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Today's Bloomberg News report that President Donald Trump and U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke are considering re-creating the ineffectual and corrupt structure of America's offshore oil drilling regulator would be a disaster for environmental and worker safety. Both Trump and Zinke must immediately renounce such an action.
In the years leading up to the April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the offshore oil regulator - the U.S. Minerals Management Service - was plagued with rampant scandals fed by too-cozy relationships with the oil industry. It was for this reason that the independent National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling specifically recommended splitting the agency's safety regulation and oil leasing functions. The Obama administration acted on this and other commission recommendations.
We cannot afford a return to the days when structural failures of agency design allow oil companies to get a free pass. President Trump and Secretary Zinke must immediately and forcefully reject any effort to merge Interior's safety and leasing operations.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000"Today, it is not only Venezuela's sovereignty that is at stake, but the credibility of international law."
Governments throughout Latin America and beyond on Monday blasted the US military's invasion of Venezuela and its abduction of President Nicolás Maduro during an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Samuel Moncada, the permanent representative of Venezuela to the United Nations, demanded that the Security Council call for Maduro's immediate release and condemn the US invasion of his country.
Moncada also warned that President Donald Trump's actions would lead to a dangerous unraveling of international law and return to a system in which militarily strong countries feel free to invade weaker ones with impunity.
"Allowing such acts to go without an effective answer would amount to normalizing the replacement of law by might, while eroding the very foundations of the collective security system," he said. "Today, it is not only Venezuela's sovereignty that is at stake, but the credibility of international law, the authority of this organization, and the validity of the principle that no state can set itself up as a judge, party, and executor of the world order."
Venezuela Ambassador to the @UN Samuel Moncada: "No state can set itself up as a judge, party and executor of the world order...Venezuela is the victim of these attack because of its natural resources." pic.twitter.com/j17sHZk5kA
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 5, 2026
Representatives from several other nations joined Moncada's condemnation of the US invasion.
Sérgio França Danese, permanent representative of Brazil to the United Nations, said that the US military's actions "cross an unacceptable line," and set "an extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community."
"The acceptance of actions of this nature would inexorably lead to a scenario marked by violence, disorder, and the erosion of multilateralism, to the detriment of international law and institutions," said Danese. "As Brazil has reiterated on numerous occasions, the norms that govern coexistence among states mandatory and universal."
At the UN security council the representative of Brazil condemns the actions of the United States as a flagrant violation of international law and goes on to mention the genocide in Gaza as an example of how international governance mechanisms are being weakened. pic.twitter.com/36tEUoJtAv
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 5, 2026
Héctor Enrique Vasconcelos y Cruz, permanent representative of Mexico to the United Nations, said that the US military's actions in Venezuela "must not be allowed," as they "constitute a severe blow to the charter and to multilateralism."
Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, permanent representative of Cuba to the United Nations, accused the US of targeting Venezuela purely for reasons of imperial aggression.
"The US military attack against Venezuela has no justification whatsoever," Guzmán said. "It does not respond to any provocation, nor does it possess legitimacy. It is based on the... doctrine of peace through force, and undermines the stability and peace that had characterized our Latin American and Caribbean region for years."
Guzmán added that the "ultimate objective" of the US operation is "not the false narrative of combating drug trafficking, but control over Venezuela’s natural resources, as has been shamelessly declared by President Trump."
Cuban Representative: Its ultimate objective is not the false narrative of combating drug trafficking, but control over Venezuela’s natural resources as has been shamelessly declared by President Trump and his Secretary of State. pic.twitter.com/FDCJoFcduX
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 5, 2026
Jonathan Passmoor, acting deputy permanent representative of South Africa to the UN, accused the US of dangerously degrading the UN charter with its unprovoked attack on Venezuela.
"We all benefit from a rules-based international order based on international law," said Passmoor. "When we break these norms, we invite anarchy and an environment where might make right, ignoring the complexity of interrelations and interdependence in our modern world."
The South African ambassador also warned of the US setting dangerous precedents that could herald more global conflict.
"The belief that might is right, is reinforced and diplomacy is undermined," he said. "History has repeatedly demonstrated that military invasions against sovereign States yield only instability and deepen crisis."
[ Watch] Statement by the Republic of SouthAfrica to the United Nations Security Council Meeting on the situation in Venezuela delivered by Mr Jonathan Passmoor Acting Deputy Permanent Representative https://t.co/DPPXBKIAxO pic.twitter.com/KuQZdJqBVa
— Chrispin Phiri 🇿🇦 (@Chrispin_JPhiri) January 5, 2026
Trump over the weekend said that the US would be "running" Venezuela for the foreseeable future, although it is not clear how he plans to administer control over the nation given that the rest of Maduro's government, led by Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, remains in control of the state.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that Rodriguez would follow US orders or a fate "worse than" Maduro's awaits here.
"If the United States attacks another NATO country, everything stops," said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
With the Trump administration signaling that its kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could be followed by more military actions in countries President Donald Trump has threatened in the past, the prime minister of Denmark on Monday said his continued threats, however outlandish, were being taken seriously by her government.
"Unfortunately, I think the American president should be taken seriously when he says he wants Greenland," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish public broadcaster DR.
Frederiksen emphasized that Denmark and Greenland, which is autonomous but part of the Danish kingdom, are also resolute in their repeatedly stated opposition to Trump's goal of taking over the mineral-rich Arctic island nation, and their commitment to fighting back against any military action by the US.
"I have made it very clear where the kingdom of Denmark stands, and Greenland has repeatedly said that it does not want to be part of the United States," she added. "If the United States attacks another [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] country, everything stops."
On Sunday, Trump repeated that "we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security," drawing rebukes both from Frederiksen and the prime minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who called Trump's rhetoric about the country "completely unacceptable."
"Our country is not an object in the rhetoric of a superpower," said Nielsen in a social media post. "We are a people. A country. A democracy. That must be respected. Especially by close and loyal friends."
"Threats, pressure, and talk of annexation have no place between friends," he added. "This is not how you talk to a people who have repeatedly demonstrated responsibility, stability, and loyalty. Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies about annexation."
Frederiksen and Nielsen's comments followed remarks from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio about potential US interventions in a number of countries that the administration has previously threatened.
"Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies about annexation."
Rubio told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that Cuba is "in a lot of trouble."
While declining to detail the White House's plans for the country, where the Cuban-American secretary of state has long advocated for regime change, Rubio said Cuba had been "propping up" Maduro before Saturday's military operation in which the US bombed Venezuela and arrested the president and his wife.
“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned," said Rubio.
The secretary of state echoed comments from Trump, who said soon after Maduro's capture that "Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about."
"It’s very similar [to Venezuela] in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and are living in this country," said Trump.
The president also expanded his threats in Latin America to Mexico and Colombia, whose leaders he accused of allowing the drug trade to flourish in their countries.
Trump accused Colombian President Gustavo Petro of having "cocaine mills."
"He’s making cocaine. They’re sending it into the United States. So he does have to watch his ass," Trump said, adding that a US military operation against Colombia "sounds good to me."
The Trump administration's claims that it aims to protect the US from drug trafficking have been central to its rapid escalation in Venezuela in recent months. While accusing Maduro, Petro, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum of allowing drugs to flow into the US, the president pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted to ensuring more than 400 tons of cocaine were sent to the US.
Petro responded Monday with a warning to Trump, should he carry out an operation like the kidnapping of Maduro.
“If you detain a president whom much of my people want and respect, you will unleash the people’s jaguar," said Petro.
In Denmark, the government was reportedly treating Trump's latest comments about the strategically located Greenland with urgency, with one official at the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group writing in a LinkedIn post that "the Danish government is in full crisis mode."
"A possible US intervention in Greenland is now the biggest source of risk to the transatlantic alliance and intra-NATO and intra-EU cohesion, arguably far greater than those presented by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine," said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group.
Other European leaders signaled their intention to come to the defense of Greenland and Denmark should Trump take military action against the Arctic island.
European Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper said regarding Trump's latest comments that the European Union "will continue to uphold the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of borders and the [United Nations] Charter.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also expressed support for Frederiksen's demand that Trump "stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have said very clearly that they are not for sale."
"I stand with her, and she’s right about the future of Greenland," Starmer told the Guardian on Monday. "Greenland and the kingdom of Denmark are to decide the future of Greenland, and only Greenland and the kingdom of Denmark."
But European leaders have been far more muted in their comments about the US military intervention that is already underway in a sovereign nation: Venezuela.
A spokesperson for 10 Downing Street suggested the UK would abstain in the UN Security Council vote on a resolution condemning the Venezuela attack, and declined to denounce Trump's threats against Cuba and Colombia.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that "the legal assessment of the US intervention is complex," while EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas called for "restraint" but noted that "the EU has repeatedly stated that Maduro lacks legitimacy."
The EU Green Party called on leaders in the bloc to "defend international law consistently."
French entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand added that "when EU leaders legitimize what Trump did in Venezuela, they're preemptively justifying him taking over Greenland, as he keeps saying he will."
“None of these acts of brazen aggression, violence, and violations of international law have, in any sustained or meaningful way, been referred to as acts of war, a coup, or invasion in US mainstream media reporting."
By the time the Trump administration began its operation this weekend to illegally kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro before taking control of the country and its oil reserves, two of the United States’ most storied media outlets were well aware that the attack was about to happen.
According to a Saturday report from Semafor, “the New York Times and Washington Post learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin Friday night—but held off publishing what they knew to avoid endangering US troops, two people familiar with the communications between the administration and the news organizations said.”
Semafor wrote that the decision "to maintain official secrecy is in keeping with longstanding American journalistic traditions." But critics say it's part of a different tradition: One in which corporate media outlets act as dutiful stenographers for the US military establishment to help legitimize lawless, imperialist military adventures.
Prior to this weekend, the leading example of this deference was seen during the lead-up to then-President George W. Bush's war in Iraq, where legacy media outlets had been criticized for parroting the government's claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be false.
In 2023, the 20-year anniversary of the invasion, which led to the deaths of an estimated half a million people, Adam Johnson wrote for the Real News Network that many of the journalists who pushed the lies that led to war—including the Atlantic's now-editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, the marquee MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) morning host Joe Scarborough, and New York nagazine and Atlantic contributor Jonathan Chait—never suffered career consequences for helping to midwife a historic foreign policy crime, and have since seen their careers blossom.
Johnson wrote in the Intercept on Sunday that the Western media's reaction to yet another regime change war in Venezuela has been similarly uncritical of the Trump administration's justifications, even as it states, overtly this time, that its primary aim is to commandeer another country's natural resources:
The administration invaded Venezuela’s sovereign territory, bombing several buildings, killing... its citizens, kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their bed, and announcing they will, henceforth, "run" the country.
And yet none of these acts of brazen aggression, violence, and violations of international law have, in any sustained or meaningful way, been referred to as acts of war, a coup, or invasion in US mainstream media reporting.
He added that the media has spent months adopting a "pseudo-legal framing" of President Donald Trump's threats against Venezuela and his seizure of its oil tankers.
In particular, he noted that both the Times and CNN had referred to “international sanctions” against Venezuela, which are actually just US sanctions. The Times also cited a Navy lawyer who claimed that by stopping Venezuela from trading its oil by seizing its vessels, the US was enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a convention that the US itself has not signed.
"It needed to feel vaguely rules-based and international-y, so unilateral US dictates were passed off as ersatz international law," Johnson wrote.
As numerous legal scholars have pointed out, Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter plainly states that "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations," making Trump's actions against Venezuela a blatant violation of the nation's sovereignty.
However, since Trump's invasion of Venezuela on Saturday, many media outlets have continued to adopt the dubious framing that US law, which has remained the Trump administration's sole justification for its kidnapping of Maduro—whom the Department of Justice indicted for alleged drug trafficking—somehow applies across borders and entitles the US to take over the country.
Assal Rad, a fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, DC and a frequent critic of US media coverage of foreign interventions, noted on social media that many outlets—including the Times, as well as Reuters, CNN, and the Associated Press—ran headlines framing the legality of Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro and subsequent assertion of authority to “run” the country as open questions.
"This framing is meant to cast doubt on the most basic principles of international law and sovereignty," Rad said.
Other outlets have simply denied that Trump's actions constituted acts of war at all. CBS News said the US had simply "ratcheted up" its "campaign" against Maduro. The Wall Street Journal used similar euphemistic language, describing it as a “pressure campaign” rather than a war. And others, including CNN, described the attack as a limited law enforcement "operation," rather than the opening salvo of what the White House itself has suggested may be a years-long project of ruling Venezuela for the purpose of converting it into a client state.
While the New York Times editorial board has since criticized Trump's action in Venezuela as "illegal and unwise," the Washington Post's editorial board—which was given a directive by its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos earlier this year to use its pages to promote "free markets," issued unconditional support for Trump's attack and plans to govern Venezuela on Saturday, calling it a "triumph" and a "a major victory for American interests."
Other outlets have given explicit directives to use whitewashed language to refer to the US's unilateral snatching of Maduro.
Owen Jones, an independent British journalist and columnist, reported that the BBC had directed reporters not to refer to Maduro—who was whisked away in the dead of night by US soldiers along with his wife and shown bound and blindfolded by the US government—as having been “kidnapped” by the US, but rather “seized” or “captured.”
According to Johnson, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who has previously spiked stories damaging to the Trump administration at the behest of the network's new owners, directed the network's newly installed "Evening News" anchor to always refer to Maduro as a "dictator," echoing the government's line.
Johnson pointed out that the owner of CBS, Trump-aligned billionaire David Ellison, “recently partnered with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates” as part of his bid to take over CBS parent company Paramount, “so rest assured these dictatorships will not be getting the label.”
The New York Times has since updated the death toll from Trump's bombing of Caracas and other sites in Venezuela to at least 80 civilians and military personnel.
Sarah Lazare, an investigative reporter for Workday magazine, questioned why the Times and Post were concerned with the safety of US personnel, but "the danger posed to the Venezuelans killed in the bombing did not enter into the equation" when they decided to keep the story from public view until after the damage was done.
"This kind of fealty to perceived US interests is so ordinary because it's rewarded—it's the surest way to rise as a foreign policy reporter," Lazare added. "Makes me think of all the Iraq War cheerleaders who failed upward, now helm major news outlets, and narrate the events unfolding today. Being wrong about WMDs, being on the wrong side of history, did not hurt them professionally, and probably helped."