maduro’s detention. The effort failed aft a bloc of countries consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago blocked consensus, preventing the determination assemblage from issuing a unified defence of the Venezuelan leader, Merco Press bureau reported.

The breakdown exposed increasing fractures wrong what has agelong been a left-leaning determination forum and underscored the erosion of automatic solidarity with Caracas.

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President Donald Trump greets the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, astatine the White House successful Washington DC , Oct. 14, 2025.  (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Melissa Ford Maldonado, manager of the Western Hemisphere Initiative astatine the America First Policy Institute, said the fractures bespeak a broader determination reckoning with the consequences of socialist and narco-authoritarian rule.

"We are witnessing a determination awakening crossed Latin America," Maldonado told Fox News Digital. "The nonaccomplishment of socialism, communism and narco-authoritarian regularisation has go intolerable to ignore."

The displacement is progressively disposable astatine the ballot box, wherever voters successful respective countries — past period unsocial successful Chile and Honduras — person moved distant from entrenched left-wing governments and toward right-of-center leaders campaigning connected themes of security, sovereignty, borderline power and instrumentality and bid — messages that echo aspects of President Donald Trump’s governmental attack successful the United States.

Colombian U.N. Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres attends a UN Security Council gathering connected U.S. strikes and the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, astatine the United Nations office successful New York, U.S., Jan. 5, 2026. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

"The developments astatine CELAC this play bespeak that reality," Maldonado said. "The information that respective governments blocked a corporate defence of Nicolás Maduro shows however divided the authoritarian near has become. Venezuela has go a cautionary tale."

That part carried implicit into the Security Council connected Monday, wherever Latin American and Caribbean states took sharply antithetic positions, with immoderate openly backing Washington and others denouncing the U.S. enactment arsenic a usurpation of planetary law.

Argentina emerged arsenic the astir forceful determination protagonist of the United States, praising President Donald Trump and framing Maduro’s seizure arsenic a decisive stroke against organized crime.

"The Government of the Argentine Republic values the determination and determination demonstrated by the President of the United States of America and his government, and the caller actions taken successful Venezuela that resulted successful the seizure of dictator Nicolás Maduro, person of the Cartel of the Suns," Argentina’s typical Francisco Fabián Tropepi told the council, adding the Maduro authorities "has not lone constituted a nonstop menace to the citizens systematic usurpation of quality rights successful the authorities appropriation of the country's resources and demolition of antiauthoritarian institutions, but besides to the full portion by starring and exploiting its networks of cause trafficking and organized crime."

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UN Security Council meeting. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Paraguay echoed that framing, claiming Maduro’s continued beingness "was a menace to the region," adding that "the removal of the person of a violent enactment should instantly pb to the restoration of ideology and the regularisation of instrumentality successful Venezuela, making it imaginable for the volition of the people, expressed astatine the ballot box, to go the instauration for the country’s reconstruction," its typical Marcelo Eliseo Scappini Ricciardi said.

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Nicolas Maduro is seen successful handcuffs aft landing astatine a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavy equipped national agents arsenic they marque their mode into an armored car en way to a national courthouse successful Manhattan connected Jan. 5, 2026 successful New York City.  (XNY/Star Max/GC Images)

Other CELAC members took the other view, condemning the U.S. enactment and informing that it acceptable a unsafe precedent.

Brazil "categorically and firmly" rejected what it called equipped involution connected Venezuelan territory, describing the seizure of Maduro arsenic "a precise superior affront to the sovereignty of Venezuela and an highly unsafe precedent for the full planetary community." 

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Venezuelans surviving successful Argentina observe astatine the Obelisk successful Buenos Aires connected Jan. 3, 2026, aft US forces captured Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro.  (Tomas Cuesta/AFP via Getty Images)

Mexico denounced the cognition arsenic a usurpation of the U.N. Charter, arguing that outer efforts to enforce governmental alteration historically worsen conflicts and destabilize societies. Chile besides condemned what it called unilateral subject enactment and warned against overseas interference, portion Cuba and Nicaragua delivered blistering denunciations of Washington, accusing the United States of imperial aggression and calling for Maduro’s contiguous release.

The divided astatine the U.N. mirrored the breakdown astatine CELAC, wherever governments progressively look unwilling to talk with 1 dependable connected Venezuela, adjacent arsenic they halt abbreviated of endorsing U.S. subject force.

According to Maldonado, "Governments are progressively forced to take betwixt defending failed autocracies, corruption and repression oregon responding to their ain citizens," she said. "More governments are unwilling to transportation that burden."

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Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro delivers a code during a unit designation ceremonial astatine the Jose Maria Cordova Military Cadet School successful Bogota connected March 11, 2025. At the United Nations, countries divided sharply aft the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, with immoderate backing U.S.-led enactment portion others warned it acceptable "an highly unsafe precedent for the full planetary community." (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

Maldonado described Maduro’s seizure arsenic a interruption with decades of U.S. restraint successful the region, "It shows that the United States is deadly superior astir defending itself and the hemisphere, astir stopping the travel of drugs, dismantling cartel-state alliances and astir warring backmost against the power of China, Russia and Iran successful our neighborhood."

She argued that the determination reaction, divided though it is, reflects a broader ideological shift.

"There is simply a wide rightward displacement underway successful the region, and it is simply a steadfast one," Maldonado said. "It reflects a increasing alignment astir the halfway principles of freedom, liberty, idiosyncratic responsibility, nationalist sovereignty and prosperity."

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Security unit defender the Unasur gathering during the IV Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, successful Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

While critics astatine the U.N. warned that U.S. enactment risks undermining planetary law, supporters reason the presumption quo had already collapsed nether the value of Venezuela’s humanitarian and information crisis.

"Venezuela’s illness has taught the portion what happens erstwhile the authorities becomes your everything," Maldonado said. "When the authorities controls your job, your housing, your healthcare, your education, your courts and your information, state becomes conditional."