Economist Paul Krugman: Trump determined to 'expand his territory'

Economist Paul Krugman at the Banorte Ixe Plenary Session 2013 on November 6, 2023 (Tanya Lara/Shutterstock.com)

Alex Henderson

January 05, 2026 

ALTERNET

Early Saturday morning, January 3, Americans woke up to a major foreign policy bombshell: U.S. forces, on orders from President Donald Trump, had captured leftist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York City — where he is being held in a federal detention center and is facing drug charges. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is now in charge in the troubled South American country, which has land borders with Columbia, Brazil and Guyana.

Critics of Trump's Venezuela policy range from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) to conservative/libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and outgoing MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia). And some of the U.S. president's detractors are comparing the capturing of Maduro to the "regime change" that the George W. Bush Administration orchestrated with the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 2000s.

But liberal economist Paul Krugman, in a Substack column posted on January 5, argues that Trump's Venezuela policy isn't "regime change" in the old neocon sense, but rather, is motivated by a thirst for profits.

"For Americans of a certain age," Krugman explains, "the snatch-and-grab abduction of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's president, brings back memories of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in some ways with good reason. Almost everyone now sees Iraq as a cautionary tale about the lies of the powerful: We were taken to war on false pretenses…. But in other ways, the Trump/Venezuela story is very different from the Bush/Iraq story. Two days after the abduction, it's clear that Trump wasn't seeking regime change, at least not in any fundamental way. He's more like a mob boss trying to expand his territory, believing that if he knocks off a rival boss, he can bully the guy's former capos into giving him a cut of their take."

Krugman stresses that if Trump "wanted regime change" in Venezuela, he "would be supporting" opposition leader María Corina Machado but instead, "sneeringly dismissed" her.

"So, why did Trump have Maduro abducted?," Krugman writes. "There were surely multiple motivations. Fantasies of dominance and control and dreams of oil-soaked riches played their part. So did ego. The snatch gave Trump an opportunity to strut, and assuage his Obama envy: : Trump's minions set up a 'war room' at Mar-a-Lago that looks as if it was designed to let him emulate the famous photo of (President Barack) Obama and his officials tracking the killing of Osama bin Laden…. In any case, it's important to understand that the confrontation with Venezuela has nothing to do with the national interest. It's all about Trump's self-aggrandizing delusions. And it will accomplish nothing except to make America look even less trustworthy and weaker than it did before."

Paul Krugman's full Substack article is available at this link.