It has been a busy year for the self-proclaimed “peace president.”

This year, the United States has bombed Iran, Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela. On the other hand, the United States has been generous to Argentina through a $20 billion currency swap and also generous to U.S. farmers with a $12 billion gift — a little less than the $20 billion they received in 2020. Of course, the farmers would have rather sold their crops, but that was destroyed by the peace president’s tariff war. This administration has been very good at destroying things within and outside the United States.

The recent invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, and the continued changing reasons of “drugs,” “bad ruler” and “oil,” reminds me of the drip, drip, drip before the George W. Bush administration attacked Iraq, which led to the forever war.

The peace president is now broadcasting warnings to Colombia, Cuba, Iran and Greenland that he has his sights on those countries. It looks like it will be another busy year for the former world power that is now the biggest bully in the Western Hemisphere.

— Laura Davis, Inverness

Troubled waters

Since Saturday morning, President Donald Trump has touted the success of the mission to bring the president of Venezuela to the United States to stand trial. He has proudly announced that our military suffered no casualties and that all of our resources (planes, ships) were unscathed.

I waited to hear the fate of the individuals who were in and around the city of Caracas during the attack, many probably sleeping. Finally, the news came that at least 56 souls had been killed in the strikes. Add to that number the more than 100 people who have been killed in international waters by U.S. attacks over the last four months. Yet I hear no acknowledgment from our country’s leaders that innocent people have been murdered in our administration’s zeal to accomplish its mission.

By all reports, the Venezuelan people have suffered greatly under Maduro’s rule. Time will tell, and time will judge him. But time will also judge the United States of America, until recently the respected leader of the free world.

What do our actions since last January of hurting people around the world say about the heart of our country, once known for its kindness and compassion?

I pray that we can recover our concern for others, as we navigate the troubled waters of the future.

— Diane P. Verratti, Waukegan

A unilateral invasion

Just as there is no mechanism to stop President Donald Trump from unilaterally invading Venezuela, there is also no mechanism to stop such an invasion of Greenland. Some will point out that an invasion of Greenland is much less likely than the invasion of Venezuela was, which is probably true. But there are a few ideas I can think of that are more un-American as the notion that we can and should trust the president’s judgment alone on whether a unilateral invasion is or isn’t warranted.

Our raid on Venezuela was a facsimile of Vladimir Putin‘s opening moves in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, except one was successful and one wasn’t. True, there is no comparison between the popular legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but it is now more important than ever to be able to hold more than one idea at a time in one’s mind, namely that the illegitimacy of a leader such as Maduro is independent of the fundamental risks of giving the power of invasion to one man. Any unilateral invasion is a pretext for any other unilateral invasion, which is why each must always be repudiated, regardless of the moral justification.

I don’t want the world to go back to the era of great power struggles that defined the 19th century, when monarchs and emperors alone determined which wars would be fought and when. The result was over a century of catastrophe, not just for ordinary Europeans but also for the people of numerous African countries that were colonized, often brutally.

To my mind, basing a country’s foreign policy on the whims of one person, especially someone as fundamentally ignorant as Trump, is one of the worst ways to operate a society. We‘ve had multiple chances over the past couple of decades to avoid this return to the shameful failures of the 1800s, but that opportunity is now gone.

It’s my personal goal to do everything I can to ensure the next generation doesn’t suffer the same fate.

— Ethan Feingold, Chicago

Return to old days

President Donald Trump violated the United Nations Charter to grab a dictator who destroyed the Venezuelan economy and whom few miss. Resistance has been tame.

Now he is using this new political power to again threaten Greenland; destroying NATO would be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dream.

This is a return to the bad old days of “might makes right” and major power politics. This road will destroy the democratic leadership of the United States and encourage Russia and China to do the same with their neighbors.

This road leads to less peace and a poorer, more dangerous, less democratic world.

And a less democratic America — notice that people are afraid to contradict the president because he retaliates. Where is the First Amendment?

This is not making America great. It’s the opposite. Is this what the greatest generation sacrificed for?

— Tony Quintanilla, Chicago

Undermining US

There is no doubt that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is a vicious dictator. There can be no doubt that the people of Venezuela have the right to choose, in freedom and safety, their own government — the right that Maduro denied them.

But there is no doubt at all that the Venezuelans never chose the United States to decide who will and who will not lead the Venezuelan government. How can we, whom the Venezuelan people have never elected nor invited to exert the force of arms in their country, then abduct the Venezuelan head of state, however illegitimate, and claim to represent democracy?

When we use military force to override the laws and ignore the judicial system of a sovereign country and its people, however repressed, how can we claim to uphold law and order?

— Rob Halm, Bloomington, Indiana

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/letters-010826-venezuela/