A disturbing question is now confronting the world after US forces bombed targets in Venezuela, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and US President Trump declared that the United States would run the oil-rich South American nation: Was the US right to do what it did?

For some, the dramatic fall of an authoritarian leader accused of corruption, repression, and narco-trafficking evokes relief. But for much of the world, including many of America’s closest allies, the manner of Maduro’s removal raises deeper and more unsettling concerns.

Among these concerns are upholding a country’s sovereignty, abiding by international law, and protecting smaller nations. For powerful states, however, the issue can become much simpler: If the US can invade one of its neighbors, why can’t China assert its will closer to home?

Indeed, when a superpower normalizes the invasion of a smaller state, it gives cover to other powers to do the same. This matters profoundly to Filipinos. As Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña warned, the US action strengthens a dangerous doctrine: that power determines what is right. “This act only bolsters similar illegal aggressive acts of Russia in Ukraine and China in the West Philippine Sea,” he said.

Mamamayang Liberal Party-list Rep. Leila de Lima went further, arguing that Washington has undermined the very rules-based international order it claims to defend. “As a US ally, this leaves the Philippines with a compromised moral ascendancy in protesting, condemning, opposing, and fighting China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea,” she said.

“Our major ally against Chinese aggression uses that same aggression against a smaller neighbor, like what the Philippines is to China. This reflects poorly on us as well, regardless of our own faithful adherence to international law, simply because the US is our ally,” she added.

No one seriously disputes Maduro’s record. He presided over Venezuela’s economic ruin, hollowed out democratic institutions, and clung to power through repression. Even European governments that condemned the US action acknowledged that Maduro “lacks legitimacy.”

But a lack of legitimacy does not necessarily justify foreign military intervention. The real issue is not whether Maduro deserved to fall, but whether the United States had the right to make that decision by force. If the US had such a right, many wonder whether it should also directly intervene to topple dictatorships in China and Russia.

President Trump’s own statements only deepened that alarm. He openly linked Maduro’s capture to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, promising that American companies would rebuild the oil industry and unlock its “lost potential.” This framing has reinforced the suspicion that the operation was driven less by democratic principle than by strategic and economic interests.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.

The reaction from across the world suggests deep alarm. Russia, China, and Iran predictably condemned the operation as a blatant violation of sovereignty. More telling, however, was the response from US allies. France warned that the intervention undermined international law and that no solution could be imposed externally.

Spain said it violates international law and pushes Latin America toward militarism. Germany called the action legally “complex,” while the European Union urged respect for international law even as it criticized Maduro’s rule. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned that the strikes could set a “dangerous precedent.”

The precedent set by the US intervention in Venezuela is deeply troubling. When the world’s most powerful democracy uses unilateral force to topple a smaller state’s leader and declares temporary stewardship over that country, it normalizes a logic long feared by weaker nations: that power, not law, ultimately decides.

Such actions certainly embolden other powers to justify their own aggressions—Russia in Ukraine, China in the West Philippine Sea, Israel in Gaza—each claiming exceptional circumstances, security needs, or even moral necessity.

For our country, this dilemma is acute. The Philippines depends on international law to defend its maritime rights against China’s expansionism, and on its alliance with the US for deterrence. But how credible is a rules-based appeal when our principal ally appears willing to discard those rules when convenient? Rep. De Lima rightly notes that this erodes not only Washington’s moral standing but also that of its allies, who are then seen as selectively principled.

If the international order is to mean anything, it must apply even, and especially so, to those strong enough to disregard it. Otherwise, there will be no stopping the erosion of the very rules that protect smaller nations from the whims of the powerful. ([email protected])