US-Venezuela global implications, eg China-Taiwan

• US interference in LatAm is not a new phenomenon and the mirage of the "international liberal order" faded long ago

• US actions in Venezuela demonstrate that it is as interventionist as ever where it sees its interests at stake

• Americas are of paramount US interest: Asia (tech) and Africa (minerals) matter more than Europe (trade) or MENA (oil)?

  
  

Division and violent instability in post-Maduro Venezuela, another bout of refugee flows into Colombia, and greater popular support for leftist candidates in the upcoming Colombia (May) and Brazil (October) elections, are the immediate potential implications of US actions in Venezuela. A marginally higher probability (but still with great uncertainty in absolute terms) of fresh investment into the Venezuelan oil industry and a sovereign debt restructuring, and greater US pressure on the government in Cuba are potential medium-term implications. But, perhaps, the most wide-ranging debate, amid what remains a very fluid situation, is whether the US has effectively upturned how international relations are conducted and effectively made inevitable an invasion, or regime decapitation, of Taiwan by mainland China or of others countries in Eastern Europe by Russia?

In our view, this is not the case. The capture and indictment of Venezuela President Maduro by the US, not to mention his prior designation as the head of a drug cartel under US law, does not redraw how international relations are conducted. Interests and realpolitik still drive foreign policy and action, rather than principles and ethics, and might is still right.