Financial Warfare in the Americas: What Europe Should Learn from Venezuela

The United States just abducted a head of state, and the weapon that made it possible wasn’t a carrier group, it was a tariff schedule.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration launched a military operation inside Venezuela, captured Nicolás Maduro, and transferred him to New York to face charges. The President signalled publicly that Washington would “run” Venezuela through a political transition, and that further strikes remain possible.

But the operation itself is not the story. The machinery that enabled it is.

While European capitals have been preoccupied with tariffs, NATO budgets, the Western Hemisphere just demonstrated what coercive statecraft looks like when you control the financial plumbing of global trade. If you think this is purely a Latin American affair, you haven’t been paying attention to Trump’s comments about Greenland.

The Real Weapon: Secondary Tariffs as Financial Coercion

In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order authorising a 25 percent tariff on all goods imported into the United States from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, directly or indirectly.

Read that again. Not sanctions on Venezuela. Sanctions on anyone who does business with Venezuela.

This is not a standard instrument of economic statecraft. It is a form of secondary pressure that forces third countries to pay a compliance cost for every transaction with Caracas. The United States has long used economic tools to pursue strategic goals, but this pushes them towards something more openly coercive and extraterritorial.

At the same time, the administration moved to unwind Chevron-related permissions, with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issuing updated general licences tied to winding down joint ventures in Venezuela. OFAC general licences are essentially temporary authorisations that allow specific activities otherwise prohibited by sanctions, and when they’re amended or revoked, the compliance landscape shifts overnight.

Put the pieces together:

1. Constrain Venezuela’s oil revenues by targeting not just Venezuela, but buyers and intermediaries globally.
2. Turn trade access into leverage, using tariffs as a compliance enforcement mechanism for third parties.
3. Signal that escalation is credible, culminating in kinetic action and leadership capture [just ask Maduro].

The academic literature has a term for this: “weaponised interdependence”, when states exploit central positions in global networks such as finance, trade, data, payments to coerce others. The point is not merely to punish Caracas. It is to make Venezuela radioactive for everyone else.

This is financial statecraft with the volume turned to maximum. And it works because of one uncomfortable fact: if you want access to U.S. markets, U.S. payment systems, or U.S., denominated trade, you play by Washington’s rules - or you pay the price.

From Naval Power to Network Power: Hemispheric Control in the 21st Century

The 1823 Monroe Doctrine drew a line between European power politics and the Western Hemisphere, warning against further colonisation and positioning the Americas as a distinct sphere of influence. At first glance, Trump’s Venezuela operation echoes that same hemispheric primacy.

However three differences matter, and all three are more relevant to Europe than they first appear.

1. The instruments are networked, not naval

Monroe-era enforcement was about power projection and deterrence, ships, bases, and the credible threat of force. Trump’s approach is about controlling access to systems: trade flows, financial rails, compliance infrastructure, and market participation.

A 25 percent secondary tariff on any country importing Venezuelan oil is not classical blockade logic. It is coercion via interdependence, designed to change the behaviour of third parties by exploiting their dependence on U.S. markets. The enforcement mechanism isn’t a warship. It’s a spreadsheet in a compliance department in Rotterdam or Singapore.

2. The target is not Europe: it’s everyone

Monroe was about keeping Europe out of the Americas. Trump’s tariffs and sanctions posture is about China, India, Europe, and anyone else buying the wrong barrel of oil or doing business with the wrong regime. The theatre may be in the Western Hemisphere, but the pressure is designed to travel through global supply chains.

For European companies operating in Latin America or the Caribbean, this creates an impossible choice: continue normal commercial relationships and risk secondary sanctions, or exit markets preemptively and cede ground to competitors less vulnerable to U.S. pressure.

3. The legal framing is thinner, and that’s deliberate

The Roosevelt Corollary and Cold War interventions came wrapped in doctrine: anti-colonialism, anti-communism, democracy promotion, counter-narcotics. Here, the legal and moral framing looks more improvisational, judicial language, executive authority, and a very public willingness to dispense with diplomatic niceties.

Chatham House’s international law assessment is blunt: there is no convincing legal basis under the UN Charter for abducting a sitting head of state or for the strikes conducted. This is not “Monroe Doctrine 2.0”. It is closer to a hybrid of hemispheric primacy and transactional extraction, backed by the geo-economic weight of the dollar system and an administration willing to act without multilateral cover.

If that sounds familiar to European readers, it should. It’s the same logic Trump applies to trade negotiations, NATO burden-sharing, and now, critically, Greenland.

The Pattern: Venezuela, Cuba, and Greenland

Within 24 hours of Maduro’s capture, Trump pivoted to Greenland, telling reporters on Air Force One that the United States “need[s]” it for defence.  Denmark’s Prime Minister urged him to stop making threats and rejected any idea of annexation, while Greenland’s Prime Minister called it “disrespectful” to link Greenland to Venezuela and military intervention.  

That sequence is the point. Greenland is not Venezuela, and Denmark is a NATO ally. But after Caracas, the rhetoric stops sounding like a stray provocation and starts looking like a pattern: coercive signalling backed by a demonstrated willingness to act.

Why does Greenland belong in a blog post about Venezuela?

Because it reveals the same strategic posture applied to different geography: treat strategically important territory as something the U.S. “needs,” then speak about acquisition in a way that makes sovereignty feel negotiable.

Greenland is about Arctic basing, missile defence, rare-earth minerals, and northern sea routes. Venezuela is about oil, regime hostility, migration politics, and keeping China out of the hemisphere - oh and drugs. The connective tissue is not the resource. It is the assertion of entitlement in the near abroad, broadly defined.

Cuba sits between them, literally and conceptually.

As the Venezuela operation unfolded, Trump publicly hinted that the United States may expand its focus to Cuba next. In June 2025, he had already signed a memorandum tightening US policy toward Cuba, reinforcing restrictions on travel and transactions. So when the President gestures towards Cuba in the same breath as Venezuela, it signals a regional frame: a Western Hemisphere in which Washington asserts a privileged right to shape outcomes, using economic constraints and coercive escalation.

From a Caribbean perspective, the risk is not simply “more sanctions.” It is that the region becomes a contested compliance zone where normal economic activity is constantly exposed to geopolitical tripwires. So the same risk applies to any geography where US strategic interests intersect with contested sovereignty.

That includes the Arctic. It includes the South China Sea, and yes, it includes Europe’s near abroad, the Balkans, the Eastern Partnership states, and North Africa.

The Caribbean Problem Set: A Preview of Europe’s Future?

CARICOM’s statement on the 3rd January is revealing, not only for what it says about sovereignty and the UN Charter, but for what it immediately worries about: safety, security, and the “multifaceted impact” on economic activity, particularly air travel.

That is the Caribbean problem in miniature, and it should sound uncomfortably familiar to anyone thinking about Europe’s periphery.

The region sits atop routes and dependencies that great power coercion stresses first:

Energy and shipping disruption: Anything that disrupts Venezuelan exports or triggers a wider enforcement campaign spills into maritime insurance, port activity, and fuel pricing. European energy companies operating in the region face the same compliance calculations as Caribbean states.

Migration pressure: Instability in Venezuela has already driven regional migration for years. Abrupt political dislocation or a contested transition pushes flows towards nearby states first. Europe knows this dynamic intimately from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Financial de-risking: When Washington signals that a country or network is a compliance minefield, regional banks and correspondent relationships tighten. Small economies feel this quickly. So do European banks with Caribbean exposure, or any institution that relies on access to dollar clearing.

Security externalities: A hard US posture produces counter-moves; intelligence activity, proxy dynamics, criminal adaptation along the seams of enforcement. CARICOM’s diplomatic language barely conceals the message: when a large power decides to act unilaterally in your neighbourhood, your sovereignty is not the only thing at stake. Your logistics are.

For Europe, the lesson is stark. If the United States is willing to use secondary sanctions, tariff threats, and kinetic action in the Western Hemisphere, where it has overwhelming conventional dominance, what would it do in regions where it perceives greater threats or weaker norms?

More troubling: if this toolkit works, what stops other powers from applying the same logic? China already uses economic coercion against states that displease Beijing. Russia has weaponised energy and information flows. The Venezuela precedent doesn’t just normalise US unilateralism. It normalises a model.

What Europe Gets Wrong About “Standing Up”

Multiple actors have criticised the Venezuela operation. A joint statement from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and Uruguay rejected unilateral military action and called it a dangerous precedent. Mexico’s President has reiterated opposition. CARICOM has called for peaceful dialogue. Russia predictably condemned it as unlawful and destabilising, China and Iran called for Maduro to be released.

So the issue is not silence. It is constraint.Three realities make “standing up” harder in 2026 than European foreign policy rhetoric suggests:

Security dependence: Many states rely on US security guarantees or cooperation, even when they disagree with Washington’s methods. European NATO members understand this acutely. Criticising U.S. unilateralism in Venezuela while depending on U.S. extended deterrence in the Baltics is not hypocrisy, it’s a structural contradiction.

Financial dependence: Access to U.S. markets and the dollar system shapes risk calculations far beyond formal alliances. European banks, insurers, shipping firms, and multinationals all have dollar exposure. Secondary sanctions work precisely because they exploit this dependency.

Fragmented alignment: The world is no longer neatly organised into blocs that can collectively enforce norms without immediate trade-offs. The EU struggles to coordinate its own sanctions policy. Expecting a united “rules-based order” coalition to push back against Washington when half its members depend on U.S. security guarantees is unrealistic.

In other words, the enforcement mechanism of the old multilateral order is weaker, while the enforcement mechanism of U.S. geo-economic power remains strong.

That asymmetry is the backdrop to the entire episode. And it is the challenge Europe faces every time it talks about “strategic autonomy” without building the economic and military capacity to back it up.

Three Futures: Where This Goes Next

No scenario here is clean. All are ugly in different ways.

Path A: A Managed Transition, With Heavy U.S. Steering

Washington tries to translate the capture into a rapid political handover, possibly with an interim arrangement that keeps the state functioning while re-opening channels with the U.S.

Here, accuracy matters. On the 4th January, acting president Delcy Rodríguez shifted tone publicly, inviting the U.S. to "collaborate" on an agenda for shared development framed within international law, while reiterating sovereignty and non-interference. That rhetorical olive branch does not equal legitimacy or control, but it signals a governing instinct: survive the transition by narrowing Washington’s pretext for further escalation.

If this path holds, it reduces immediate violence. But it hardens the precedent: regime outcomes shaped by unilateral force, legitimised afterwards through a “transition” narrative.

The replicability is the danger, not everywhere, but in enough places that matter.

For Europe, the question is whether Brussels is prepared to accept a world where effective coercion trumps legal norms. Reporting suggests even close partners have been cautious, stressing international law while avoiding a direct confrontation with Washington. That caution is itself a signal.

Path B: Escalation and Regional Spillover

Trump has signalled that further strikes could be possible. If domestic Venezuelan actors resist, or if external supporters decide to create costs for Washington, the risk shifts to disruption: ports, oil infrastructure, cyber operations, or proxy dynamics.

Caribbean states then face second-order shocks in air travel, trade, and migration, exactly what CARICOM flagged in its statement. European energy firms, shipping companies, and insurers with Caribbean or Latin American exposure face parallel disruption.

This path also raises the spectre of retaliation against U.S. interests elsewhere, not necessarily military, but through asymmetric means that stress supply chains, cyber infrastructure, or financial systems. Europe, as both an ally and an economy deeply integrated into global trade networks, sits in the crossfire.

Path C: Normalisation of the Precedent

This is the most strategic and most dangerous outcome: even if Venezuela stabilises, the precedent becomes part of the global menu. If unilateral action backed by secondary economic coercion is treated as effective, other powers learn the lesson in their own “near abroad”.

That is the strategic stability problem, not only for Latin America, but for the Baltics, the South China Sea, the Arctic, and Europe’s periphery. If the United States can use financial coercion and kinetic action to reshape outcomes in Venezuela, what stops China from doing the same in Taiwan? What prevents Russia from applying the same logic in Moldova or Georgia?

The uncomfortable answer is: norms don’t stop behaviour when the cost of compliance exceeds the benefit. And if the U.S. demonstrates that breaking the rules works, the rules stop working.

What London and Brussels Should Be Thinking About

Trump’s Venezuela move is not only about Venezuela. It is about reasserting a sphere of influence using 21st-century tools: secondary tariffs, compliance fear, and the credibility of escalation.

Cuba sits next in the rhetorical queue. Greenland shows the same logic projected onto Arctic geography. While the Monroe Doctrine comparison is useful it is incomplete. The deeper story is not a return to 1823. It is the fusion of hemispheric primacy with networked coercion, at a moment when the institutions designed to police the use of force look increasingly optional.

For Europe, the implications are threefold:

First, financial vulnerability is strategic vulnerability. As long as European economies, firms, and banks depend on access to U.S. markets and dollar-denominated systems, Europe’s ability to pursue an independent foreign policy is constrained. This is not about decoupling from the U.S. it is about building redundancy into systems that currently have none.

Second, legal norms require enforcement capacity. The rules-based international order that Europe champions is not self-enforcing. It works when powerful states choose to abide by it, or when other states can impose costs for violations. Right now, Europe can do neither. The EU’s sanctions policy is fragmented, its military capacity is limited, and its economic leverage is diffuse. Pointing to the UN Charter is not a strategy when the other side doesn’t care.

Third, precedents matter. If the Venezuela operation succeeds without meaningful cost to Washington, the model becomes replicable. Not everywhere, but in enough contested regions that Europe cares about. The question is not whether the United States will use these tools again. It is whether Europe has an answer when it does, or when someone else does. The Caribbean’s job, as ever, is to absorb the consequences first.

Europe would be wise to pay attention. Because the toolkit that just reshaped the Western Hemisphere works anywhere you have leverage.

Right now, the United States has more of it than anyone else.

This analysis draws on open-source reporting, public documents, and international assessments.

Selected Source and References

1. The White House. “Imposing Tariffs on Countries Importing Venezuelan Oil,” March 27, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/imposing-tariffs-on-countries-importing-venezuelan-oil/.
2. Federal Register. “Imposing Tariffs on Countries Importing Venezuelan Oil,” March 27, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/27/2025-05440/imposing-tariffs-on-countries-importing-venezuelan-oil.
3. Office of Foreign Assets Control | U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Issuance of Amended Venezuela-related General License | Office of Foreign Assets Control,” n.d. https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20250324.
4. Reuters. “World Reacts to US Strikes on Venezuela.” Reuters, January 4, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/world-reacts-us-strikes-venezuela-2026-01-03/.
5. CARICOM. “STATEMENT FROM THE BUREAU OF THE CONFERENCE OF CARICOM HEADS OF GOVERNMENT ON MILITARY ACTION IN VENEZUELA,” January 3, 2026. https://caricom.org/statement-from-the-bureau-of-the-conference-of-caricom-heads-of-government-on-military-action-in-venezuela/.
6. Taylor, Harry, Tiago Rogero, and Sam Jones. “Global Outcry After US Launches Strikes on Venezuela and Captures President.” The Guardian, January 4, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/colombia-sends-armed-forces-venezuela-border-concern-refugee-influx.
7. Weller, Marc. “The US Capture of President Nicolás Maduro – and Attacks on Venezuela – Have No Justification in International Law.” Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank, January 4, 2026. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/us-capture-president-nicolas-maduro-and-attacks-venezuela-have-no-justification.
8. National Archives. “Monroe Doctrine (1823),” May 10, 2022. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/monroe-doctrine.
9. Farrell, Henry, and Abraham L. Newman. “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion.” International Security 44, no. 1 (2019): 42–79. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26777882.
10. Reuters. “Denmark PM Urges Trump to Stop Threats to Take Over Greenland.” Reuters, January 4, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-pm-urges-trump-stop-threats-take-over-greenland-2026-01-04/.