Is the United States engaging in retrenchment or a new form of hegemony? Venezuela and Greenland are not separate stories but a single thread. A more transactional, more emotional and more coercion-oriented U.S. is taking shape.

The cases of Greenland, Venezuela and Ukraine signal what’s coming in the next phase of global governance. It is not disappearing but is being rebuilt—faster, more contested and more deal-driven than ever under the pressure of crisis and rivalry.

The most important question stemming from America’s intervention in Venezuela is not whether it violated international law and norms, but what it reveals about the future of the liberal international order. Contrary to what some commentators say, that order is not collapsing, since its core pillars remain in place and the alternatives to them are still weak. But sustaining it will now involve more frequent discretionary US actions, and it will become increasingly unclear where the thresholds for future interventions lie.

When lawless behavior by powerful nations can be carried out with virtual impunity—with no significant international opposition—a civilized world order founded on rules rather than brute force can no longer be guaranteed.

The U.S. kidnapping of President Maduro represents one of the worst violations of international law by a major power in decades. It also reflects the role of Venezuela as a battleground of U.S. and Chinese interests.

For China-U.S. relations today, the realistic question is not how to construct a G2 but how the two countries can find a workable mode of coexistence under conditions in which cooperation and competition can coexist.

On Saturday 3 January U.S. President Donald Trump announced a large-scale US strike on Venezuela and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. He also plans to allow "very large United states oil companies" into Venezuela. This military operation essentially constitutes armed intervention aimed at seizing another nation’s oil resources. The Trump 2.0 administration aims to pragmatically consolidate U.S. resource hegemony across the Western Hemisphere while alleviating the burden of sustaining global order.

The United States has been the biggest beneficiary of changes in the international order over the past century. Four key factors have contributed to its current hegemony.

The United States needs to recognize that global hegemony is not sustainable. It should stop clinging to the postwar structure, with itself in the dominant position, and should learn to play a more ecumenical role in a multipolar world.

As the U.S. seeks to advance its position and strengthen the U.S. dollar global dominance, it is also facing challenges and an anti-hegemonic sentiment from other states. Events such as the war in Ukraine, tensions between the U.S., Russia, and China, as well as new strategic partnerships developed between China and Europe, Latin America, and Africa, are driving forces in the shift of balance of power to non-Western nations.