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UNITED NATIONS: A deepening political realignment across Latin America came into focus over the weekend at a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, and sharpened further Monday at the United Nations Security Council, where governments publicly split over the U.S. role in the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
At CELAC, several leftist governments attempted to push through a joint statement condemning Maduro’s detention. The effort failed after a bloc of countries consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago blocked consensus, preventing the regional body from issuing a unified defense of the Venezuelan leader, Merco Press agency reported.
The breakdown exposed growing fractures within what has long been a left-leaning regional forum and underscored the erosion of automatic solidarity with Caracas.
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President Donald Trump greets the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, at the White House in Washington DC , Oct. 14, 2025. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said the fractures reflect a broader regional reckoning with the consequences of socialist and narco-authoritarian rule.
“We are witnessing a regional awakening across Latin America,” Maldonado told Fox News Digital. “The failure of socialism, communism and narco-authoritarian rule has become impossible to ignore.”
The shift is increasingly visible at the ballot box, where voters in several countries — last month alone in Chile and Honduras — have moved away from entrenched left-wing governments and toward right-of-center leaders campaigning on themes of security, sovereignty, border control and law and order — messages that echo aspects of President Donald Trump’s political approach in the United States.
Colombian U.N. Ambassador Leonor Zalabata Torres attends a UN Security Council meeting on U.S. strikes and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, U.S., Jan. 5, 2026. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
“The developments at CELAC this weekend reflect that reality,” Maldonado said. “The fact that several governments blocked a collective defense of Nicolás Maduro shows how divided the authoritarian left has become. Venezuela has become a cautionary tale.”
That division carried over into the Security Council on Monday, where Latin American and Caribbean states took sharply different positions, with some openly backing Washington and others denouncing the U.S. action as a violation of international law.
Argentina emerged as the most forceful regional supporter of the United States, praising President Donald Trump and framing Maduro’s capture as a decisive blow against organized crime.
“The Government of the Argentine Republic values the decision and determination demonstrated by the President of the United States of America and his government, and the recent actions taken in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, leader of the Cartel of the Suns,” Argentina’s representative Francisco Fabián Tropepi told the council, adding the Maduro regime “has not only constituted a direct threat to the citizens systematic violation of human rights in the state appropriation of the country’s resources and destruction of democratic institutions, but also to the entire region by leading and exploiting its networks of drug trafficking and organized crime.”
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UN Security Council meeting. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)
Paraguay echoed that framing, claiming Maduro’s continued presence “was a threat to the region,” adding that “the removal of the leader of a terrorist organization should immediately lead to the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela, making it possible for the will of the people, expressed at the ballot box, to become the foundation for the country’s reconstruction,” its representative Marcelo Eliseo Scappini Ricciardi said.
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Nicolas Maduro is seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan. 5, 2026 in New York City. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images)
Other CELAC members took the opposite view, condemning the U.S. action and warning that it set a dangerous precedent.
Brazil “categorically and firmly” rejected what it called armed intervention on Venezuelan territory, describing the capture of Maduro as “a very serious affront to the sovereignty of Venezuela and an extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.”
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Venezuelans living in Argentina celebrate at the Obelisk in Buenos Aires on Jan. 3, 2026, after US forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. (Tomas Cuesta/AFP via Getty Images)
Mexico denounced the operation as a violation of the U.N. Charter, arguing that external efforts to impose political change historically worsen conflicts and destabilize societies. Chile also condemned what it called unilateral military action and warned against foreign interference, while Cuba and Nicaragua delivered blistering denunciations of Washington, accusing the United States of imperial aggression and calling for Maduro’s immediate release.
The split at the U.N. mirrored the breakdown at CELAC, where governments increasingly appear unwilling to speak with one voice on Venezuela, even as they stop short of endorsing U.S. military force.
According to Maldonado, “Governments are increasingly forced to choose between defending failed autocracies, corruption and repression or responding to their own citizens,” she said. “More governments are unwilling to carry that burden.”
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Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech during a troop recognition ceremony at the Jose Maria Cordova Military Cadet School in Bogota on March 11, 2025. At the United Nations, countries split sharply after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, with some backing U.S.-led action while others warned it set “an extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.” (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)
Maldonado described Maduro’s capture as a break with decades of U.S. restraint in the region, “It shows that the United States is deadly serious about defending itself and the hemisphere, about stopping the flow of drugs, dismantling cartel-state alliances and about fighting back against the influence of China, Russia and Iran in our neighborhood.”
She argued that the regional reaction, split though it is, reflects a broader ideological shift.
“There is a clear rightward shift underway in the region, and it is a healthy one,” Maldonado said. “It reflects a growing alignment around the core principles of freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, national sovereignty and prosperity.”
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Security personnel guard the Unasur building during the IV Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, in Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
While critics at the U.N. warned that U.S. action risks undermining international law, supporters argue the status quo had already collapsed under the weight of Venezuela’s humanitarian and security crisis.
“Venezuela’s collapse has taught the region what happens when the state becomes your everything,” Maldonado said. “When the state controls your job, your housing, your healthcare, your education, your courts and your information, freedom becomes conditional.”