President Donald Trump posted an edited photograph on social media on January 20 that superimposed a Stars-and-Stripes pattern over several countries, including Venezuela, Reuters reported. The image, taken in the Oval Office with a group of European leaders and Ukraine’s president, featured a map on a nearby easel with the US flag painted over Canada, Greenland and Venezuela.
Venezuela’s government responded the same day with a public statement urging citizens to post the official national map on social media as a "symbolic act" to defend territorial integrity and push back against what it called disinformation. The call framed the grassroots mapping exercise as a way to rebut a provocative image that Caracas said undermined its sovereignty.
The episode illustrates how edited visuals can be used as instruments of political signalling. Maps are not neutral artifacts: history and international law treat cartography as a tool for asserting claims and shaping perceptions. A doctored map from a sitting US president therefore functions less as a piece of graphic humour and more as a performative assertion of influence.
The Chinese original report also repeats an unverified claim that US forces conducted a large-scale military strike on Venezuela on January 3 and detained President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, allegations that have not been corroborated by independent international media. Whether or not that claim is accurate, the broader story demonstrates how quickly provocative imagery and unchecked reports can feed into competing narratives and heighten tensions.
For international audiences, the immediate stakes are reputational and diplomatic. A leader’s circulation of altered maps risks normalising misinformation at the highest level of government, complicating mediation efforts and hardening positions on both sides. For Caracas, mobilising citizens to repost an official map is a low-cost way to rally patriotism and contest the narrative; for Washington, the image may be intended as signaling to domestic audiences and to allies who favour tougher action on Venezuela.
The incident is a reminder that information warfare now sits alongside economic and military levers in geopolitics. Policymakers and newsrooms will need to press for verification, context and restraint when leaders deploy symbolic acts that could be misread or exploited, because symbolism sometimes precedes policy and, in fraught situations, can inflame real-world confrontation.