Donald Trump is the brass-tacks president the world needs now – a rare leader who prizes tangible results over empty slogans.
Trump’s opponents cast him as a dangerous outlier who violates high ideals they claim to embrace – international law! global partnerships!! the Constitution!!! But his actions fulfill the soaring purpose of concepts his critics honor in word (and betray in deed) while making the world a safer and more just place.
The president’s critics may be right that his capture of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro violated international law. Yet Trump’s move raises a different question: What good is that law if it is protecting an illegitimate thug whose power rested on a stolen election? How is justice served by honoring rules that protect a dishonorable narco-terrorist who jailed and tortured his critics while bankrupting his oil-rich nation? What objective is served when the legal system shields a criminal who allowed his country to become an operating base for America’s most despicable adversaries, including Iran, Russia, Hamas, and Cuba?
Sure, legal scholars can muster many erudite arguments in response, but ultimately they all wind up allowing the lawless to hide behind the law. The idea of respecting the sovereignty of nations sounds good until one recognizes that this principle too often serves and protects butchers. How many tin-horn despots are presently robbing, raping, and murdering their own people because “international law” renders their borders inviolate?
There is some truth in the slogan that it is better to let 10 guilty people go free than to condemn one innocent person, but that rests on the idea that we can’t identify the wrongdoer. Does anyone doubt Maduro’s guilt? Aren’t we perverting justice when we allow men like him to harm their captives? How many innocent people must suffer in the name of an unbending principle?
University of Michigan Law Professor Barbara McQuade inadvertently underscored the fecklessness of the establishment’s overly legalistic approach by arguing that the proper way to “arrest somebody who is not living in the United States is through an extradition request.” Somehow it escaped her notice that the request would have to be submitted to Maduro’s own government. Good luck with that.
McQuade went on to say that Maduro’s arrest “violates the U.N. Charter,” and given that the United States signed that legally binding document, Trump’s action may be “a violation of the Constitution.”
Even as we recognize McQuade’s logic, it dodges the question of why the United States should be prevented from removing a monster from power because of commitments to a notoriously corrupt organization. Two of the world’s worst actors, China and Russia, have long enjoyed veto power in the U.N. Security Council. The strength may have been bolstered this month as Somalia, widely known as one of the most corrupt nations on earth, took over the presidency of the Security Council.
In a world where ruthless dictators abound, the U.N. General Assembly passed 154 resolutions against Israel from 2015 to 2023, versus 71 against all other nations. During that period, the U.S. was condemned nine times and North Korea, eight.
Yes, Trump could honor the letter of America’s commitment to the U.N. Charter by withdrawing the U.S. from that body, but would that be a wiser course than ignoring its dangerous constraints when necessary? How many more deaths is that charter worth?
Similarly, those who argue that Trump’s capture of Maduro gives a green light to bad actors ignore the fact that despots rarely bow to ideals. They didn’t stop Russia from invading Crimea and Ukraine, and they are providing no brake on China’s imperial designs on Taiwan. Laws that only constrain the good serve little purpose.
President Obama famously relied on international law and global partnerships to limit Iran’s nuclear program. His approach only bolstered that country’s murderous regime, enabling it to support dreadful terror, including Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the dreadful war in Gaza. Trump, by contrast, violated Iran’s sovereignty to drop bombs which appear to have obliterated its deadly designs
Another pillar of the global system, the International Criminal Court, reflects a similar pattern of selective and often ineffective justice. In 2024, the scandal-plagued ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet it ignores leaders more credibly accused of genocide, including China’s Xi Jinping, or supporting terror, such as Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Don’t be surprised if it indicts Trump at some point.
Although the ICC has indicted a number of bad actors – including Vladimir Putin – most of them, like the Russian leader, remain “at large” because the ICC lacks the authority to cross borders to make an arrest. As a result, most of those who have stood trial were coughed up by their adversaries once they fell from power or grace. In effect, the ICC goes after people once they can no longer do harm.
The world needs high-minded ideals, but they should be tools to achieve high-minded results. It is still unclear how events will unfold in Venezuela, but there can be little doubt that Maduro’s arrest was not a violation of the law but its fulfillment, whose purpose is to promote safety and punish wrongdoers. Trump gets this. Now, everybody.
