'CIA, Pentagon drive US foreign policy': Jeffrey Sachs recalls Trump's 2017 Venezuela invasion talk

The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has once again exposed what economist Jeffrey Sachs describes as the real architecture of American foreign policy - one driven not by rules or institutions, but by the country's security apparatus and a long-standing commitment to regime change.

Speaking to India Today Global, Sachs said the episode should finally dispel the idea that Washington operates within a "rules-based order."

"There is no rules-based order. That is a fairy tale of the United States. Anybody who believed that in the last 25 years wasn't paying attention," Sachs said.

According to him, US foreign policy is shaped less by elected leadership and more by entrenched security institutions. "The United States is governed by military security apparatus - the CIA, the Pentagon, other security agencies, that largely drive American foreign policy," he said.

Sachs argued that regime change remains a central pillar of that policy. "And one of the pillars of American foreign policy is regime change. Either through wars or through so-called color revolutions or through assassinations and coups. There are many ways to change a regime," he said.

Washington's hostility towards Caracas has little to do with democracy or drugs, and far more to do with ideology and oil, the economist added. "In the case of Venezuela, the US has been trying to change this regime, which it doesn't like because it's a left-wing regime and it deprives American oil companies of what they want," he said.

He added that US efforts to remove the Venezuelan leadership stretch back more than two decades. "And for that reason, the United States has been trying to change this regime or this government for more than 20 years," Sachs said, listing a series of failed attempts.

"It has used many different attempts. An outright coup attempt in 2002, stoking protests in 2014, draconian economic sanctions in Trump's first term, and finally Trump said, 'Okay, we're just going to overthrow this government by military means,'" he said.

Despite those efforts, Sachs noted that regime change has remained elusive. “But it's not happening the way the United States wants. They kidnapped the president, but they did not change the regime," he said.

He added that failure is not unusual. "Most American regime change operations actually fail. They certainly fail to achieve the political outcomes that the United States seeks, but they often fail to change the government and it remains to be seen what's going to happen in Venezuela," Sachs said.

The American policy analyst also placed the Maduro episode within what he described as a broader pattern of escalating threats under President Donald Trump. "In the meantime, it's important to note that President Trump is basically out of control right now," he said.

"He's making demands and threats to countries all over the world, to Iran to Nigeria to Denmark with its Greenland territory to Colombia to Mexico. So this is a fas- developing situation and not a happy one," Sachs added.

Asked whether he accepted the US claim that the action was aimed at dismantling a narcotics network, Sachs rejected the framing and said such operations have precedent. "I anticipated some kind of violent action by the United States. They do kidnap presidents," he said.

He pointed to an earlier case. "President of Haiti was kidnapped by the CIA about 20 years ago. He was marched to a plane with an unmarked tail and he was flown 23 hours to the Central African Republic where he was dumped," Sachs said. "In this case, they kidnapped the president of Venezuela and brought him to New York City."

Sachs recalled a moment from Trump's first year in office that, he said, revealed how openly the idea of invading Venezuela was discussed at the highest level. "In Trump's first term in September 2017, in his first year of office, on the margins of the UN General Assembly, Trump had dinner with a number of Latin American presidents and he said even then, 'Why don't I just invade Venezuela?'" Sachs said.

The economist added that the idea was rejected at the time. "So my point is that this is something that has been on the minds of the US security state for a long time," Sachs said. "In that dinner eight years ago, the Latin American leaders talked him down, said, 'Mr. President, that's not a very good idea. It could create a lot of instability. It might not be helpful for you and for the United States,'" he recalled.

According to Sachs, that restraint no longer exists. "Well, this time he didn't seek advice or listen to advice. He just took his foot off of the brake on our military machine and they went after it," he said.