President Donald Trump is heading to North Carolina on Friday to celebrate members of the special forces who stormed into Venezuela on the third day of the New Year and whisked away that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, to face U.S. smuggling charges.First Lady Melania Trump will also be making the trip to Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the world by population, to spend time with military families.Trump has been hitting the road more frequently to states that could play key roles in November’s midterm congressional elections, including a stop before Christmas in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The White House has been trying to promote Trump’s economic policies, including attempts to bring down the cost of living at a time when many Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated with Trump’s efforts to improve affordability.The president spoke at Fort Bragg in June at an event meant to recognize the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. But that celebration was overshadowed by his partisan remarks describing protesters in Los Angeles as “animals” and his defense of deploying the military there.Trump has since deployed the National Guard to places like Washington and Memphis, Tennessee, as well as other federal law enforcement officials involved in his crackdown on immigration. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, announced Thursday that the administration is ending the operations in Minnesota that led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.This time, Trump’s visit is meant to toast service members involved in his administration’s dramatic ouster of Maduro, an operation he has described as requiring bravery and advanced weapons.His administration has since pushed for broad oversight of the South American country’s oil industry. Next month, he plans to convene a gathering of leaders from a number of Latin American countries in Florida, as the administration spotlights what it sees as concerning Chinese influence in the region.The March 7 gathering can give Trump a chance to further press a new and aggressive foreign policy which the president has proudly dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine,” a reference to 19th-century President James Monroe’s belief that the U.S. should dominate its sphere of influence.
WASHINGTON —
President Donald Trump is heading to North Carolina on Friday to celebrate members of the special forces who stormed into Venezuela on the third day of the New Year and whisked away that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, to face U.S. smuggling charges.
First Lady Melania Trump will also be making the trip to Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the world by population, to spend time with military families.
Trump has been hitting the road more frequently to states that could play key roles in November’s midterm congressional elections, including a stop before Christmas in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The White House has been trying to promote Trump’s economic policies, including attempts to bring down the cost of living at a time when many Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated with Trump’s efforts to improve affordability.
The president spoke at Fort Bragg in June at an event meant to recognize the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. But that celebration was overshadowed by his partisan remarks describing protesters in Los Angeles as “animals” and his defense of deploying the military there.
Trump has since deployed the National Guard to places like Washington and Memphis, Tennessee, as well as other federal law enforcement officials involved in his crackdown on immigration. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, announced Thursday that the administration is ending the operations in Minnesota that led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.
This time, Trump’s visit is meant to toast service members involved in his administration’s dramatic ouster of Maduro, an operation he has described as requiring bravery and advanced weapons.
His administration has since pushed for broad oversight of the South American country’s oil industry. Next month, he plans to convene a gathering of leaders from a number of Latin American countries in Florida, as the administration spotlights what it sees as concerning Chinese influence in the region.
The March 7 gathering can give Trump a chance to further press a new and aggressive foreign policy which the president has proudly dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine,” a reference to 19th-century President James Monroe’s belief that the U.S. should dominate its sphere of influence.
President Donald Trump gives a speech at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 21, 2026 in Davos, Switzerland.
Chip Somodevilla
Getty Images
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will reopen Venezuela’s airspace to commercial flights, clearing the way for airlines to resume service to the South American country following the apprehension earlier this month of former strongman Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in a predawn raid in Caracas.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said he had spoken directly with Maduro’s successor, interim president Delcy Rodríguez, to inform her that all commercial airspace over Venezuela would be reopened.
“I just spoke to the President of Venezuela and informed her that there will be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela,” Trump said. “American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela and they’ll be safe there. It’s under very strong control.”
Trump said the move would allow Venezuelans living abroad to return home, either permanently or for visits, restoring travel links that have been largely frozen for nearly seven years.
He said he had instructed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other agencies, including the military, to complete the reopening by the end of the day.
“I’ve instructed Sean Duffy and everybody else concerned, including the military, that by the end of today I’d like to have the airspace over Venezuela opened up so planes can go to Venezuela,” Trump said, stressing the urgency of the directive.
Last November, ahead of the military operation that captured Maduro, Trump issued a message warning that the South American country’s airspace would “remain completely closed.”
One day after the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 4, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a new notice about the “potentially dangerous” situation in the Maiquetía region near Caracas “at all altitudes due to military activity in or around Venezuela.
“The threats could pose a potential risk to aircraft at all altitudes, including overflight, arrival, and departure,” the notice said. It remains in effect through Feb. 2, according to the FAA’s website.
While making the announcement, Trump said his decision was good news for the Venezuelan community in Doral — home to the largest concentration of the Venezuelan diaspora in the United States.
“U.S. citizens will be able to travel to Venezuela very soon, and they will be safe there, because it will be under very strict control. And people who used to live in Venezuela—some want to return, and others want to visit—and they will be able to do so,” the president said.
The White House did not immediately provide details on how the reopening would be implemented or whether additional security or regulatory reviews would be required before flights resume.
Diplomatic relations between Washington and Caracas collapsed in 2019, when the U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory for Venezuela to its highest level and warned Americans not to travel to the country.
As of Thursday, the State Department continued to list Venezuela under a “Do Not Travel” advisory, citing risks including wrongful detention, torture, kidnapping and violent crime.
The announcement comes as Venezuelan carrier Línea Aérea de Servicio Ejecutivo Regional, C.A., known as Laser Airlines, has renewed its request for authorization from the U.S. Department of Transportation to operate flights between Miami and Venezuela.
Laser submitted an amendment to an application originally filed in October 2011, seeking a foreign air carrier permit and a two-year exemption to operate scheduled and charter passenger, cargo and mail flights between Miami and the Venezuelan cities of Caracas, Valencia and Maracaibo.
If approved, Laser said it could begin nonstop service within 90 to 180 days, offering up to two daily flights using Boeing 737, MD-80 or MD-90 aircraft configured with about 150 seats. The airline said it could later deploy higher-capacity Boeing 767 aircraft.
Laser estimated it would transport approximately 172,800 passengers in its first year of direct service, while noting that demand forecasts remain uncertain.
The last U.S. carrier to operate routes between the United States and Venezuela was American Airlines, which suspended all its commercial air links in 2019, when the two countries finally severed their already fragile diplomatic relations.
This article was complemented with el Nuevo Herald’s wire services.
Galardonado periodista con más de 30 años de experiencia, especializado en la cobertura de temas sobre Venezuela. Amante de la historia y la literatura.
MEXICO CITY — Hugo Chávez called the United States “the empire,” and President George W. Bush “the devil.” Denouncing capitalism as “the road to hell,” he pushed an alternative economic model that nationalized key industries and redistributed wealth.
During his 14-year presidency of Venezuela, Chávez warned of a CIA plot to kill him and steal his country’s vast oil reserves, declaring: “Fatherland, socialism or death!”
Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, insists her country “will not be a colony” of any imperial force, but appears willing to tolerate President Trump’s demands that the U.S. get “total access” to Venezuela’s oil.
Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, has called for reforms to Venezuela’s energy sector to attract foreign investment and has freed dozens of dissidents once deemed enemies of the Chavista revolution.
“Venezuela is entering a new political era, one that allows for understanding despite political and ideological differences and diversity,” Rodríguez said last week. On Thursday, she sat down in Caracas, the capital, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, whose agency helped plot Maduro’s abduction.
“It’s pretty interesting to see how a hard-line Chavista like Delcy has taken a 180-degree turn just one week after assuming the presidency,” said Imdat Oner, a former Turkish diplomat in Caracas.
Some analysts now wonder whether the days are numbered for Chavismo, which allowed Chávez to concentrate power under a banner extolling nationalism, populism and what he described as “socialism of the 21st century.”
“I think it’s in intensive care, and I don’t think it will leave the operating room,” said Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian who wrote a biography of Chávez. The movement has been undermined by the U.S. attack, Krauze said, and discredited by authoritarianism, widespread corruption among leaders and an economic crisis triggered by falling oil prices and U.S. sanctions that prompted a quarter of the population to flee.
The ideas of Chávez, a charismatic figure who inspired a generation of Latin American leftists, have been irrevocably tarnished, Krauze said.
“Venezuelans are exhausted after 26 years of Chavismo,” Venezuelan journalist Boris Muñoz wrote in Time magazine. “Understandably, many are willing to accept American tutelage as the price to pay.”
Other political analysts say Chavismo remains strong, even if aspects of its identity have shifted since its namesake died of cancer 13 years ago.
Chavismo is not a fad. It is a lifestyle and a conviction with principles.
— Wilson Barrios
“What is left of Chavismo? Everything,” said Javier Corrales, a political science professor at Amherst College. Except for the removal of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who now face drug-trafficking charges in the U.S., “not a single person has been displaced,” Corrales said. “The inner circle, the military generals, the colectivos, the governors, the mayors — they’re all there.”
He noted that Chávez, despite his fierce anti-U.S. rhetoric, maintained extensive oil trade with the United States. The current deal-making with the Americans, he said, “isn’t a departure from anything that Chavismo ever represented.”
In Caracas, where scattered faded portraits of Chávez still grace walls, there is a sense that little of substance has shifted since U.S. bombs jolted residents awake in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 3. For the many Venezuelans who despised Maduro and his rule, that is disappointing. For those who support the government, it’s a relief.
On a sunny morning last week, about 2,000 Chavistas rallied on a downtown street.
“It won’t be easy to erase socialism overnight with a few bombs and the kidnapping of a president,” said Wilson Barrios, 37, who works at the Education Ministry.
“Chavismo is not a fad,” he said. “It is a lifestyle and a conviction with principles.”
Leader of the Pink Tide
Chávez, a former army officer inspired by Marxist thinkers and revolutionaries such as Simón Bolivar and Fidel Castro, was one of the most consequential political figures in recent Latin American history.
His election in 1998 helped unleash Latin America’s “pink tide,” in which leftist leaders swept into power from Argentina to Brazil to Ecuador.
His populist rhetoric and mixed-race background appealed to the masses in a nation long run by an elite minority of mostly white pro-business politicians with close ties to the U.S. and foreign oil giants.
At a rally in Caracas in 2024, a supporter holds a statue of late President Hugo Chávez as his successor, Nicolás Maduro, delivers a speech formalizing his candidacy to run for reelection.
(Getty Images)
Buoyed by record oil prices that inflated state coffers, Chávez launched social programs that cut poverty rates. His government built homes for the poor and provided free and subsidized staples for those in need. It opened hospitals and schools and slashed infant mortality.
An outspoken critic of U.S. intervention in Latin America and what he saw as rampant materialism in the “imperialist” United States, Chávez forged alliances with Washington’s adversaries, such as China, Cuba and Iran.
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 2006 a day after Bush gave a speech about the Iraq war, Chávez declared: “The devil was here yesterday … this place still smells of sulfur!”
Venezuela’s unhappy elites tried to unseat Chávez — mostly notably during a short-lived coup d’etat in 2002 — but he continued to win elections.
The tide began to shift after his 2013 death and the ascension of Maduro, a former trade union leader who lacked the charisma of his mentor. Then came a dramatic decline in oil prices — inevitable in an industry prone to boom-and-bust cycles.
As revenue sank, the economy collapsed amid soaring inflation. Bread and medicine lines stretched for hours. Malnutrition and infant mortality rose. Millions fled the country.
Support for Maduro plummeted, and the opposition handily beat his party’s candidates in 2015 parliamentary elections. Sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry during Trump’s first term made things worse for Maduro.
From the beginning, Maduro had been deepening the authoritarianism that had begun under Chávez, a model Corrales said was “based on the idea that the revolution will never relinquish power.”
Maduro claimed he won a disputed election in 2018, although the U.S. and other countries refused to recognize the results. In 2024, Maduro declared victory again, though tally sheets from voting machines collected by the opposition showed he lost by a wide margin.
Maduro clamped down on dissent, jailing hundreds of activists, ordering government forces to fire on protesters and triggering another exodus of migrants.
These days, the pink tide is far in the rear-view mirror, with conservatives winning recent elections in Ecuador, Argentina and Chile.
John Polga-Hecimovich, a Latin America expert at the United States Naval Academy, said emigration from Venezuela to neighboring countries in recent years has colored many people’s views of leftist politics in general and Chavismo in particular.
Across the region, it is now common for right-wing candidates to accuse left-wing opponents of being like Chávez and wanting to turn their country into “another Venezuela.”
True believers or pragmatists?
Rodríguez has deep revolutionary roots. Her father was a Marxist guerrilla who was killed after he abducted an American businessman in 1976. Rodríguez, an early disciple of Chávez, whom she still refers to as “comandante,” said constructing a socialist state was “personal revenge” for her father’s death.
But in recent years, as she rose in the ranks of Maduro’s government, Rodríguez showed a pragmatic side.
To help right the economy, she made deals with business elites and pushed a reform that allows Venezuelans to use the dollar instead of the bolívar. She helped change laws to make the energy industry more attractive to foreign capital.
Her efforts attracted the attention of White House officials last year as they weighed a possible operation to remove Maduro.
Now Rodríguez must walk a fine line, continuing to signal her revolutionary bona fides to hard-line Chavístas while placating Trump, who has warned that she will “pay a very big price” if she does not comply with U.S. demands.
She denounced the “terrible military aggression” carried out by U.S. forces, but also had what she called a “long and courteous phone conversation” with Trump, saying that with “mutual respect” they discussed a bilateral agenda to benefit both nations. He, in turn, called her “a terrific person.”
A pro-government supporter holds paintings of late President Hugo Chávez during a campaign rally on Nov. 18, 2021, in Caracas.
(Manaure Quintero / Getty Images)
Oner, the former diplomat, said her coziness with Washington does not mean Rodríguez has abandoned her revolutionary ideology. He believes she and other leaders have sacrificed some key tenets of Chavismo in order to save it.
“They are doing this for the regime’s survival,” Oner said. “They have to be flexible to stay in power, or they’ll lose everything.”
Still, there’s little doubt, Oner said, that Chávez would be disappointed.
“He would feel deeply betrayed by Delcy’s actions.”
Linthicum and McDonnell reported from Mexico City and James from California. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón contributed from Caracas, Venezuela.
WASHINGTON — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Thursday that she “presented” her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Trump during a private meeting at the White House, but he has not changed his view that she does not have the support to lead her country.
Machado, who won the prize last year for her work to promote democracy in Venezuela, said she presented the 18-carat gold medal to Trump as a “recognition of his unique commitment to our freedom.” It is unclear whether the president, who has been fixated on getting the prize in recent year, accepted it. The Nobel Peace Center has maintained the award cannot be transferred.
The gesture was made on the day the two leaders met for the first time at the White House. The highly anticipated get-together came as the United States has allowed top deputies of deposed president Nicolás Maduro’s regime to remain in charge as Trump oversees the transition of power.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump went into the meeting without any expectations, other than to have a “frank and positive discussion about what’s taking place in Venezuela.”
Leavitt added that Trump continues to assert that Machado does not have the “support” or “respect” to lead Venezuela, an assessment he first made on the day ofMaduro’s capture to the surprise of many Venezuelans.
“At this moment in time, his opinion on that matter has not changed,” Leavitt said at a news briefing.
While Leavitt described Machado as a “remarkable and brave voice for many of the people in Venezuela,” she also said the United States had found an “extremely cooperative” partner in Maduro’s handpicked vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is serving as acting president of Venezuela.
“They have met all of the demands and requests of the United States and the president,” Leavitt said, noting that the Venezuelan government already agreed to release political prisoners and reached a $100-billion deal to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector.
As Machado left the White House, the scope of the discussions between her and the president remained unclear. She did not take questions from the reporters, but a few of them were able to capture a moment on video when she was greeted by supporters outside the White House. She told them: “Know that we can count on President Trump for Venezuela’s freedom.”
She then left to meet with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Capitol Hill. It was after this meeting that Machado told reporters she had presented the medal to the president.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was one of 14 senators who met with Machado. After the meeting Scott said Machado was “very appreciative of the U.S. military” capturing Maduro and was pushing for “free and fair elections and free press.”
“We have got to continue to understand that Delcy Rodriguez is not the leader, she was never elected as a president, she is still the leader of drug cartels,” Scott said. “We need to make sure we hold her accountable.”
It appears unlikely that much will change for Machado after meeting with Trump, who largely has sidelined her and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was stolen by Maduro.
Days after Maduro was captured, Machado told CBS News the people of Venezuela had “already chosen” González Urrutia as the rightful leader of the country and that they were “ready and willing to serve our people, as we have been mandated.”
Trump, however, has maintained that before elections can take place in Venezuela, the United States needs to “fix” the country.
Asked if the president was committed to holding elections in Venezuela, Leavitt said Trump hopes to see “elections in Venezuela one day” but did not have a timeline for them yet.
Trump says he is happy with his administration’s working relationship with Rodríguez. At a White House event Wednesday, Trump called Rodríguez a “terrific person.”
The praise came after Trump said he had a “very good call” with her that morning that left him feeling hopeful that the United States and Venezuela could have a “spectacular” working relationship.
Rodriguez, in turn, used her first state of the union address Thursday to promote oil industry reforms that would drawn in foreign investment, which is in line with the Trump administration’s goals. She also criticized the Washington officials and said there was a “stain on our relations” but said she was open to strengthening the relationship.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy,” with the U.S., Rodriguez said in Venezuela.
MEXICO CITY — Andrea Paola Hernández has one sister in Ecuador and another in London. She has cousins in Colombia, Chile, Argentina and the United States.
All fled poverty and political repression in Venezuela. Hernández, a human rights activist and outspoken critic of the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, eventually left, too.
Since 2022 she has lived in Mexico City, working odd jobs for under-the-table pay because she lacks legal status. She cries most days, and dreams of reuniting with her far-flung relatives and friends. “We just want our lives back,” she said.
One of Maduro’s darkest legacies was the exodus of 8 million Venezuelans during his 13-year rule, one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. The flight of a third of the country’s population ripped apart families and has shaped the cultural and political landscape in the dozens of nations where Venezuelans have settled.
The surprise U.S. operation to capture Maduro this month has prompted mixed feelings among the diaspora. Relief, but also apprehension.
From Europe to Latin America to the U.S., those who left are asking whether they finally can go home. And if they do, what would they return to?
‘An ounce of justice’
Hernández was distressed by the U.S. attack, which killed dozens of people and is widely seen as illegal under international law. Still, she celebrated Maduro’s arrest as “an ounce of justice after decades of injustice.”
Andrea Paola Hernández, 30, an Afro-Indigenous, queer, feminist activist and writer from Maracaibo, Venezuela, stands for a portrait on the roof of her building on Friday in Mexico City. Hernández left Caracas in 2022.
(Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)
She is wary of what is to come.
President Trump has repeatedly touted Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, saying little about restoring democracy to the country. He says the U.S. will work with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has been sworn in as Venezuela’s interim leader.
Hernández doesn’t trust Rodríguez, whom she believes is as responsible as anyone else for Venezuela’s misery: the eight-hour lines for food and medicine, the violent repression of street protests and the 2024 election that Maduro is widely believed to have rigged to stay in power.
Hernández blames the regime for personal pain, too. For the death of an aunt during the pandemic because there was no electricity to power ventilators; for the widespread hunger that caused her mother to tell her children: “We can have dinner or breakfast, but not both.”
Hernández, who believes she was being surveilled by Maduro’s government, says she will return to Venezuela only after elections have been held. “I’m not going back until I know that I’m not going to be killed or put in jail.”
‘Our identity was shattered’
Many in the diaspora are trying to reconcile conflicting emotions.
Damián Suárez, 37, an artist who left Venezuela for Chile in 2011 and who now lives in Mexico, said he was surprised to find himself defending the actions of Trump, a leader whose politics he otherwise disdains.
“We were fragmented and demoralized, and then someone came along and imprisoned the person responsible for all of that,” Suárez said. “When you’re drowning, you’re going to thank the person rescuing you, no matter who it is.”
Damián Suárez at his studio in the Condesa neighborhood on Friday in Mexico City. He arrived from Venezuela in 2011 and works as an artist and curator.
(Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)
Many countries have denounced the attack on Caracas and Trump’s vow to “run” the country in the short term as an unacceptable violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty.
For Suárez, those arguments ring hollow. For years, he said, the international community did little to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
“A cry for help from millions of people went unanswered,” Suárez said. “The only thing worse than intervention is indifference.”
One of the first embroidery art works made by Damián Suárez as a child on display in his studio, in la Condesa in Mexico City. To this day, he uses string as his primary material, a form of resistance and defiance rooted in the hand-labor traditions of the community he comes from.
(Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)
Suárez, who is organizing an art show about Venezuela, blames Maduro for what he sees as a “spiritual void” among migrants who lost not just their physical home but also the people who gave meaning to their lives.
“Our identity was shattered,” he said, comparing migrants with “plants ripped from their soil.”
And though Maduro now sits in a jail in Brooklyn facing drug trafficking charges, Suárez said he will not go back to Venezuela.
He has a Mexican passport now and helped his family migrate to Mexico City. After years of feeling stateless, he’s finally planted roots.
Building lives in new countries
Tomás Paez, a Venezuelan sociologist living in Spain who studies the diaspora, says that surveys over the years show that only about 20% of immigrants say they would return permanently to Venezuela. Many have built lives in their new countries, he said.
Paez, who left Venezuela several years ago as inflation spiraled and crime spiked, has grandchildren in Spain and said he would be loath to leave them.
“There isn’t a family in Venezuela that doesn’t have a son, a brother, an uncle, or a nephew living elsewhere,” he said, adding that 50% of households in Venezuela depend on remittances from abroad. “Migration has broadened Venezuela’s borders. We’re talking about a whole new geography.”
Migrants left Venezuela under diverse circumstances. Earlier waves left on flights with immigration documents. More recent departees often take clandestine overland routes into Colombia or Brazil or risked the dangerous journey across the Darien Gap into Central America on their way north.
The restriction of immigration law across Latin America has made it harder and harder for migrants to find refuge. One fourth of Venezuelan migrants globally lack legal immigration status, Paez said. And a majority don’t have Venezuelan passports, which are difficult to acquire or renew from abroad.
‘So tired of politics’
Throughout the Western Hemisphere, enclaves of Venezuelans have sprouted up, such as one in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, a Mexican town near the border with Guatemala.
Richard Osorio ended up there with his husband after a stint living in Texas. Osorio’s husband was deported from the U.S. in August as part of Trump’s crackdown on Venezuelan migrants. Osorio joined him in Mexico after a lawyer told him that U.S. immigration agents might target him, too, because he has tattoos, even though they are of birds and flowers.
The pair are undocumented in Mexico and work for cash at one of the Venezuelan restaurants that have sprung up in recent months.
On the day of the U.S. operation that resulted in Maduro’s arrest, hundreds of Venezuelans cheered the news in a local square. Osorio was working a 14-hour shift and missed the party. It was fine. He didn’t have the energy to celebrate.
“I’m so tired of politics, of these ups and downs that we’ve experienced for years,” Osorio said. “At every turn, there’s been suffering.”
Richard Osorio poses for a portrait in Juarez, Mexico, in July.
(Alejandro Cegarra / For The Times)
He had a hard time conjuring warm feelings for Trump given the U.S. president’s war on immigrants, including the deportation of more than 200 Venezuelans that he claimed were gang members to an infamous prison in El Salvador.
Maduro and Trump, he said, are more alike than many people admit. Neither cares for human rights or democracy. “We felt the same way in the U.S. as we did in Venezuela,” Osorio said.
He said he wouldn’t return to Venezuela until there were decent jobs and protections for the LGBTQ+ community. Life in southern Mexico was dangerous, he said, and he wasn’t earning enough to send money to relatives back home.
But returning to Venezuela didn’t feel like an option yet.
Daring to dream
Hernández, the writer and activist, said many in the diaspora are too traumatized to imagine a future in Venezuela. “We’ve all been deprived of so much,” she said.
But when she dares to dream, she pictures a Venezuela with free elections, functioning schools, hospitals and a vibrant cultural scene. She sees members of the diaspora returning, and improving the country with the skills they’ve learned abroad.
“We all want to go back and build,” she said. The question now is when.
WASHINGTON — After President Trump ordered strikes that led to the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, celebrations erupted in Venezuelan communities across the U.S.
But for many of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants facing possible deportation, their relief and joy were cut by the fear about what comes next from an administration that has zeroed in on Venezuelans as a target.
“Many of us asked ourselves, ‘What’s going to happen with us now?’” said A.G., a 39-year-old in Tennessee who asked to be identified by her initials because she lacks legal status. Even so, Maduro’s ouster gave her a lot of hope for her mother country.
Venezuelans began fleeing in droves in 2014 as economic collapse led to widespread food and medicine shortages, as well as political repression. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans are now living outside the country — including 1.2 million in the U.S.
Venezuelans migrants walk toward Bucaramanga, Colombia, in 2019.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
A.G. and her now-18-year-old son arrived at the southern border in 2019. Since then, she said, they have built a good life — they own a transport company with delivery trucks, pay taxes and follow the law.
Maduro’s fall left her with mixed feelings.
“He’s obviously a dictator, many people have died because of him and he refused to give up power, but the reason that they entered Venezuela, for me what President Trump did was illegal,” she said. “Innocent people died because of the bombs. I’m asking God that it all be for good reason.”
Dozens of Venezuelans and others were killed in the U.S. invasion — more than 100, a government official said — including civilians.
The Trump administration is framing its Venezuela operation as an opportunity for Venezuelans like A.G. “Now, they can return to the country they love and rebuild its future,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser.
Katie Blankenship, a Miami-based attorney with Sanctuary of the South who has represented many Venezuelans facing deportation, sees a less promising future.
“We’re going to see increased targeting of Venezuelans to force them to leave the U.S. into a political and socioeconomic environment that’s likely only more destabilized and subject to more abuse,” she said.
The Venezuelan community in the U.S. swelled, in part, because the Biden administration expanded pathways for them to enter the country.
Volunteer help a Venezuelan immigrant at the storage units from a volunteer-run program that distributes donations to recently arrived Venezuelan immigrants in need, in Miami, Fla., in 2023.
(Eva Marie Uzcategui / Los Angeles Times)
One of those programs allowed more than 117,000 Venezuelans to purchase flights directly to the U.S. and stay for two years if they had a U.S.-based financial sponsor and passed a background check. Other Venezuelans entered legally at land ports of entry after scheduling interviews with border officers.
By the end of the Biden administration, more than 600,000 Venezuelans had protection from deportation under Temporary Protected Status, a program used by both Republican and Democratic administrations for immigrants who cannot return home because of armed conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly referred to Venezuelan immigrants as criminals, singling them out more than any other nationality — in 64% of speeches, an Axios analysis showed. He has said repeatedly, without evidence that Venezuela emptied its prisons and mental institutions to flood the U.S. with immigrants.
One of Trump’s first acts as president was to designate the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. Within two months, he invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport 252 Venezuelan men accused of being Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned and tortured despite many having no criminal histories in the U.S. or Latin America.
Later, the Trump administration stripped away protections for Venezuelans with financial sponsors and TPS, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling the latter “contrary to the national interest.”
In a September Federal Register Notice, Noem said that TPS for Venezuelans undercut the administration’s foreign policy objectives because one result of allowing Venezuelans in the U.S. was “relieving pressure on Maduro’s regime to enact domestic reforms and facilitate safe return conditions.” In other words, if Venezuelans returned home, that would pressure the government to enact reforms.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, left, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, right, participates in a news conference near Camp 57 at Angola prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary and America’s largest maximum-security prison farm, to announce the opening of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that will house immigrants convicted of crimes in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on Sept. 3, 2025.
(Matthew Hilton / AFP via Getty Images)
The administration has offered contrasting assessments of conditions in Venezuela. Noem wrote that although certain adverse conditions continue, “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”
Throughout the year, though, the State Department continued to reissue an “extreme danger” travel advisory for Venezuela, urging Americans to leave the country immediately.
Conditions for Venezuelans in the U.S. grew more complicated after a man from Afghanistan was accused of shooting two National Guard members in November; in response, the administration froze the immigration cases of people from 39 countries, including Venezuela, that the administration considers “high-risk.” That means anyone who applied for asylum, a visa, a green card or any other benefit remains in limbo indefinitely.
After a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act in September, the Justice Department appealed. In a support brief filed in December, the Justice Department cited escalating tensions with Venezuela.
David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist and expert on Venezuelan politics, said that invading Venezuela could justify renewed use of the Alien Enemies Act.
The law says the president can invoke the Alien Enemies Act not only in times of “declared war,” but also when a foreign government threatens or carries out an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against the U.S.
“Now it will be difficult, I think, for the court to say, ‘No, you can’t use this,’” Smilde said.
With U.S. officials promising improved conditions in Venezuela and encouraging citizens to return, Smilde said, they could invoke the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who don’t leave willingly.
“There’s several layers to this,” he said, “and none of it looks very good for Venezuelan immigrants.”
This couple from Venezuela shared their story of why they left their three children back in their home country and spoke of the the experiences of their travel to the United States at the Parkside Community Church in Sacramento on June 16, 2023.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Jose, a 28-year-old Venezuelan living east of Los Angeles, fled Venezuela in 2015 after being imprisoned and beaten for criticizing the government. He lived in Colombia and Peru before illegally crossing the U.S. border in 2022, and now has a pending asylum application. Jose asked to be identified by his middle name out of fear of retaliation by the U.S. government.
The news this week that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman in Minnesota heightened his anxiety.
“You come here because supposedly this is a country with freedom of expression, and there is more safety, but with this government, now you’re afraid you’ll get killed,” he said. “And that was a U.S. citizen. Imagine what they could do to me?”
People visit a memorial for Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Jose qualifies for a work permit based on his pending asylum, but his application for one is frozen because of the executive order following the National Guard shooting.
The news of Maduro’s arrest was bittersweet, Jose said, because his mother and grandmother didn’t live to witness that day. He said his mother died last year of kidney failure due to lack of medical care, leaving him as the primary breadwinner for his two young sisters who remain in Venezuela with their father, who is disabled.
Still, he said he’s happy with what Trump has done in Venezuela.
“People are saying he’s stealing our petroleum,” he said, “but for 25 years, Cuba, China and Iran have been stealing the petroleum and it didn’t improve our lives.”
Many Venezuelans were encouraged by news that Venezuela would release a “significant number” of political prisoners as a peace gesture.
For Jose, that’s not enough. Venezuela’s government ordered police to search for anyone involved in promoting or supporting the attack by U.S. forces, leading to detentions of journalists and civilians.
“Venezuela remains the same,” he said. “The same disgrace, the same poverty and the same government repression.”
A.G. said she was heartened to hear Noem say Sunday on Fox News that every Venezeulan who had TPS “has the opportunity to apply for refugee status and that evaluation will go forward.” But the administration quickly backtracked and said that was not the case.
Instead, Noem and other administration officials have doubled down on the notion that Venezuelans without permanent lawful status should leave. Noem told Fox News that there are no plans to pause deportation flights despite the political uncertainty in Venezuela.
Tragesser, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman, said the agency’s posture hasn’t changed.
“USCIS encourages all Venezuelans unlawfully in the U.S. to use the CBP Home app for help with a safe and orderly return to their country,” he said.
After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U.S. to face drug-related charges, congressional Democrats criticized President Donald Trump’s unilateral actions.
“The president cannot run a military operation of this size, cannot invade a foreign country, without coming to Congress first,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Jan. 4 on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Presidents and Congress have battled for decades over who has the institutional power to declare war, with presidents from both political parties trying to assert power and limit lawmakers’ interference.
At a Jan. 3 press conference after Maduro’s capture, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that members of Congress were not notified in advance. Trump said the administration was concerned about lawmakers potentially leaking news of the decision.
It’s unusual for an administration not to offer advance notification — at a minimum, to a select group of eight senior lawmakers who have historically been trusted with classified information. In June 2025, the administration told Republicans, but not Democrats, about the forthcoming U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Legal experts say the most relevant law makes it clear that the president “shall consult with Congress” before initiating military action. But there is less certainty about whether other laws might provide some flexibility for the president.
Murphy’s office did not respond to inquiries.
What do the Constitution and U.S. law say about notifying Congress?
One law that supports Murphy’s critique is the War Powers Resolution.
While most of this law’s text addresses after-action notification and deadlines for congressional approval, it also says, “The president in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.”
The use of “shall” offers strong support for advance notification, even in the absence of a formal vote to authorize an action in advance, experts said.
Another section of U.S. law that addresses covert operations offers more leniency for the president, but it may not apply to the Venezuela operation.
The provision allows the president to notify the so-called Gang of Eight — the chair and ranking members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, and the top-ranking members from both parties in the House and Senate — rather than Congress as a whole.
But this provision includes a loophole: If the administration doesn’t provide advance notification, “the president … shall provide a statement of the reasons for not giving prior notice” once the operation is launched.
Although the operation was planned and carried out in secret, it does not fit the definition of “covert action” under this law. The law refers to an effort where it is “intended that the role of the United States government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.”
“The Venezuela raid simply cannot fit within the law’s clear definition of a covert operation,” said Michael J. Glennon, a Tufts University professor of constitutional and international law. “Obviously, there are confidential aspects to virtually every military operation, but that does not render them covert operations.”
War powers have been contested for decades
Courts have not provided much guidance about who has the authority to initiate military action. The Constitution and laws giving powers to Congress have been followed inconsistently.
The U.S. Constitution assigns Congress the right to declare war. The last time Congress did that was at the beginning of World War II.
Since then, presidents have generally initiated military action using their constitutionally granted powers as commander in chief without an official declaration of war.
In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to back his effort to widen the United States’ role in Vietnam. He received approval with enactment of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed both chambers of Congress, including the Senate, with only two dissenting votes.
The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox, one of the vessels involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in the South China Sea in 1964. (U.S. Navy)
As public sentiment turned against the Vietnam War, lawmakers became increasingly frustrated about their secondary role in sending U.S. troops abroad. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was enacted over President Richard Nixon’s veto.
The resolution required the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing armed forces into hostilities and to terminate the use of U.S. armed forces within 60 days unless Congress approves. If approval is not granted and the president deems it an emergency, an additional 30 days are allowed to end operations.
Presidents have often followed the act’s requirements, usually framing any entreaties to Congress as a voluntary bid to secure “support” for military action rather than “permission.”
This has sometimes taken the form of an “authorization for the use of military force” — legislation that amounts to a modern version of a declaration of war.
Presidents who have sought and received such authorizing legislation include:
Ronald Reagan, to oversee the handover of the Sinai Peninsula from Israel to Egypt, and separately to participate in a deployment to Lebanon. The deployment ended with a suicide attack that killed 241 American service members.
George W. Bush, to enter Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and separately to oust Hussein from power in what became the Iraq War.
Presidents from both parties have used the broad wording of the post 9/11 authorization to support military action against a wide array of targets, using language that approves efforts “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.”
The Venezuela operation did not have any advance authorization by congressional vote.
If Congress wants a bigger role in the process, “they have to force the president’s hand,” said Sarah Burns, a Rochester Institute of Technology political scientist. That means passing legislation that would “make it more consequential that the president didn’t abide by the law,” she said.
After U.S. officials arrested Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lauded the operation, saying the state’s large Venezuelan population knows firsthand how “destructive” Maduro’s policies were.
DeSantis also said during a Jan. 5 press conference that Maduro was “releasing people from his prisons and sending them to our southern border under the Biden administration” and that he “deserves to be brought to justice.”
DeSantis repeated the comments the following day, adding that Florida would consider bringing state drug charges against Maduro.
Then and now, we found no evidence, such as in academic or government reports, that Maduro purposely freed Venezuelan prisoners and sent them to infiltrate the U.S. before, during or after Joe Biden’s presidency. Groups that track Venezuelan prisons say they remain overcrowded.
PolitiFact contacted DeSantis for comment but received no response.
Narrative rose to prominence in U.S. after anonymous source in 2022 article
In September 2022, as immigration at the southern U.S. border surged, 13 Republican Congress members sent a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, requesting information on an “intelligence report” they said his department sent to Border Patrol agents.
According to the lawmakers, DHS had told agents to be on the lookout for violent criminals who Venezuela was deliberately releasing from prisons and encouraging to join caravans headed to the U.S.
When we examined the claim at the time, we found its only source was a Sept. 18, 2022, article by conservative news website Breitbart, which credited an anonymous U.S. Customs and Border Protection source who it said was not authorized to speak to the media.
The article vaguely described the DHS intelligence report and did not link to it. The lawmakers sent a second letter to Mayorkas in February 2024 letter, again referring to the intelligence report and asking him to investigate.
We reached out again to DHS and CBP about the report’s existence and asked for a copy. We received no response. In 2022, the fact-checking organization Factchequeado reported that DHS responded to its inquiry about the Breitbart article and said the article’s claims “are not verified.”
Experts say there’s no evidence for the prison claim
Experts in Venezuelan politics said Maduro could have been capable of such actions, and the FBI says some Venezuelan criminals have come to the U.S.
But immigration experts in the U.S. and Latin America and Venezuelan criminologists said the assertion that the government freed Venezuelan prisoners and sent them to the U.S. southern border is baseless.
“There is no evidence that (Maduro’s) government is freeing prisons or sending prisoners to the United States,” Universidad Central de Venezuela criminology professor Luis Izquiel told PolitiFact in 2024.
Mike LaSusa, deputy director of content at InSight Crime, a think tank focused on crime and security in the Americas, previously told PolitiFact that Venezuela’s government “has no known policy of selecting particular migrants to send them to any specific country, including the United States.”
The Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones, an independent nonprofit that tracks Venezuela’s prison population, hasn’t reported that prisons emptied out during the Biden administration. In its 2023 report, the group said 64% of Venezuela’s prisons were overcrowded, estimating there were more than 33,500 inmates imprisoned, compared with a 20,000-person capacity.
The non-governmental organization A Window to Freedom, which has monitored Venezuela’s prison population and conditions for over 25 years, reported that overcrowding in the country’s pretrial detention centers, known as police cells, in 2023 was 189% — a 13% increase from 2022.
On May 5, 2025, the federal National Intelligence Council released a declassified memo that found no evidence that the Venezuelan government under Maduro directed the Tren de Aragua gang or sent its members to the U.S. The gang formed in a Venezuelan prison.
The U.S. does not admit people with criminal convictions who it encounters at U.S. ports of entry unless there are extenuating circumstances. Part of the entry process involves Border Patrol checking immigrants’ backgrounds and taking their fingerprints and other biometric information.
Crime has declined in Venezuela in recent years, but experts say that isn’t evidence Maduro sent freed prisoners to the U.S. It’s because of a confluence of factors, including a humanitarian crisis and a declining economy, pushing close to 8 million people to flee Venezuela since 2014. Most have migrated to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile.
Many of the people who lived in poor and rural areas — who were often victims of crime — have left the country, experts said.
“The opportunities for crime were lost,” Roberto Briceño León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, which monitors crime in Venezuela, told PolitiFact in 2024. “Generalized poverty in the country, the absence of money circulating, the bankruptcy of companies and commerce all made the opportunities for crime in the country drop.”
Our ruling
DeSantis said Maduro “was releasing people from his prisons and sending them to our southern border under the Biden administration.”
We found no evidence, such as academic or government reports, that Maduro freed prisoners and sent them to the U.S.
Immigration experts said Venezuela has no known policy or practice of sending prisoners to any specific country, including the U.S. And groups that track Venezuelan prisons said they remain overcrowded.
Capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would be a “hollow victory” if his regime remained in power, according to John Bolton, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump.
Newsweek reached out to political analysts via email on Monday night for comment.
Why It Matters
The capture of Maduro by U.S. forces represents a significant shift in American foreign policy toward Venezuela and underscores the geopolitical complexity of the region.
The developments highlight potential uncertainty surrounding tensions among major international stakeholders, affecting U.S. relations with Russia, China and Cuba, and raises questions about the direction of U.S. engagement in Latin America.
What To Know
Maduro was apprehended during a U.S. military operation in Caracas alongside wife Cilia Flores over the weekend. Both face charges in a New York City federal court, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and weapons offenses. During his arraignment, Maduro pleaded not guilty, insisting on his innocence and asserting that he remains the president of Venezuela. Flores also pleaded not guilty and was reported to have suffered injuries during the capture.
Following Maduro’s removal, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was declared acting president, as several Maduro-aligned officials, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, are in power in Caracas as well.
In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been in contact with Rodríguez.
In an interview with NewsNation following Maduro’s capture, Bolton said: “I’m delighted that we’ve grabbed Maduro, I wish we’d done it back in 2019.”
He added, “Let’s be clear, there’s a big difference between getting Maduro and removing the regime. Right now, facts are scarce, that’s for sure, but the regime is still in power.” Bolton continued to note Trump’s swipe at Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
“I think there’s a lot of lack of clarity to say the least in Trump’s thinking on this, and it would be a hollow victory indeed if we snatched Maduro but left his regime in place,” Bolton said.
Trump’s former national security adviser added that he doesn’t necessarily have a problem with the president previously saying the U.S. would run Venezuela in the interim as long as he has a plan for executing such an endeavor.
What People Are Saying
Bolton, on X Monday: “The White House should recognize the opposition as the rightful leaders of Venezuela. The political legitimacy for the United States to execute this attack is supported when we go with the opposition, instead of reinstating the same group that has ruled as dictators over the country for 30 years, coordinated with our enemies to make Venezuela the hub for terror in the Western Hemisphere, and waged narcoterrorism against the U.S..”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, on X Monday: “As of this evening, the Trump Administration has now given 20 bipartisan briefings to Congress on Venezuela alone. Today’s briefing confirmed that the successful capture of narco-terrorist dictator Maduro — who was sending deadly drugs and gang members into our country — was one of the most stunning displays of military might and competence in history. Our military professionals were safely in and out with speed, precision, power, and zero American casualties. This is about the safety, security, freedom, and prosperity of the American people. This is America First, and the definition of peace through strength.”
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, on X Monday: “Democrats are focused on lowering costs for Americans, while Donald Trump and Republicans are spending all of their time on foreign wars, on ballrooms, and on private jets. How is this America first?”
What Happens Next
Maduro and his wife are being held in detention in Brooklyn pending their next court appearance scheduled for March 17.
Cuban officials on Monday lowered flags before dawn to mourn 32 security officers they say were killed in the U.S. weekend strike in Venezuela, the island nation’s closest ally, as residents here wonder what the capture of President Nicolás Maduro means for their future.The two governments are so close that Cuban soldiers and security agents were often the Venezuelan president’s bodyguards, and Venezuela’s petroleum has kept the economically ailing island limping along for years. Cuban authorities over the weekend said the 32 had been killed in the surprise attack “after fierce resistance in direct combat against the attackers, or as a result of the bombing of the facilities.”Related video above: What happens next: Venezuela’s future after U.S. capture of MaduroThe Trump administration has warned outright that toppling Maduro will help advance another decades-long goal: Dealing a blow to the Cuban government. Severing Cuba from Venezuela could have disastrous consequences for its leaders, who on Saturday called for the international community to stand up to “state terrorism.”On Saturday, Trump said the ailing Cuban economy will be further battered by Maduro’s ouster.“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.” Loss of key supporterMany observers say Cuba, an island of about 10 million people, exerted a remarkable degree of influence over Venezuela, an oil-rich nation with three times as many people. At the same time, Cubans have long been tormented by constant blackouts and shortages of basic foods. And after the attack, they woke to the once-unimaginable possibility of an even grimmer future.“I can’t talk. I have no words,” 75-year-old Berta Luz Sierra Molina said as she sobbed and placed a hand over her face.Even though 63-year-old Regina Méndez is too old to join the Cuban military, she said that “we have to stand strong.”“Give me a rifle, and I’ll go fight,” Méndez said.Maduro’s government was shipping an average of 35,000 barrels of oil daily over the last three months, about a quarter of total demand, said Jorge Piñón, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute.“The question to which we don’t have an answer, which is critical: Is the U.S. going to allow Venezuela to continue supplying Cuba with oil?” he said.Piñón noted that Mexico once supplied Cuba with 22,000 barrels of oil a day before it dropped to 7,000 barrels after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Mexico City in early September.“I don’t see Mexico jumping in right now,” Piñón said. “The U.S. government would go bonkers.”Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington, said that “blackouts have been significant, and that is with Venezuela still sending some oil.”“Imagine a future now in the short term losing that,” he said. “It’s a catastrophe.”Piñón noted that Cuba doesn’t have the money to buy oil on the international market.“The only ally that they have left out there with oil is Russia,” he said, noting that it sends Cuba about 2 million barrels a year.“Russia has the capability to fill the gap. Do they have the political commitment, or the political desire to do so? I don’t know,” he said.Torres also questioned whether Russia would extend a hand.“Meddling with Cuba could jeopardize your negotiation with the U.S. around Ukraine. Why would you do it? Ukraine is far more important,” he said.Torres said Cuba should open its doors to the private sector and market and reduce its public sector, moves that could help prompt China to step in and help Cuba.“Do they have an alternative? I don’t think they do,” he said.Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industryOn Monday, Trump told NBC News in an interview that the U.S. government could reimburse oil companies making investments in Venezuela to maintain and increase oil production in that country.He suggested that the necessary rebuilding of the country’s neglected infrastructure for extracting and shipping oil could happen in less than 18 months.“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump said. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.”It still remains unclear how quickly the investment could occur given the uncertainties about Venezuela’s political stability and the billions of dollars needed to be spent.Venezuela produces on average about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, down from the 3.5 million barrels a day produced in 1999 before a government takeover of the majority of oil interests and a mix of corruption, mismanagement and U.S. economic sanctions led output to fall.___Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporters Milexsy Durán in Havana, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires and Joshua Boak in Washington, D.C., contributed.
Cuban officials on Monday lowered flags before dawn to mourn 32 security officers they say were killed in the U.S. weekend strike in Venezuela, the island nation’s closest ally, as residents here wonder what the capture of President Nicolás Maduro means for their future.
The two governments are so close that Cuban soldiers and security agents were often the Venezuelan president’s bodyguards, and Venezuela’s petroleum has kept the economically ailing island limping along for years. Cuban authorities over the weekend said the 32 had been killed in the surprise attack “after fierce resistance in direct combat against the attackers, or as a result of the bombing of the facilities.”
Related video above: What happens next: Venezuela’s future after U.S. capture of Maduro
The Trump administration has warned outright that toppling Maduro will help advance another decades-long goal: Dealing a blow to the Cuban government. Severing Cuba from Venezuela could have disastrous consequences for its leaders, who on Saturday called for the international community to stand up to “state terrorism.”
On Saturday, Trump said the ailing Cuban economy will be further battered by Maduro’s ouster.
“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”
Loss of key supporter
Many observers say Cuba, an island of about 10 million people, exerted a remarkable degree of influence over Venezuela, an oil-rich nation with three times as many people. At the same time, Cubans have long been tormented by constant blackouts and shortages of basic foods. And after the attack, they woke to the once-unimaginable possibility of an even grimmer future.
“I can’t talk. I have no words,” 75-year-old Berta Luz Sierra Molina said as she sobbed and placed a hand over her face.
Even though 63-year-old Regina Méndez is too old to join the Cuban military, she said that “we have to stand strong.”
“Give me a rifle, and I’ll go fight,” Méndez said.
Maduro’s government was shipping an average of 35,000 barrels of oil daily over the last three months, about a quarter of total demand, said Jorge Piñón, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute.
“The question to which we don’t have an answer, which is critical: Is the U.S. going to allow Venezuela to continue supplying Cuba with oil?” he said.
Piñón noted that Mexico once supplied Cuba with 22,000 barrels of oil a day before it dropped to 7,000 barrels after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Mexico City in early September.
“I don’t see Mexico jumping in right now,” Piñón said. “The U.S. government would go bonkers.”
Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington, said that “blackouts have been significant, and that is with Venezuela still sending some oil.”
“Imagine a future now in the short term losing that,” he said. “It’s a catastrophe.”
Piñón noted that Cuba doesn’t have the money to buy oil on the international market.
“The only ally that they have left out there with oil is Russia,” he said, noting that it sends Cuba about 2 million barrels a year.
“Russia has the capability to fill the gap. Do they have the political commitment, or the political desire to do so? I don’t know,” he said.
Torres also questioned whether Russia would extend a hand.
“Meddling with Cuba could jeopardize your negotiation with the U.S. around Ukraine. Why would you do it? Ukraine is far more important,” he said.
Torres said Cuba should open its doors to the private sector and market and reduce its public sector, moves that could help prompt China to step in and help Cuba.
“Do they have an alternative? I don’t think they do,” he said.
Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry
On Monday, Trump told NBC News in an interview that the U.S. government could reimburse oil companies making investments in Venezuela to maintain and increase oil production in that country.
He suggested that the necessary rebuilding of the country’s neglected infrastructure for extracting and shipping oil could happen in less than 18 months.
“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump said. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.”
It still remains unclear how quickly the investment could occur given the uncertainties about Venezuela’s political stability and the billions of dollars needed to be spent.
Venezuela produces on average about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, down from the 3.5 million barrels a day produced in 1999 before a government takeover of the majority of oil interests and a mix of corruption, mismanagement and U.S. economic sanctions led output to fall.
___
Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporters Milexsy Durán in Havana, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires and Joshua Boak in Washington, D.C., contributed.
After Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s capture, social media users rapidly shared videos showing Venezuelans celebrating.
But many of these videos predated his arrest by the U.S. military. One in particular — from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — stood out, receiving 2 million views as of Jan. 5.
“Millions of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas and other major cities in celebration of the ouster of Communist dictator Nicholas Maduro,” Jones posted Jan. 3 on X along with a video showing hordes of people gathered outside, chanting and waving the Venezuelan flag.
The same video was shared July 30, 2024, on X and Instagram. It shows people protesting election officials’ declaration that Maduro had won the country’s presidential election. Venezuelan politician Tomás Guanipa also shared the footage in a 2024 Instagram post in which he called on the National Electoral Council to publish the presidential election results. A Dominican Republic news outlet also reported on the footage.
Maduro and wife Cilia Flores were both forcibly taken into U.S. custody Jan. 3 and made their first appearance in U.S. federal court Jan. 5, facing charges related to cocaine trafficking. Maduro and Flores each pleaded not guilty.
In some parts of the world, Venezuelan expatriates celebrated Maduro’s ousting. He led an authoritarian regime for 13 years and declared victory after a 2024 election that international observers described as fraudulent. The country’s opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, received about 70% of the vote.
However, anti-Maduro sentiments were muted in Venezuela’s streets following the U.S. raid and capture, reporting from the country shows. Maduro’s inner-circle, including his vice president, who has now been sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president, appeared to remain in leadership roles, raising citizens’ concerns about possible retaliation. Fortune reported that the streets of Caracas were largely quiet in the days following the U.S. attack that led to Maduro’s capture, save Maduro supporters who publicly condemned his arrest. The Associated Press shared footage of a quiet Caracas after the U.S. operation.
Jones wasn’t alone in sharing outdated or out of context video as proof Maduro’s capture had sparked widespread celebration inside Venezuela.
President Donald Trump shareda video Jan. 5 of Venezuelans gathering with the caption, “Trump just showed every liberal Democrat what a real No Kings celebration is supposed to look like.” But the footage was first shared in 2024 and showed people in El Vigía, Venezuela, cheering Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s movement.
YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video on X Jan. 3 that he also said showed celebrations in Venezuela. But the Miami Herald and other local news outlets said the scene was filmed Jan. 3 in Doral, Florida.
And a widely shared Jan. 3 X post showed video of someone tearing a Maduro poster from a Venezuela billboard. But that scene was captured in July 2024 in an Aragua, Venezuela, protest against election fraud, according to a Venezuelan news outlet.
Our ruling
Jones said a video showed “millions of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas” to celebrate Maduro’s capture.
The footage dates back to 2024 when citizens protested election officials’ declaration that Maduro had won the country’s presidential election. News coverage shows Venezuelan streets were largely quiet following U.S. attacks in Caracas.
MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday again condemned the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive foreign policy in Latin America for threatening the stability of the hemisphere.
“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries,” Sheinbaum said in her daily news conference. “The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: Intervention has never brought democracy, has never generated well-being or lasting stability.”
“Unilateral action and invasion cannot be the basis of international relations in the 21st century,” she said. “They don’t lead to peace or development.”
Her comments came as Trump on Sunday threatened more military strikes on Venezuela — and raised the possibility of intervention in Mexico as well as in Cuba, Colombia and the Danish territory of Greenland. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said drugs were “pouring” through Mexico and that “we’re going to have to do something.”
He has been threatening action against cartels for months, with some members of his administration suggesting that the U.S. may soon carry out drone strikes on drug laboratories and other targets inside Mexican territory. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said such strikes would be a clear violation of Mexican sovereignty.
“Sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples are non-negotiable,” she said. “They are fundamental principles of international law and must always be respected without exception.”
Sheinbaum is part of a bloc of leftist Latin American leaders who have spoken out forcefully against the U.S. after its surprise attack on Caracas on Saturday morning. U.S. special forces abducted Maduro, Venezuela’s leftist president, and his wife, Cilia Flores, the former head of the National Assembly.
Venezuela says at least 40 people were killed in the attack. The couple have been indicted in New York’s Southern District on drug trafficking charges.
Right-wing leaders in the region, on the other hand, have cheered the removal of Maduro from power.
At her news conference on Monday, Sheinbaum called for cooperation among countries in the region, at one point quoting Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
“Washington called for good faith and justice toward all nations, and for the cultivation of peace and harmony among all,” she said.
Nations cannot impose their wills on other countries, she said, and do not have the right to their resources. That was a clear reference to Trump’s stated desire to exploit Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
“Only the people can build their own future, decide their path, exercise sovereignty over their natural resources, and freely define their form of government,” she said. “Each nation has the inalienable right to decide its political, economic, and social model, free from external pressure.”
Sheinbaum warned that infighting among Latin American nations would hurt the region economically.
“Global economic competition, particularly in the face of Asia’s growth, is not achieved through the use of force … but rather through cooperation for development, productive investment, innovation, education and social welfare,” she said.
She said Mexico was committed to fighting organized crime, and reminded the U.S. that it fuels that dynamic.
“The violence plaguing our country is partly caused by the illegal flow of high-powered weapons from the United States into Mexico, as well as the serious problem of drug consumption in our neighboring country,” she said.
By invading Venezuela, President Trump just lit America’s eternal exploding cigar.
For over 175 years — ever since the United States conquered half of Mexico — nearly every president has messed with Latin America while telling the rest of the world to stay the hell out.
From the Mexican American War to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Panama Canal to NAFTA, we’ve only looked out for ourselves in Latin America even while wrapping our actions in the banner of benevolence.
It’s rarely ended well for anyone involved — especially us. Many of the leaders we put into power became despots we tolerated until they ran their course, like Panama’s Manuel Noriega. The political upheaval we helped create has led generations of Latin Americans to migrate to el Norte, fundamentally changing our country even as too many Americans think people like my family should have stayed in their ancestral homes.
His message to the world: Venezuela is ours until we say so, just like the rest of Latin America. And if allies and enemies alike still didn’t get the hint, Trump announced an updated Monroe Doctrine — the idea that the U.S. can do whatever it wants in the Western Hemisphere — called the “Donroe Doctrine.”
Because of course he did.
No one in Washington should be more versed in this terrible history than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the child of Cubans who fled the island when it was ruled by the U.S.-backed caudillo Fulgencio Batista.
Rubio grew up in an exile community that saw Batista’s replacement, Fidel Castro, remain in power for decades, despite a U.S. embargo. As one of Florida’s U.S. senators, Rubio represented millions of Latin American immigrants who had fled civil wars sparked by the U.S. in one way or another.
On Saturday, Rubio looked on silently as Trump threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro to “watch his ass.” When it was Rubio’s turn to take questions from reporters, he said Cuban leaders “should be concerned” and offered a warning to the rest of the world: “Don’t play games with this president in office, because it’s not going to turn out well.”
In Latin America, few are more reviled than the vendido — the sellout. Betraying one’s country for personal or political gain is an original sin dating back to the tribes who aligned with Spanish conquistadors to take down repressive empires, only to suffer the same sad end themselves. Vendidos have dominated the region’s history and stilted its development, with leaders — Mexico’s Porfirio Diaz, the Somozas of Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic — more than happy to side with the yanquis at the expense of their own countrymen.
Rubio belongs to this long, sordid lineup — and in many ways, he’s the worst vendido of them all.
Then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), left, listens during a 2016 president debate with candidate Donald Trump.
(Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press)
I still remember the fresh-faced, idealistic guy trying to pass a bipartisan amnesty bill in 2013. Though too right-wing for my taste, he seemed like a Latino politician who could thread the needle between liberals and conservatives, gringos and us.
It was wonderful to see him call out Trump’s boorishness when the two ran against each other in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. He told CNN’s Jake Tapper, in words that sound more prophetic than ever, “For years to come, there are many people … that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump because this is not going to end well, one way or the other.”
The thirst for power has a way of corrupting even the most idealistic hearts, alas. Rubio ended up endorsing Trump in 2016, supporting Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged and proclaiming at the 2024 Republican National Convention that Trump “has not just transformed our party, he has inspired a movement.”
Rubio’s reward for his boot-licking? He sets our foreign policy agenda, which is like putting an arsonist in charge of a fireworks stall.
I’m sure all of this comes off as leftist babble to the Venezuelan diaspora, many of whom cheered Maduro’s fate from Spain to Mexico, Miami to Los Angeles. Only a deluded pendejo could support what Maduro wrought on Venezuela, which was a prosperous country and a relatively stable U.S. ally for decades as the rest of South America teetered from one crisis to another.
But for Trump, toppling Maduro was never about the well-being of Venezuelans or bringing democracy to their country; it was about securing a foothold to flex American power and enrich the U.S.
Back in 2022, when Rubio was still a senator, he advocated for Venezuelans to be eligible for temporary protected status, which is granted to citizens of countries considered too dangerous to return to. At the time, Rubio argued that “failure to do so would result in a very real death sentence for countless Venezuelans who have fled their country.”
Rubio has long fashioned himself as a modern-day Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan who led the liberation of South America from Spain and who has been a hero to many Latinos ever since.
But even Bolívar knew to be skeptical of American hegemony, writing in an 1829 letter that the U.S. “seems destined by Providence to plague [Latin] America with miseries in the name of Freedom.”
Plague, thy name is Marco Rubio. By pushing Trump to run rampant over Latin America, you’re setting in motion the same old song of U.S. meddling that ties your family and mine. By letting Maduro’s cronies remain in power if they play along with you and Trump, even though they stole an election in 2024, proves you’re as much for the Venezuelan people as, well, Maduro.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Like many other Venezuelans, Ramón Arape said the image of ex-President Nicolás Maduro in U.S. custody was a stunning — and welcome — sight.
“I confess that I felt a sense of relief when I saw the photo of Maduro in the hands of los gringos,” said Arape, 59, a welder and father of three.
Less reassuring, however, were President Trump’s comments about Washington’s determination to take over the government and the oil industry, the nation’s defining natural resource.
“We’ve already had it with outsiders — Cubans, Iranians, Chinese — and now the Americans come along and want to name leaders and sell our oil?” said Arape, referring to a series of foreign allies sought out by the socialist governments of Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez. “It’s a violation of law and sovereignty.”
Many Venezuelans are hoping for a deliverance, but not, it seems, at the cost of selling off the country’s riches. How that plays out with Trump’s view that Venezuela “stole” a U.S.-built oil industry is one of the big questions as Washington embarks on a massive nation-building endeavor in South America.
Like many other nations, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 20th century, a process begun in the 1970s under a U.S.-allied government in Caracas. Several U.S. oil giants later made claims of illegal expropriation against the government of Chávez, Maduro’s mentor. But few here seemed inclined to believe in Trump’s assertion, made on social media, that Venezuela must return “all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Sunday was just a day after the shocking events that saw U.S. forces sweep into the capital and snatch Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from Miraflores Palace, the seat of government, and fly them out of the country — and, eventually, to New York, where both face drug-trafficking charges. Both deny the charges, calling them U.S. propaganda.
Venezuelans with internet access had the opportunity to view the unlikely image of Maduro, bundled up for distinctly non-tropical temperatures and flanked by federal agents, doing a perp walk at a military base in New York and apparently telling onlookers: “Happy New Year.”
In the Venezuelan capital, life was slowly returning to a semblance of normalcy on Sunday, albeit on a weekend pace.
Cars and some public transport circulated on streets that had been deserted the day before. People ventured cautiously from their homes after spending much of Saturday indoors, fearing the explosions and a potential aftermath. Many went to church in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation. Sermons called for peace.
There was a palpable sense of relief that the threat of war had abated, at least temporarily. Many were still absorbing the almost unbelievable turn of events that has surely transformed the nation’s future — albeit in still unpredictable ways.
But there was an overriding determination, among both supporters and critics of the ousted president, that the country’s oil and other resources were sacrosanct, and not to be handed over to the United States — or anyone else.
“Really it was very emotional to finally see Maduro and Cilia handcuffed and prisoners,” said Fernando González, 29, a plumber who says he supports Marína Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime opposition leader. “Those two have to pay for their crimes. For that we thank Trump. But that’s not to say we are in agreement with everything he seems to want to do.”
The president’s determination to “run” Venezuela — and take over its oil — didn’t go down well with González, a fervent nationalist in a country with a long history of nationalist activism.
“This is all a farce if they get rid of Maduro just to appropriate and sell the oil,” he said. “It can’t be that way. We want progress, change, but a transition led by Venezuelans. It can’t all be at the will of the Americans.”
González saw a role for the United States: “To help us deal with this social drama of an impoverished country.” But, he added: “They must respect our will.”
Arape, the welder, summed up the sentiment of many. “We didn’t go through all this so that Trump can name his people and take over our oil,” he said.
On Saturday, Trump had said, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” On Sunday, however, administration officials walked back that statement, saying the U.S. would pressure the Venezuelan government to acquiesce to U.S. demands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the threat of more military action would serve as “leverage” over the Venezuelan government.
In Caracas, confusion about the future was a prevalent sentiment, among both critics and supporters of Maduro.
“We would like to know who is really in charge,” said William Rojas, 31, a father of two who lives in the El Valle district, long a Maduro stronghold.
In his news conference Saturday, Trump said that Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, had been named interim president, a fact seemingly confirmed Sunday by Telesur, the government broadcast outlet. But Rodríguez, in an address Saturday from Miraflores Palace, demanded that Washington return the “kidnapped” Maduro, whom she called the “sole” president of the country.
“Delcy Rodríguez says that Maduro remains the president, but he’s no longer here,” said Rojas. “And how were they able to whisk him away? Who betrayed our president?”
He added, “We can’t live with the idea that the ones who really govern us are Trump and Marco Rubio! We are totally confused.”
Amid all the prevailing ambiguity, authorities called on people to revert to everyday patterns — as though Maduro were still around.
There were still no official casualty counts from Saturday’s raid. In an address, the defense secretary, Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, called the operation a “cowardly kidnapping” that was carried out “after cold-bloodedly assassinating a large part of the president’s security detail, soldiers and innocent civilians,” according to Telesur.
Padrino urged Venezuelans to return to their jobs and to school, adding, “I call on the Venezuelan people to peace, to order, to not fall to temptations or a psychological war, to threats, to the fear that they want to impose upon us.”
Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas and staff writer McDonnell from Boston.
A newly unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine.The arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a stunning military operation early Saturday in Venezuela sets the stage for a major test for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction in a New York courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and Flores “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”Here’s a look at the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces:Drug and weapons chargesMaduro is charged alongside his wife, his son and three others. Maduro is indicted on four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.Maduro is facing the same charges as in an earlier indictment brought against him in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment unsealed Saturday, which adds charges against Flores, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in federal court in Manhattan. A video posted Saturday night on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.’Cocaine-fueled corruption’ flourishedThe indictment accuses Maduro of partnering with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow for the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S.Authorities allege powerful and violent drug-trafficking organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, worked directly with the Venezuelan government and then sent profits to high-ranking officials who helped and protected them in exchange.But a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, which drew on input from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment alleges.U.S. authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment.Drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or on planes from clandestine airstrips, the indictment says.”This cycle of narcotics-based corruption lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment says.Successive U.S. administrations have warned about Venezuela’s role as a transit point for cocaine and a haven for criminal gangs, terrorist groups and drug-smuggling leftist rebels from neighboring Colombia. While reliable data is hard to ascertain, the vast majority of cocaine departs South America from Colombia and Ecuador, making its way northward through the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.Allegations of kidnappings and murders orderedThe U.S. accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.” That includes the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, according to the indictment.Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. In a corrupt deal, the drug trafficker then agreed to pay a monthly bribe to the director of the anti-drug office as well as about $100,000 for each cocaine-carrying flight “to ensure the flight’s safe passage.” Some of that money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment says.Nephews of Maduro’s wife were heard during recorded meetings with confidential U.S. government sources in 2015 agreeing to send “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments” from Maduro’s “presidential hanger” at a Venezuelan airport. The nephews during the recorded meetings explained “that they were at ‘war’ with the United States,” the indictment alleges. They were both sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the U.S. before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for seven imprisoned Americans.Rubio calls operation a ‘law enforcement function’During a news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cast the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife as an action carried out on behalf of the Department of Justice. Caine said the operation was made “at the request of the Justice Department.”Rubio, as he responded to a question about whether Congress had been notified, said the U.S. raid to get the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the Department of Justice.” He called Maduro “a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward” over his head.
A newly unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine.
The arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a stunning military operation early Saturday in Venezuela sets the stage for a major test for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction in a New York courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and Flores “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Here’s a look at the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces:
Drug and weapons charges
Maduro is charged alongside his wife, his son and three others. Maduro is indicted on four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Maduro is facing the same charges as in an earlier indictment brought against him in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment unsealed Saturday, which adds charges against Flores, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.
Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in federal court in Manhattan. A video posted Saturday night on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
‘Cocaine-fueled corruption’ flourished
The indictment accuses Maduro of partnering with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow for the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Authorities allege powerful and violent drug-trafficking organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, worked directly with the Venezuelan government and then sent profits to high-ranking officials who helped and protected them in exchange.
But a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, which drew on input from the 18 agencies that comprise the intelligence community, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.
Maduro allowed “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment alleges.
U.S. authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment.
Drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or on planes from clandestine airstrips, the indictment says.
“This cycle of narcotics-based corruption lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment says.
Successive U.S. administrations have warned about Venezuela’s role as a transit point for cocaine and a haven for criminal gangs, terrorist groups and drug-smuggling leftist rebels from neighboring Colombia. While reliable data is hard to ascertain, the vast majority of cocaine departs South America from Colombia and Ecuador, making its way northward through the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.
Allegations of kidnappings and murders ordered
The U.S. accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.” That includes the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, according to the indictment.
Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. In a corrupt deal, the drug trafficker then agreed to pay a monthly bribe to the director of the anti-drug office as well as about $100,000 for each cocaine-carrying flight “to ensure the flight’s safe passage.” Some of that money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment says.
Nephews of Maduro’s wife were heard during recorded meetings with confidential U.S. government sources in 2015 agreeing to send “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments” from Maduro’s “presidential hanger” at a Venezuelan airport. The nephews during the recorded meetings explained “that they were at ‘war’ with the United States,” the indictment alleges. They were both sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the U.S. before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for seven imprisoned Americans.
Rubio calls operation a ‘law enforcement function’
During a news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cast the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife as an action carried out on behalf of the Department of Justice. Caine said the operation was made “at the request of the Justice Department.”
Rubio, as he responded to a question about whether Congress had been notified, said the U.S. raid to get the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the Department of Justice.” He called Maduro “a fugitive of American justice with a $50 million reward” over his head.
WASHINGTON — Top officials in the Trump administration clarified their position on “running” Venezuela after seizing its president, Nicolás Maduro, over the weekend, pressuring the regime that remains in power there Sunday to acquiesce to U.S. demands on oil access and drug enforcement, or else face further military action.
Their goal appears to be the establishment of a pliant vassal state in Caracas that keeps the current government — led by Maduro for more than a decade — largely in place, but finally defers to the whims of Washington after turning away from the United States for a quarter century.
It leaves little room for the ascendance of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, which won the country’s last national election, according to the State Department, European capitals and international monitoring bodies.
Trump and his top aides said they would try to work with Maduro’s handpicked vice president and current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to run the country and its oil sector “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” offering no time frame for proposed elections.
Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem underscored the strategy in a series of interviews Sunday morning.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told the Atlantic, referring to Rodríguez. “Rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse.”
Rubio said that a U.S. naval quarantine of Venezuelan oil tankers would continue unless and until Rodríguez begins cooperating with the U.S. administration, referring to the blockade — and the lingering threat of additional military action from the fleet off Venezuela’s coast — as “leverage” over the remnants of Maduro’s regime.
“That’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio told CBS News. “We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes — not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that he had been in touch with the administration since the Saturday night operation that snatched Maduro and his wife from their bedroom, whisking them away to New York to face criminal charges.
Trump’s vow to “run” the country, Cotton said, “means the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands.”
“Delcy Rodríguez, and the other ministers in Venezuela, understand now what the U.S. military is capable of,” Cotton said, while adding: “It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned individuals are in Venezuela. They have control of the military and security forces. We have to deal with that fact. But that does not make them the legitimate leaders.”
“What we want is a future Venezuelan government that will be pro-American, that will contribute to stability, order and prosperity, not only in Venezuela but in our own backyard. That probably needs to include new elections,” Cotton added.
Whether Rodríguez will cooperate with the administration is an open question.
Trump said Saturday that she seemed amenable to making “Venezuela great again” in a conversation with Rubio. But the interim president delivered a speech hours later demanding Maduro’s return, and vowing that Venezuela would “never again be a colony of any empire.”
The developments have concerned senior figures in Venezuela’s democratic opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was ultimately stolen by Maduro.
In his Saturday news conference, Trump dismissed Machado, saying that the revered opposition leader was “a very nice woman,” but “doesn’t have the respect within the country” to lead.
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela in his first term, said he was skeptical that Rodríguez — an acolyte of Hugo Chávez and avowed supporter of Chavismo throughout the Maduro era — would betray the cause.
“The insult to Machado was bizarre, unfair — and simply ignorant,” Abrams told The Times. “Who told him that there was no respect for her?”
Maduro was booked in New York and flown by night over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is in federal custody at a notorious facility that has housed other famous inmates, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried.
He is expected to be arraigned on federal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices as soon as Monday.
While few in Washington lamented Maduro’s ouster, Democratic lawmakers criticized the operation as another act of regime change by a Republican president that could have violated international law.
“The invasion of Venezuela has nothing to do with American security. Venezuela is not a security threat to the U.S.,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. “This is about making Trump’s oil industry and Wall Street friends rich. Trump’s foreign policy — the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela — is fundamentally corrupt.”
In their Saturday news conference, and in subsequent interviews, Trump and Rubio said that targeting Venezuela was in part about reestablishing U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, reasserting the philosophy of President James Monroe as China and Russia work to enhance their presence in the region. The Trump administration’s national security strategy, published last month, previewed a renewed focus on Latin America after the region faced neglect from Washington over decades.
Trump left unclear whether his military actions in the region would end in Caracas, a longstanding U.S. adversary, or if he is willing to turn the U.S. armed forces on America’s allies.
In his interview with the Atlantic, Trump suggested that “individual countries” would be addressed on a case-by-case basis. On Saturday, he reiterated a threat to the president of Colombia, a major non-NATO ally, to “watch his ass,” over an ongoing dispute about Bogota’s cooperation on drug enforcement.
On Sunday morning, the United Nations Security Council was called for an urgent meeting to discuss the legality of the U.S. operation inside Venezuela.
It was not Russia or China — permanent members of the council and longstanding competitors — who called the session, nor France, whose government has questioned whether the operation violated international law, but Colombia, a non-permanent member who joined the council less than a week ago.
According to market observers, the US strikes on Venezuela early Saturday are not expected to push Bitcoin into a large sell-off. The strikes took place at around 6 a.m. UTC and lasted for about 30 minutes, reports show.
Related Reading
Michael van de Poppe, founder of MN Trading Capital, wrote on X that he does not expect “a widespread correction” tied to the attack, arguing the event was planned and has already passed market participants. Other analysts shared a similar view, saying dramatic moves usually come when traders expect worse things ahead.
Bitcoin: Market Moves And Liquidations
Based on reports, Bitcoin held firm above the $90,000 mark. CoinGecko data showed a rise of 1.50%, putting the token at $91,320 at the time of publication.
I don’t think we’ll see a widespread correction based on the attack in Venezuela on #Bitcoin.
It’s a planned and coordinated attack on Maduro, and is already past us.
The likelihood of more negativity on the markets from that single event are relatively slim.
CoinGlass figures indicate about $60 million in Bitcoin positions were liquidated over the prior 24 hours, with roughly $55 million of that coming from short bets. That kind of forced selling can amp up volatility for a short period. Still, the broader pattern this time looked muted.
Historical Drops Have Happened Fast
There have been episodes when conflict pushed prices down quickly. In June 2025, for example, Bitcoin fell nearly 3%, sliding from $106,000 to $103,000 inside roughly 90 minutes after explosions in Tehran.
Bitcoin is now trading at $91,563. Chart: TradingView
Traders point out that sudden moves often follow when markets fear ongoing escalation. Here, many market watchers see less chance of follow-up actions that would deepen panic.
Federal Debt And Genesis Day In The Middle Of Market Noise
Based on reports, the US national debt passed $38 trillion on Saturday, with the US National Debt Clock placing it near $38.5 at the time. That milestone came as Bitcoin fans marked “Genesis Day,” the anniversary of the first block mined by Satoshi Nakamoto.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of stablecoin issuer Tether, posted a celebratory message, while Sam Callahan, director of strategy and research at BTC treasury firm OranjeBTC, echoed the sentiment.
For many in the community, the headline embedded in the Genesis Block remains a symbol of a monetary system capped in supply and not subject to the same printing pressures as fiat.
Yeah generally the market really nukes when we expect things to get worse afterwards which doesn’t seem to be the case. Could see this actually bring some green to the market as people take this as a sign of strength tho
Reports have shown some in the crypto space treated events like the strike and the rising US debt as separate but related stories. A few traders said the strike could bring “green” to markets as investors interpret decisive action as a sign of control, an outlook voiced by analyst Tyler Hill.
Related Reading
Meanwhile, others emphasized that the immediate market response has been calm rather than panicked. Social posts and onchain flows were watched closely by hedge funds and retail traders alike.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro arrived in the United States to face criminal charges after being captured in an audacious nighttime military operation that President Donald Trump said would set the U.S. up to “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.Video above: U.S. strikes Venezuela, captures President Maduro in overnight operationMaduro landed Saturday evening at a small airport in New York following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital, Caracas — an act that Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval. Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodríguez, who didn’t give a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured, but none were killed.Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries. Video below: ‘We are going to run the country,’ Trump says of VenezuelaTrump says US will ‘run the country’The Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.Trump claimed the U.S. government would help lead the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate visible signs of that. Venezuelan state TV aired pro-Maduro propaganda and broadcast live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. He boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. campaign began in September.Video below: Fact checking President Trump’s Venezuela claimsEarly morning attackTaking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a U.S. invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday. Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”Multiple explosions rang out that morning, and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the United States of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets. The explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.Restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on airspace around Venezuela and the Caribbean expired early Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, an announcement that suggested any further immediate major U.S. military action was unlikely. “Airlines are informed, and will update their schedules quickly,” he posted.Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodríguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she become interim president.“There is only one president in Venezuela,” Rodriguez said, “and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.”Video below: President Donald Trump’s full comments on Venezuela strike and Nicolas Maduro captureSome streets in Caracas fill upVenezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.In a demonstration of how polarizing Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture, while others celebrated it. At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”In other parts of the city, the streets were empty hours after the attack.“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared. Many families couldn’t sleep.”In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”Questions of legalityWhether the United States violated any laws, international or otherwise, was still a question early Sunday. “There are a number of international legal concepts which the United States might have broken by capturing Maduro,” said Ilan Katz, an international law analyst.In New York, the U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning. That was according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.Lawmakers from both American political parties have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling. Congress has not approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”___Toropin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela; Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Larry Neumeister in South Amboy, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro arrived in the United States to face criminal charges after being captured in an audacious nighttime military operation that President Donald Trump said would set the U.S. up to “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
Video above: U.S. strikes Venezuela, captures President Maduro in overnight operation
Maduro landed Saturday evening at a small airport in New York following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital, Caracas — an act that Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.
Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodríguez, who didn’t give a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured, but none were killed.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.
Video below: ‘We are going to run the country,’ Trump says of Venezuela
Trump says US will ‘run the country’
The Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.
Trump claimed the U.S. government would help lead the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate visible signs of that. Venezuelan state TV aired pro-Maduro propaganda and broadcast live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. He boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. campaign began in September.
Video below: Fact checking President Trump’s Venezuela claims
Early morning attack
Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a U.S. invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday. Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.
“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”
Multiple explosions rang out that morning, and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the United States of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets. The explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.
Restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on airspace around Venezuela and the Caribbean expired early Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, an announcement that suggested any further immediate major U.S. military action was unlikely. “Airlines are informed, and will update their schedules quickly,” he posted.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodríguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she become interim president.
“There is only one president in Venezuela,” Rodriguez said, “and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.”
Video below: President Donald Trump’s full comments on Venezuela strike and Nicolas Maduro capture
Some streets in Caracas fill up
Venezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.
Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
In a demonstration of how polarizing Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture, while others celebrated it. At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.
“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”
In other parts of the city, the streets were empty hours after the attack.
“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared. Many families couldn’t sleep.”
In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
Questions of legality
Whether the United States violated any laws, international or otherwise, was still a question early Sunday. “There are a number of international legal concepts which the United States might have broken by capturing Maduro,” said Ilan Katz, an international law analyst.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning. That was according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.
Lawmakers from both American political parties have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling. Congress has not approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”
___
Toropin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela; Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Larry Neumeister in South Amboy, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro arrived in the United States to face criminal charges after being captured in an audacious nighttime military operation that President Donald Trump said would set the U.S. up to “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.Maduro landed Saturday evening at a small airport in New York following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital, Caracas — an act that Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval. Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodríguez, who didn’t give a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured, but none were killed.Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries. Trump says US will ‘run the country’The Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.Trump claimed the U.S. government would help lead the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate visible signs of that. Venezuelan state TV aired pro-Maduro propaganda and broadcast live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. He boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. campaign began in September.Early morning attackTaking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a U.S. invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday. Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”Multiple explosions rang out that morning, and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the United States of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets. The explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.Restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on airspace around Venezuela and the Caribbean expired early Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, an announcement that suggested any further immediate major U.S. military action was unlikely. “Airlines are informed, and will update their schedules quickly,” he posted.Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodríguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she become interim president.“There is only one president in Venezuela,” Rodriguez said, “and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.”Some streets in Caracas fill upVenezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.In a demonstration of how polarizing Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture, while others celebrated it. At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”In other parts of the city, the streets were empty hours after the attack.“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared. Many families couldn’t sleep.”In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”Questions of legalityWhether the United States violated any laws, international or otherwise, was still a question early Sunday. “There are a number of international legal concepts which the United States might have broken by capturing Maduro,” said Ilan Katz, an international law analyst.In New York, the U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning. That was according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.Lawmakers from both American political parties have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling. Congress has not approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”___Toropin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela; Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Larry Neumeister in South Amboy, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro arrived in the United States to face criminal charges after being captured in an audacious nighttime military operation that President Donald Trump said would set the U.S. up to “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
Maduro landed Saturday evening at a small airport in New York following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital, Caracas — an act that Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.
Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodríguez, who didn’t give a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured, but none were killed.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.
Trump says US will ‘run the country’
The Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.
Trump claimed the U.S. government would help lead the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate visible signs of that. Venezuelan state TV aired pro-Maduro propaganda and broadcast live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. He boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. campaign began in September.
Early morning attack
Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a U.S. invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday. Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.
“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”
Multiple explosions rang out that morning, and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the United States of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets. The explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.
Restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on airspace around Venezuela and the Caribbean expired early Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, an announcement that suggested any further immediate major U.S. military action was unlikely. “Airlines are informed, and will update their schedules quickly,” he posted.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodríguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she become interim president.
“There is only one president in Venezuela,” Rodriguez said, “and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros.”
Some streets in Caracas fill up
Venezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.
Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
In a demonstration of how polarizing Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture, while others celebrated it. At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.
“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”
In other parts of the city, the streets were empty hours after the attack.
“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared. Many families couldn’t sleep.”
In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
Questions of legality
Whether the United States violated any laws, international or otherwise, was still a question early Sunday. “There are a number of international legal concepts which the United States might have broken by capturing Maduro,” said Ilan Katz, an international law analyst.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning. That was according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.
Lawmakers from both American political parties have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling. Congress has not approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”
___
Toropin and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela; Lisa Mascaro, Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Larry Neumeister in South Amboy, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s president and claims that it will “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. actions and its future operations in the South American nation.Related video above: U.S. strikes Venezuela, captures President Maduro in overnight operationThe middle-of-the-night seizure of Nicolás Maduro, who was transported with his wife on a U.S. warship to face narco-terrorism conspiracy charges in New York, is beyond even the most high-profile historical examples of aggressive American actions toward autocratic governments in Panama, Iraq and elsewhere, legal experts said. It came after a surprise U.S. incursion that rocked the Venezuelan capital with overnight explosions.”This is clearly a blatant, illegal and criminal act,” said Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame Law School professor and former assistant U.S. attorney.The stunning development caps months of aggressive U.S. military action in the region, including the bombing of boats accused of trafficking drugs and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela. The Trump administration has conducted 35 known boat strikes against vessels, killing more than 115 people since September, and positioned an armada of warships in nearby waters.The bigger debate than legality is yet to come, said John Yoo, an early architect of the George W. Bush administration’s policy in Iraq and now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.”It’s easier to remove a dictator,” he said, based on his experience in the Iraq War. But ensuring the transition to a stable democratic government is “the harder part.”Maduro’s arrest on anniversary of Noriega’s surrenderMaduro’s arrest came 36 years to the date of the surrender of Panama’s strongman, Manuel Noriega, a notable milestone in American involvement in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest Noriega on drug trafficking charges.In Panama, however, U.S. national security interests were directly at stake in the form of the Panama Canal as well as the safety of American citizens and U.S. military installations in the country.Video below: Former Alabama exchange student reacts to Maduro captureBy contrast, Congress has not authorized any American military strike or law enforcement move against Venezuela.”The President will claim that this fits within a vast body of precedent supporting broad executive power to defend the United States, its citizens, and its interests,” Matthew Waxman, a Columbia University law professor who was a national security official in the Bush administration, said by email. “Critics will charge that this exceeds the bounds of presidential power without congressional authorization.”While U.S. agents have a long history of snatching defendants abroad to execute arrest warrants without authorization, federal courts have long deferred to the White House in foreign policy and national security matters.For example, U.S. bounty hunters, working under the direction of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in 1990 abducted in Mexico a doctor accused of killing DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.”Courts give great deference to the president on issues related to national security,” said Gurule, who led the prosecution against Camarena’s killers. “But great deference does not mean absolute deference and unfettered authority to do anything.”Congress has yet to authorize or ban US actionsTrump’s administration has declared the drug cartels operating from Venezuela to be unlawful combatants and has said the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, according to an administration memo obtained in October by The Associated Press.The memo appears to represent an extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers, with Trump effectively declaring that trafficking of drugs into the U.S. amounts to armed conflict requiring the use of military force. That is a new rationale for past and future actions.Congress, which has broad authority to approve or prohibit the president’s war powers, has failed to do either, even as lawmakers from both political parties grow increasingly uneasy with the military actions in the region, particularly after it was revealed that U.S. forces killed two survivors of a boat attack with a follow-up strike.Congress’ Democratic leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, demanded immediate briefings for the “gang of eight” leaders on Capitol Hill, which includes top members of the Intelligence committees, as well as for other lawmakers. Congressional leaders were not notified of the actions until after the operation was underway.”The idea that Trump plans to now run Venezuela should strike fear in the hearts of all Americans,” Schumer said. “The American people have seen this before and paid the devastating price.”Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, said the entire operation — the boat strikes as well as the apprehension of Maduro — clearly violates international law.”Lawyers call it international armed conflict,” Schmitt said. “Lay people call it war. So as a matter of law, we are now at war with Venezuela because the use of hostilities between two states clearly triggers an internal armed conflict.”War powers vote aheadHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the administration “is working to schedule briefings” for lawmakers next week.Republican lawmakers in Congress largely welcomed the capture of Maduro as ridding the region of a leader they say is responsible for drug trafficking, but Democratic lawmakers warned that in veering from the rule of law, the administration is potentially greenlighting other countries such as China or Russia to do the same.”Beyond the legality, what kind of precedent does it send?” asked Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said in an interview that the rebuilding plan ahead has echoes of the Iraq War as the Trump administration promises to use Venezuela’s oil revenue to pay the costs.Waxman, the Columbia University law professor, said seizing control of Venezuela’s resources opens up additional legal issues: “For example, a big issue will be who really owns Venezuela’s oil?”The Senate is expected to try again next week to curtail Trump’s actions, with a vote expected on a bipartisan war powers resolution that would block using U.S. forces against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he is grateful for the armed forces “who carried out this necessary action.” He said he spoke to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and wants more information.”I look forward to receiving further briefings from the administration on this operation as part of its comprehensive counternarcotics strategy when the Senate returns to Washington next week,” Thune said.Rubio said at a briefing Saturday with Trump that because of the nature of the surprise operation, it was not something that could be shared beforehand with the lawmakers.Goodman reported from Miami.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s president and claims that it will “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. actions and its future operations in the South American nation.
Related video above: U.S. strikes Venezuela, captures President Maduro in overnight operation
The middle-of-the-night seizure of Nicolás Maduro, who was transported with his wife on a U.S. warship to face narco-terrorism conspiracy charges in New York, is beyond even the most high-profile historical examples of aggressive American actions toward autocratic governments in Panama, Iraq and elsewhere, legal experts said. It came after a surprise U.S. incursion that rocked the Venezuelan capital with overnight explosions.
“This is clearly a blatant, illegal and criminal act,” said Jimmy Gurule, a Notre Dame Law School professor and former assistant U.S. attorney.
The stunning development caps months of aggressive U.S. military action in the region, including the bombing of boats accused of trafficking drugs and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela. The Trump administration has conducted 35 known boat strikes against vessels, killing more than 115 people since September, and positioned an armada of warships in nearby waters.
The bigger debate than legality is yet to come, said John Yoo, an early architect of the George W. Bush administration’s policy in Iraq and now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It’s easier to remove a dictator,” he said, based on his experience in the Iraq War. But ensuring the transition to a stable democratic government is “the harder part.”
Maduro’s arrest on anniversary of Noriega’s surrender
Maduro’s arrest came 36 years to the date of the surrender of Panama’s strongman, Manuel Noriega, a notable milestone in American involvement in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest Noriega on drug trafficking charges.
In Panama, however, U.S. national security interests were directly at stake in the form of the Panama Canal as well as the safety of American citizens and U.S. military installations in the country.
Video below: Former Alabama exchange student reacts to Maduro capture
By contrast, Congress has not authorized any American military strike or law enforcement move against Venezuela.
“The President will claim that this fits within a vast body of precedent supporting broad executive power to defend the United States, its citizens, and its interests,” Matthew Waxman, a Columbia University law professor who was a national security official in the Bush administration, said by email. “Critics will charge that this exceeds the bounds of presidential power without congressional authorization.”
While U.S. agents have a long history of snatching defendants abroad to execute arrest warrants without authorization, federal courts have long deferred to the White House in foreign policy and national security matters.
For example, U.S. bounty hunters, working under the direction of the Drug Enforcement Administration, in 1990 abducted in Mexico a doctor accused of killing DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
“Courts give great deference to the president on issues related to national security,” said Gurule, who led the prosecution against Camarena’s killers. “But great deference does not mean absolute deference and unfettered authority to do anything.”
Congress has yet to authorize or ban US actions
Trump’s administration has declared the drug cartels operating from Venezuela to be unlawful combatants and has said the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, according to an administration memo obtained in October by The Associated Press.
The memo appears to represent an extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers, with Trump effectively declaring that trafficking of drugs into the U.S. amounts to armed conflict requiring the use of military force. That is a new rationale for past and future actions.
Congress, which has broad authority to approve or prohibit the president’s war powers, has failed to do either, even as lawmakers from both political parties grow increasingly uneasy with the military actions in the region, particularly after it was revealed that U.S. forces killed two survivors of a boat attack with a follow-up strike.
Congress’ Democratic leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, demanded immediate briefings for the “gang of eight” leaders on Capitol Hill, which includes top members of the Intelligence committees, as well as for other lawmakers. Congressional leaders were not notified of the actions until after the operation was underway.
“The idea that Trump plans to now run Venezuela should strike fear in the hearts of all Americans,” Schumer said. “The American people have seen this before and paid the devastating price.”
Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, said the entire operation — the boat strikes as well as the apprehension of Maduro — clearly violates international law.
“Lawyers call it international armed conflict,” Schmitt said. “Lay people call it war. So as a matter of law, we are now at war with Venezuela because the use of hostilities between two states clearly triggers an internal armed conflict.”
War powers vote ahead
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the administration “is working to schedule briefings” for lawmakers next week.
Republican lawmakers in Congress largely welcomed the capture of Maduro as ridding the region of a leader they say is responsible for drug trafficking, but Democratic lawmakers warned that in veering from the rule of law, the administration is potentially greenlighting other countries such as China or Russia to do the same.
“Beyond the legality, what kind of precedent does it send?” asked Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said in an interview that the rebuilding plan ahead has echoes of the Iraq War as the Trump administration promises to use Venezuela’s oil revenue to pay the costs.
Waxman, the Columbia University law professor, said seizing control of Venezuela’s resources opens up additional legal issues: “For example, a big issue will be who really owns Venezuela’s oil?”
The Senate is expected to try again next week to curtail Trump’s actions, with a vote expected on a bipartisan war powers resolution that would block using U.S. forces against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he is grateful for the armed forces “who carried out this necessary action.” He said he spoke to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and wants more information.
“I look forward to receiving further briefings from the administration on this operation as part of its comprehensive counternarcotics strategy when the Senate returns to Washington next week,” Thune said.
Rubio said at a briefing Saturday with Trump that because of the nature of the surprise operation, it was not something that could be shared beforehand with the lawmakers.
