Starmer expected to meet allies after US strikes Venezuela

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to meet international leaders on Tuesday after the Trump administration raided Caracas and captured the Venezuelan president.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host about 30 allies of Ukraine for the meeting of the Coalition of the Willing in Paris.

Key issues will be keeping up momentum for the US-backed Ukraine peace deal that President Volodymyr Zelensky has said is “90% ready” as well as continuing support for Kyiv as the war approaches its fourth anniversary.

But conversation is also likely to turn to Donald Trump’s military action in Venezuela, after the US captured the country’s president Nicolas Maduro and his wife and took them to New York to face “narco-terrorism” charges.

Fears that the US president has his eye on Greenland were also renewed, after his comments at the weekend suggested that Venezuela may not be the last country subject to American intervention.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is also expected at the Paris talks, said on Monday that a US takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the Nato military alliance and that Mr Trump should be “taken seriously”.

“If the United States chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops,” Ms Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday.

“That is including our Nato and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”

Mr Zelensky, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Nato chief Mark Rutte are among those expected in France.

Sir Keir is likely to speak to Mr Trump and raise the raid on Venezuela after the meeting.

The Prime Minister is facing calls from Labour backbenchers to “stand up” and condemn US military action in Venezuela.

On Monday he declined to say whether the US operation breached international law, saying the situation was “complicated” and it was “for the US to set out its justifications for the actions that it’s taken”.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs she had raised the importance of international law in a conversation with her US counterpart Marco Rubio, but stopped short of saying whether the US action in Venezuela breached it.

She said the UK would “shed no tears” for the end of Nicolas Maduro’s rule, as she accused him of using “fear, coercion and violence” to cling to power.

Ms Cooper said the international community’s “collective immediate focus” when it comes to Venezuela must be to avoid any deterioration into further “instability, criminality, repression or violence” that would damage Venezuela and other countries, including UK and US overseas territories.

Mr Trump has said that the US would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

He said the US may subsidise an effort by oil companies to rebuild the country’s energy infrastructure, a project he said could take less than 18 months, in an interview with NBC on Monday.

He said US officials including Marco Rubio and defence secretary Pete Hegseth would be among those to oversee Venezuela, but asked who would ultimately be in charge, he said “me”.

Among the international laws the US may have breached, if it provides no justification for the attacks, is the founding charter of the United Nations.

Article 2 of the UN Charter says all members should refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned that rules of international law have not been respected with regard to the January 3 military action” and that the “grave” action by the US could set a precedent for future relations between nations.

Maduro and his wife were seized from their home on Saturday in a middle-of-the-night military operation in which the US carried out strikes on Caracas.

The removal of Maduro is seen as the most assertive US intervention to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and followed months of pressure from Washington on the country and its autocratic leader.

Widespread protests followed Maduro’s apparent victory in the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, amid accusations that electoral fraud led to him retaining power.

He was also accused of human rights abuses and corruption during his leadership.

The Trump administration has not indicated support for replacing the ruling regime with a government led by Maduro’s opposition rival, Maria Corina Machado, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, has indicated she hopes to work with the US now she is the country’s interim leader.