Ian Sollom MP writes a column in the Cambridge Independent about US President Trump's recent actions regarding Venezuela
Cambridge Independent Column – January 2026
On 4th January, US forces bombed Venezuela, captured its president, and flew him to New York on drug trafficking charges. President Trump announced America would "run Venezuela" and explicitly invoked the Monroe Doctrine - the 1823 declaration that the Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States. Twenty-four hours later, he threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark, a founding NATO member.
These aren't random provocations. They mark the visible collapse of the rules-based international order set up in the aftermath of the second World War, systems and institutions designed to avoid great power confrontation that had been so devastating in the first half of the 20th century.
In truth, that order was never simply the application of noble ideals that some of its defenders will claim. Indeed, it was designed to institutionalise American hegemony - locking in US dominance and constraining rivals through international law and institutions. Yet the rules also amplified everyone's influence. For the United States, institutions turned power into legitimate authority. For Britain, they allowed us to maintain global influence far beyond what our relative strength alone would deliver.
It was far from perfect. It did not always hold brutality to account or protect the powerless, and various interventions by the US across the last 80 years demonstrate how selectively they considered the rules applied to them. Yet it required justification for action, creating expectations and imposing reputational costs. And most importantly, under this rules-based order, great power competition did not escalate to the catastrophic world wars its founders were intent on avoiding.
Donald Trump explicitly rejects this framework for older logic: powerful nations decide where different rules apply. He rejects the fundamental principle of sovereignty - that states have legal existence regardless of how we judge their governments. But if we accept governments can be removed by force, who decides which qualify? International law is whatever the powerful assert in Trump’s worldview. It is one shared by Putin.
Trump and his MAGA movement embrace this because they think America is all-powerful and only constrained by the weak institutions of the system. They see only the costs - maintaining alliances, providing guarantees, accepting limits - but not how these institutions have amplified American power.
This is the same category error Britain made with Brexit. Supporters saw EU constraints but not how the framework amplified our influence. They thought we'd be stronger outside; instead, we're weaker - unable to shape decisions that affect us, diminished in negotiations. The institutions weren't limiting our power but multiplying it. Now Conservatives and Reform support Trump's dismantling of global frameworks - repeating the same mistake on a larger scale.
The 19th century sphere-of-influence system Trump cites offers no model for today's interconnected world either. Competition for energy, semiconductors and rare earths means interests overlap everywhere - geographic divisions are relevant, but more complex. Yet that system's failure offers clear warning: alliance and balance of power theories meant to prevent war instead expanded regional crisis into global conflagration. The post-war architects of the international order were acutely aware of this.
I’m less sure our current government is given their response to Venezuela. Asked repeatedly whether US action violated international law, ministers have refused to answer. Not because the law is unclear - the UN Charter's prohibition on this type of force is explicit - but because they are fearful of Trump’s reaction if they defend those laws. So instead: evasion. "It's for the United States to set out its legal basis." We "engage with the world as it is."
This is paralysis masquerading as pragmatism. The government insists Greenland's sovereignty is absolute yet dismisses Venezuela as "false equivalence" without explaining why. Without clear criteria for when international law matters, every position becomes ad hoc, every negotiation harder.
The world as we find it is shaped by those with strategic vision. The British government has none.
That absence is a huge problem with the old order crumbling. As it breaks down, we need leadership capable of serious strategic thinking about what is salvageable and what comes next. What institutions should we strengthen? What partnerships should we deepen? What principles should we defend, and at what cost? Instead, we get incoherence and an apparent hope that staying quiet preserves influence with Trump, despite all evidence to the contrary.
"Engaging with the world as it is" sounds reasonable until you realise it means accepting whatever the powerful choose. That's not foreign policy. That's drift.
History suggests states without strategic vision during great power transitions don't shape events - they get shaped by them. Britain deserves better.
