Mexico denounces arrest of Venezuela's president as Mark Carney issues carefully worded statement

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries,” Sheinbaum said.

“Unilateral action and invasion cannot be the basis for international relations in the 21st century; they lead neither to peace nor to development,” Sheinbaum said in a strongly-worded three-page declaration Monday.

Sheinbaum referenced past U.S. presidential greats George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and dismissed Trump’s assertion of his America First doctrine, and the right to dominate the hemisphere in the name of U.S. national security.

“Mexico firmly maintains that the Americas do not belong to any doctrine or power. The American continent belongs to the peoples of each of the countries that comprise it,” Sheinbaum said, outlining all the ways Mexico is working with the U.S. to curb narcotics and weapons trafficking.

“Co-operation, yes; subordination and intervention no,” said Sheinbaum — a leader whom Trump has previously counted as an ally in his so-called war on fentanyl.

Similarly, Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski in an op-ed co-written with retired Liberal MP John McKay, a former chair of the Canada–U.S. Parliamentary Group, warned that while Trump’s intervention unseated an authoritarian ruler, it nevertheless carries “consequences” that are cause for alarm not celebration because it will embolden authoritarian rulers in Russia and China.

McKay, a former chair of the Commons defence committee, and Powlowski, a doctor and lawyer who once worked for the World Health Organization, wrote: “Unilateral military action by one state against another, whether justified by historical grievance, border dispute, or even well motivated compassion for populations suffering under brutal regimes, fundamentally undermines” the international legal order which has “preserved global peace for eight decades.”

Even if that system needs reform, they argued that the answer “is not invasion on the basis of bogus, trumped up (pun intended), claims of a narco state, followed by the installation of a compliant puppet government. Those precedents are precisely what Russia’s Vladimir Putin dreams of as he eyes Ukraine and the Baltic states” and others, they wrote.

The U.S. extraterritorial pursuit of Maduro will fuel a “massive infusion of anti-American sentiment” across South America, and raises new questions about the prospect of a U.S. incursion into Denmark’s territory to control Greenland, the implications for NATO partners, and warns that long dormant disputes over Canada’s Arctic sovereignty could erupt again, wrote McKay and Powlowski.

Indeed, Trump on Sunday asserted that America would act to secure its own interests anywhere in the hemisphere, and said, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you … to boost up security in Greenland, they added one more dog sled.”

Speaking to the Star, Powlowski said he felt “morally obligated to speak up on behalf of my constituents to support the international legal order,” adding that many in his Thunder Bay—Rainy River riding fought to defend that system during wars that later gave rise to the UN charter.

Former Canadian ambassador to the UN, Bob Rae, said in a CBC interview that Trump’s declaration that he has the right to act unilaterally within the hemisphere is a clear overreach and “nonsensical.”

“What the hell is this? You can’t unilaterally declare that you have unique jurisdiction over an entire half of the world, and all the people who live in that half of the world just have to put up or shut up,” Rae said.

He said Canada had to stake out a clear position and added now that he is no longer a diplomat he can call Trump’s action the way he sees it, and said “this emperor has no clothes.”

Carney, who arrived late Monday in Paris, issued over the weekend a carefully worded statement in response to Trump’s capture of Maduro that avoided direct criticism of the U.S. president’s actions.

It underscored Canada’s long-standing opposition to the “illegitimate regime of Maduro since it stole the 2018 election,” and said “The Canadian government therefore welcomes the opportunity for freedom, democracy, peace, and prosperity for the Venezuelan people.”

Carney emphasized the need for a “peaceful, negotiated, and Venezuelan-led transition process that respects the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.”

“In keeping with our long-standing commitment to upholding the rule of law, sovereignty, and human rights, Canada calls on all parties to respect international law. We stand by the Venezuelan people’s sovereign right to decide and build their own future in a peaceful and democratic society,” Carney said.

Carney is to attend Tuesday’s meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” European leaders invested in Ukraine’s war effort to resist Russia’s invasion to be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith suggested the U.S. decision to have American companies “run” Venezuela oil operations carries implications for Canada’s energy industry.

In a statement on X, Smith said the “recent events” around Maduro’s arrest serve to emphasize the importance of expediting the development of “pipelines to diversify our oil export markets” including a new “Indigenous co-owned bitumen pipeline to B.C.’s northwest coast to reach Asian markets.”