“If we do see sanctions lifted, then we see Venezuela becoming a less important oil supplier to China, especially after those loans are repaid,” said Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

“Venezuela is the country that has seen the most expropriation cases brought against it. This means the starting risk premium there is very high,” said Luisa Palacios, the former Citgo executive who is now interim director of research and managing director of energy transition finance at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

"The US president used largely fictitious charges to seize control, but can’t know how Venezuelans will react," writes Rajan Menon. "He may also overstep now as regards Iran."

HuffPost spoke with Columbia University professor Elizabeth Saunders about the risks of a "personalist" foreign policy and potential pushback.

According to Robert Y. Shapiro, professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the U.S. action in Venezuela “further tarnishes Trump’s image as a peacemaker and Nobel Prize candidate,” although he noted that “the operation was a military success and further established the military and operational capabilities of the United States.”

Senior research scholars and fellows Luisa Palacios, Richard Nephew, and Daniel Sternoff from the Center on Global Energy Policy shared their thoughts on the energy-related implications of this development.

The country could see a relatively rapid recovery of some oil production, depending on the leadership that emerges, writes Luisa Palacios,

The U.S.-led operation that occurred today in central Caracas and in some key Venezuelan security facilities is nothing short of historical, writes Diego Rivera Rivota, a Senior Research Associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

“If we really go in and do some things that are kind of extraordinary: seizures, nationalisations, letting US companies go in and use it as a coercive tool to extract massive rents from the new government — that . . . really would be a game-changer for how the rest of the world views the United States — and US oil companies,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Trump’s no-guardrails foreign policy raises big questions about the global order, not just about who will run Venezuela, writes Saltzman Institute Director Elizabeth Saunders.