Badenoch told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the US action was “extraordinary” but she understood why it was taken.
“Where the legal certainty is not yet clear, morally, I do think it was the right thing to do,” she said.
The Tory leader, who spent her childhood in Nigeria before moving back to the UK at the age of 16, added: “I grew up under a military dictatorship, so I know what it’s like to have someone like Maduro in charge.”
However, she said it was right to tell Trump not to intervene in Greenland because “there is a big difference between democratic states” and the “gangster state in Venezuela”.
“What happens in Greenland is up to Denmark and the people of Greenland,” she added.
In recent days Trump has repeated his threats to annex Greenland – a semi-autonomous Danish territory which has a strategic location and is rich in minerals – arguing it is vital for US national security.
The UK has issued a joint statement, external with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark insisting it is for Denmark and Greenland alone to decide on matters concerning the territory’s future.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told BBC Breakfast the UK’s approach to Greenland was different to Venezuela as Denmark was a member of the Nato military alliance and it was not in the UK’s national security interests to question the territory’s future.
