Trump didn’t solve Venezuela — he broke the rules that let the US pretend its power was lawful, and that damage isn’t going away. Right, so Donald Trump has turned Venezuela into a permanent liability for the United States, and that damage is already done. A US president has bombed a sovereign country, seized its head of state, and in the process stripped away the last pretence that American law sits above American force. Venezuela is the immediate target, Nicolás Maduro is the captive, but the thing that’s been hit hardest is the boundary that used to separate arrest from invasion and courts from bombs. That boundary is gone, and once it’s gone, it doesn’t quietly grow back. This isn’t just about today’s operation or whatever details get argued over next. This fits a pattern we’ve seen hardening in real time, where legality follows power instead of constraining it, and where allies are protected while enemies are dragged out under the language of justice. That combination locks in consequences that don’t care how this ends, only that it happened at all. Right, so Donald Trump says that the United States has bombed Venezuela and seized its president, and the most important thing to understand is that the damage does not depend on what details emerge later, this is obviously an event still unfolding, but because the action itself has already done what it does. A sitting US president has openly used military force against a sovereign state and removed its head of government, and by doing so he has collapsed the line that previously allowed American power to pretend it was restrained by law rather than imposed by force. The United States has just acted in open breach of international law, and done so without any attempt at restraint. That collapse is not a talking point, it is a structural change, and it does not reverse when press briefings change tone or when lawyers start arguing technicalities after the fact, which we know is coming. Trump has not merely intervened. He has fused arrest and invasion into the same act, and once that happens, jurisdiction no longer precedes enforcement, it follows it.