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China's Foreign Ministry Demands Maduro's Immediate Release, Rips 'So-Called' Trial
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the US abduction of Nicolás Maduro "seriously violates Venezuela’s national sovereignty and destabilizes international relations."
Jan 06, 2026
A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday demanded the immediate release of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from US custody and condemned the Trump administration's trampling of international law.
"The US disregards President Maduro’s status as head of state, blatantly prosecutes him, and puts him on a so-called 'trial' in a domestic court," Lin Jian wrote in a social media post. "This seriously violates Venezuela’s national sovereignty and destabilizes international relations."
"No country should put its domestic rules above international law," Lin added. "China calls on the US to release President Maduro and his wife at once and ensure their personal safety."
The U.S. disregards President Maduro’s status as head of state, blatantly prosecutes him and puts him on a so-called “trial” in a domestic court. This seriously violates Venezuela’s national sovereignty and destabilizes international relations.
No country should put its… pic.twitter.com/v1xQqE4Cqo
— Lin Jian 林剑 (@SpoxCHN_LinJian) January 6, 2026
The Chinese official's remarks came a day after Maduro said Monday during his first appearance before a federal court in New York City that he is "still president" of Venezuela—a sentiment echoed by the country's interim leader—and considers himself a "prisoner of war." Maduro pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism conspiracy and other charges pursued by the Trump Justice Department.
During a press conference on Monday, Lin called the US abduction of Maduro a "clear violation of international law, basic norms in international relations, and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter," expressing a view widely held by legal experts.
"China calls on the US to ensure the personal safety of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation," said Lin.
Under international law, sitting heads of state are immune from prosecution in other countries' courts. The Trump administration argues Maduro's leadership was illegitimate. But President Donald Trump, in his social media post announcing the weekend attack on Venezuela, described Maduro as president of the South American country.
"If the Justice Department plans to argue that Nicolás Maduro is not protected by head of state immunity," asked Francisco Rodríguez, a senior fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, "then why did President Trump announce his capture referring to him as 'President Maduro'—a designation that the US government had stopped using in 2019?"
An unsealed US indictment against Maduro characterizes him as "previously the president of Venezuela."
Chimène Keitner, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, wrote Tuesday that the Trump administration "appears to feel that its military and economic superiority allow it to act unilaterally in violation of international law, and that cooperation and alliances are overrated."
"That might seem appealing in the short term, but the world has already seen where unchecked expansionism and claimed spheres of influence lead," wrote Keitner. "The benefits of following agreed-upon rules have often been recognized only after significant harm caused by their disregard."
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Even as Trump Suggests US Taxpayers May Foot the Bill, How Bullish Is Big Oil on Venezuela?
"The appetite for jumping into Venezuela right now is pretty low," one industry source explained to CNN.
Jan 06, 2026
While President Donald Trump has openly stated that the US will seize Venezuela's oil in the wake of the US military's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, there are questions about just how much interest big oil companies have in the president's desire for plunder.
In a Monday interview with NBC News, Trump insisted that US oil companies would invest the billions of dollars needed to rebuild Venezuela's oil extraction infrastructure, and he even floated having US taxpayers reimburse them for their efforts.
"A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue," Trump explained.
However, other recent reporting indicates that oil companies are not gung-ho about the president's plans.
According to a Monday report from CNN, US oil companies have several reasons to be wary of making significant investments in Venezuela, including political instability in the wake of Maduro's ouster, degradation of the country's oil infrastructure, and the fact that the current low price of oil would make such investments unprofitable.
"The appetite for jumping into Venezuela right now is pretty low," one industry source explained to CNN. "We have no idea what the government there will look like. The president’s desire is different than the industry’s. And the White House would have known that if they had communicated with the industry prior to the operation on Saturday."
Another industry source told CNN that the president doesn't appear to understand the complexities of setting up major petroleum extraction operations, especially in politically unstable countries.
"Just because there are oil reserves—even the largest in the world—doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to produce there,” they said. "This isn’t like standing up a food truck operation."
The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper added some more context to oil companies' reluctance to go all-in on Trump's looting scheme, noting in an analysis published Tuesday that US fracking companies could feel real financial pain if Trump floods the market with even cheaper Venezuelan oil.
"The price of oil, about $58 at time of writing, is already dangerously low for American fracking companies, whose investments typically pencil out with prices at $60 per barrel or above," Cooper explained. "More oil on global markets means those prices would drop even lower, crushing the economics of drilling even further. The US oil industry needs Trump to swoop in and add another few million barrels a day of production like it needs a hole in the head."
Cooper added that while Venezuela has a large quantity of oil, its quality is very low, which could also hinder oil companies' ability to produce a profit from extracting it.
"The product is so gloopy that you have to cut it with some kind of solvent to get it to flow in a pipe," he wrote. "In short, it’s expensive to drill, transport, and refine, just like the fracked oil that is barely turning a profit right now."
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron are set to have a meeting at the White House this week to discuss the prospects of extracting oil from Venezuela.
An industry source told Reuters that "nobody in those three companies has had conversations with the White House about operating in Venezuela, pre-removal or post-removal to this point."
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International Law Experts Agree: Trump-Ordered Attack on Venezuela 100% Illegal
"International law is not 'dead' just because the most powerful no longer respect it," one expert stressed. "To preserve the rules-based international order, all states need to call out breaches of the law when they occur."
Jan 05, 2026
Protests have erupted in the US and around the world following President Donald Trump's attack on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, and international law experts on Monday joined in rebuking the deadly military operation, with several outlining exactly how Trump's actions were unlawful.
At Just Security, University of Reading professor of international law Michael Schmitt, New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, and NYU Reiss Center on Law and Security senior fellow Tess Bridgeman explained that the US military's bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro differs legally from the dozens of boat strikes the US has carried out in the past four months.
The attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed more than 100 people and have also been violations of international law, according to numerous legal experts—but they "have occurred in international waters against stateless vessels," wrote Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman.
In contrast, the operation in the early morning hours on Saturday took place within Venezuelan borders and "is clearly a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter," they wrote. "That prohibition is the bedrock rule of the international system that separates the rule of law from anarchy, safeguards small states from their more powerful neighbors, and protects civilians from the devastation of war."
Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, to which both the US and Venezuela are parties, states:
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.
The scholars vehemently rejected the narrative the Trump administration has put forward for months about its escalation in the Caribbean and Venezuela: that the White House simply aims to protect Americans from drug trafficking, a claim that officials have repeated despite the fact that US and international law enforcement agencies have not identified the South American country as a significant player in the drug trade.
For Trump's assertions that drug cartels in Venezuela pose an imminent threat to Americans "to make any sense," wrote the authors, "the drug activity must be characterized as an 'armed attack' against the United States... Drug trafficking simply does not qualify as, and has never been considered, an 'armed attack.' In brief, the relationship between drug trafficking and the deaths that eventually result from drugs being purchased and used in the United States is far too attenuated to qualify as an armed attack."
"It is indisputable that drug trafficking is condemnable criminal activity, but it is not the type of activity that triggers the right of self-defense in international law," they continued, adding that any possible involvement by Maduro's government in the drug trade also does not rise "to the level of an armed attack against the United States."
Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman wrote that "Operation Absolute Resolve," as the administration has termed the Saturday attack that killed more than 80 people, "amounts to an unlawful intervention into Venezuela’s internal affairs," and that while officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have claimed the kidnapping of Maduro was simply a law enforcement operation and not an act of war, the US does not have jurisdiction to carry out such an action in Venezuela without the government's consent.
"The United States has engaged in governmental activity in Venezuela—law enforcement—that is exclusively the domain of the Venezuelan government," wrote the authors. "Even though the United States does not recognize the Maduro government as legitimate, international law provides that the relevant officials to grant consent are those of the government that exercises 'effective control' over the territory; in this case, officials in the Maduro administration."
As a head of state, Maduro is also subject to protections from enforcement jurisdiction by another state, they wrote, under "customary international law."
"The United States has engaged in governmental activity in Venezuela—law enforcement—that is exclusively the domain of the Venezuelan government."
The authors wrote that, as Maduro said in a statement Monday, the president may be considered a prisoner of war and be "entitled to the extensive protections of the Third Geneva Convention," given his status as commander-in-chief of Venezuela's armed forces. His wife is also "entitled to a robust set of protections afforded to captured civilians" under the Fourth Geneva Convention, they wrote.
The explanation by Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman bolstered remarks by other international law experts including Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism.
Saul on Saturday condemned Trump's "illegal aggression against Venezuela and the illegal abduction of its leader and his wife," and said the president "should be impeached and investigated for the alleged killings," of dozens of Venezuelans in the attack.
“Every Venezuelan life lost is a violation of the right to life," he said.
At the Conversation, Australian National University international law professor Sarah Heathcote emphasized that the UN Security Council, which held an emergency meeting Monday in response to the US strike, had not authorized the attack. Such an authorization, along with consent by Venezuela's government or a credible claim that the US was acting in self-defense, would have made the Trump administration's actions lawful.
Instead, she wrote, "the US intervention in Venezuela was as brazen and unlawful as its military strike on Iran in June last year."
"But international law is not 'dead' just because the most powerful no longer respect it," she said. "To preserve the rules-based international order, all states need to call out breaches of the law when they occur, including in the current instance."
At the Security Council meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized "the imperative of full respect, by all, for international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, which provides the foundation for the maintenance of international peace and security."
"Venezuela has experienced decades of internal instability and social and economic turmoil. Democracy has been undermined. Millions of its people have fled the country," he said. "In situations as confused and complex as the one we now face, it is important to stick to principles. Respect for the UN Charter and all other applicable legal frameworks to safeguard peace and security."
"International law contains tools to address issues such as illicit traffic in narcotics, disputes about resources, and human rights concerns," he added. "This is the route we need to take."
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