Trump ousting of Maduro draws parallels to US raid in Panama – but there are some major contrasts

Maduro's arrest and criminal charges echo a case the U.S. brought some 30 years ago against another Latin American leader, Manuel Noriega.

Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.

Maduro’s remarks underpinned a key argument his legal team is expected to use in defending him – arguing that he was illegally captured by U.S. troops, and that he is immune from prosecution in the U.S. as the leader of a sovereign foreign nation. 

His lawyers won’t be the first to try to advance that argument in court. In fact, Maduro’s case bears some notable (if early) parallels to the U.S. invasion of another Latin American country, 36 years prior, in which 26,000 U.S. troops descended into Panama to arrest the country's authoritarian leader, Manuel Noriega, and bring him to the U.S. to be tried on federal criminal charges in Miami. The U.S. arrest of Noriega, dubbed Operation "Just Cause," could be used as a playbook of sorts for prosecutors as they present their case against Maduro and his wife in the Southern District in New York.