UN Envoy Waltz Says US’s Goal Is to Wipe Out “Rivals” in Western Hemisphere

The Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, defending the U.S.’s abduction of Venezuela’s president on Saturday, told the Security Council that the U.S.’s ultimate goal is to eliminate any “adversaries” and “rivals” in the entirety of the western hemisphere.

In remarks to the UN Security Council during an emergency meeting on the U.S.’s attack on Monday, ambassador Mike Waltz asserted that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is responsible for “destabilizing the western hemisphere,” which encompasses North and South America, as well as some western parts of Europe and Africa.

Similarly to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Waltz asserted, without evidence or explanation, that Venezuela is helping to support groups like Hezbollah, and “coordinating with corrupt Iranian officials,” all in an effort to “malignly influence the United States.”

“As Secretary Rubio stated yesterday: ‘This is the western hemisphere, this is where we live. And we are not going to allow the western hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation’s adversaries and competitors and rivals of the United States,’” Waltz said, apparently quoting remarks from Rubio from his interview with NBC Sunday.

“You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries … and stolen by a handful of oligarchs inside of Venezuela,” Waltz went on, brushing over the Trump administration’s stated plan to hand the resources instead to American oil and gas oligarchs.

The State Department also posted an image of Trump on X on Monday that said, “This is OUR Hemisphere.”

The nakedly imperialist message echoed Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine, which has, for over two centuries, been used by the U.S. to justify its military aggression and interventionism in numerous countries across Latin America.

New York University law professor and co-editor in chief of Just Security Ryan Goodman called Waltz’s remarks “One of most remarkable US presentations at the UN Security Council I’ve ever seen.”

Goodman noted that Waltz did not reference the U.S.’s right to self defense under the UN Charter and instead sought to justify the action with the U.S.’s invasion of Panama in 1989, which was condemned by the UN, and the supposed need for control over oil reserves, as demonstrated in the U.S.’s blockade on Venezuela’s oil tankers, which has also been considered illegal by international legal experts.

Waltz also repeated the administration’s assertion that the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela. He said that the deadly bombardment and abduction were a “law enforcement action,” even though it was carried out by Delta Force, a notorious army special operations unit, and aided by the CIA, which does not have a law enforcement role. At least 80 people, including both civilians and members of the military, were killed in the attacks, Venezuelan officials have said.

Waltz’s framing has been challenged by legal experts. “This was an illegal use of force that reportedly killed dozens of people. It is also illegal to conduct law enforcement operations on the territory of another State without its consent,” noted Adil Haque, a professor of international law at Rutgers University, in a post on social media.

Other countries sharply condemned the U.S.’s bombardment and abduction during the Security Council meeting Monday. Cuba’s delegate denounced the action as “imperialist and fascist aggression,” while South Africa’s representative said it “wantonly violates the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of Venezuela.”