The attack by the United States against Venezuela and the dramatic capture of its President Nicolas Maduro took the world by storm early Saturday morning. From China to Iran to South Africa, countries around the world expressed concern over the latest strikes, while the media house flooded its newspapers and websites with analysis and exclusive details of US operations in Venezuela. This is how the global media reacted:
United States
An editorial in The New York Times declared that “Trump’s attack on Venezuela is illegal and unwise.” The editorial board’s opinion also called Maduro an “undemocratic and repressive” leader who has “destabilized the Western Hemisphere in recent years.”
The headline of The New York Times early Sunday (IST) read: “Inside the US mission to capture Maduro”. The report called the US operation in Venezuela “tactically precise”. The report claimed, “This was a highly dangerous mission.”
The report went on to say that Trump “justified what was dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve as a crackdown on drug trafficking.”
New York Times
Meanwhile, an analysis in the Washington Post read: “Toppling Maduro will likely be the easiest part for Trump”. Another analytical piece was headlines like: “US capture of Maduro may be illegal; likely won’t matter in court”.
The Washington Post also reported that the US strikes in Venezuela appeared to be a “tactically successful military operation”.
At the same time, CNN claimed that the mission so far appears to be “limited to removing Maduro.”
China
China’s state-run Global Times reported one of its best-placed stories as: “US strikes on Venezuela spark concern in domestic and foreign media as protests erupt across country”. This included the media
While the Chinese government condemned the US strikes, local state media CGTN also carried a skeptical tone in its news selection. Very few or none of his headlines reflected the American perspective. Rather, most of them concerned leaders criticizing the actions of US President Trump.
Chinese media CGTN
Some of those headlines read: “Democrats accuse Trump of lying to Congress about Venezuela targets”; “Protests call for end to US military action in Latin America”; “Protest outside the White House against US military action in Venezuela”; “The UN Security Council will hold an extraordinary session on Venezuela on Monday”
United Kingdom
A report in Britain’s Guardian called the “Putinization” of US foreign policy has arrived in Venezuela. The author of the analytical report believed that Trump “is no longer bending the rules – he is breaking them with consequences far beyond the borders of Caracas.”
In another report, it said the US bombing of Venezuela and the capture of its president Nicolás Maduro follows a long history of interventions in South and Central America and the Caribbean over the past two centuries. “But they also mark an unprecedented moment as the first direct US military attack on a South American country,” it said.
Middle East
AI Jazeera headlined the US operation as an “Act of War”, citing experts who rejected Trump’s justification for the attack in Venezuela. The report quoted an expert as saying, “It was an act of war against Venezuela, and we didn’t have the kind of self-defense justification that would normally justify bypassing Congress.”
