Trump’s Capture of Maduro Was Never About the Drugs

When asked by reporters what his 2026 New Year's resolution is, President Donald Trump replied: “Peace on Earth.” A few days later, during the early hours of January 3rd, the United States military conducted a highly covert operation in Venezuela, striking its capital city, Caracas, and capturing now-former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Operation “Absolute Resolve,” as it was labeled, was the culmination of months of escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela. This friction stems from a series of highly controversial, lethal US strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels and the recent military build-up in the Caribbean (the largest since the end of the Cold War). Trump’s capture of Maduro is polarizing the global community. On one hand, some Venezuelans around the world are celebrating the removal of an illegitimate dictator who collapsed the nation’s economy, leading to a mass exodus of nearly 8 million Venezuelans. On the other hand, legal experts argue that Trump violated international law and potentially illegally bypassed Congress, sparking fury amongst democrats. Maduro and his wife are currently being held in a New York City detention center, with Maduro facing charges of cocaine-importation conspiracy, weapons possession, and narco-terrorism conspiracy. However, Maduro’s removal was never truly about stopping America’s drug epidemic. Instead, Trump used the drug crisis to legitimize US foreign intervention to his primarily isolationist base. His primary goal is to strengthen American dominance, security, and hegemony in the Western Hemisphere against adversaries like China and Russia.

While the Trump administration has primarily framed Maduro’s removal as a means to stop alleged rampant drug trafficking from Venezuela, Trump admitted to other motives for the attack, including a desire to control Venezuela’s rich oil reserves. Trump has said multiple times that he intends to “run” Venezuela, recently telling the New York Times that the US may control the country for years. The capture of Maduro is notable for several reasons. For one, this is (at least on the surface) a success for the Venezuelan people. Maduro was an illegitimate tyrant who oppressed, tortured, and killed his people while further deteriorating the country. However, the arrest also marks a profound shift in Trump’s approach to foreign policy, reviving the realist strategy of the Cold War, expanding American imperialism in the name of redevelopment and security, and carving the world into spheres of influence without a plan for the future. Trump’s bellicose strategy is volatile, radical, and dangerous for all of humanity.

Nicolás Maduro was a horrific dictator who drove the country to economic and democratic collapse. Maduro began his career as a bus driver and union organizer before being elected to the National Assembly. He climbed the political ladder under former President Hugo Chavez and was elected president after Chavez died in 2013. Under Maduro, Venezuela’s GDP shrank by almost 80%, and inflation exceeded 65,000% in 2018. Additionally, international critics accuse Maduro of stealing the 2024 election after opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won 67% of the vote. Post-election protests were met with excessive force and alleged extrajudicial executions, while thousands of political dissidents, human rights activists, and journalists were detained (and allegedly tortured). Thus, according to the Trump administration, over 50 countries reject Maduro’s legitimacy as president. To Trump’s credit, Maduro’s removal marks a significant step on the long road to genuine democratic change. As one Venezuelan activist explained, the arrest marked the beginning of a “process of justice.”

 However, international experts continue to criticize the operation, with the UN Human Rights Office stating that it violated international law and set a dangerous precedent. Once one peels back the layers, it is difficult not to see the more troubling motives and consequences for the operation. In reality, the operation was barely (if ever) about winning the war on drugs and bringing a dictator to justice. In fact, experts argue that Venezuela plays a minor role in trafficking drugs to the US compared to other countries, including Colombia and Ecuador. Moreover, Trump recently pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted under the Biden administration on three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy. Prosecutors believed Hernandez was a key player in a nearly 20-year drug-trafficking network that smuggled over 400 tons of cocaine into the US. Thus, Maduro’s arrest was never truly about drugs. Instead, the Trump Administration is using the crisis narrative of the drug epidemic to justify its imperialist and Cold War-era strategies for expanding and securing American hegemony.

Moreover, Venezuela is home to the world's largest crude oil reserves, a significant asset coveted by great powers worldwide. Despite its massive reserves, Venezuela produces less than 1% of the global oil output (less than a third of its production rate in the 1990s and early 2000s). The decline in oil production is largely attributed to the failed nationalization of the oil industry, US economic sanctions, political corruption, and decaying infrastructure. Trump sees American ownership of this oil as crucial to maintaining America’s dominance. Claiming that Venezuela stole American oil under Hugo Chavez (due to his nationalization of the oil industry), Trump wants US oil giants to return to Venezuela and invest billions to rebuild the decaying infrastructure. Several of Trump’s secretaries (including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright) have implied that the US wants complete control of Venezuela’s oil.

Additionally, in an interview with “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, Trump explained the difference between the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Venezuela, stating that “...Bush didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil.” Critics and politicians are currently debating whether Maduro’s arrest is comparable to the US’s failed invasion of Iraq or its more successful 1989 operation in Panama. Similar to Operation Absolute Resolve, the 2003 Iraq invasion succeeded in quickly removing the authoritarian and repressive dictator Saddam Hussein. However, in both instances, the justification for intervention (Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and drug trafficking in Venezuela) is highly contested, with control of each nation’s oil reserves largely seen as the actual motive for intervention. Furthermore, the US failed to establish an equitable democracy in Iraq, and, thus, critics fear Venezuela will turn into “Iraq 2.0.” While the initial capture of Maduro was successful, the Trump administration lacks a concrete, evidence-backed plan to redevelop the nation and transform it into a thriving democracy. However, some critics argue that comparisons to Iraq are unwarranted due to the absence of factional fighting in Venezuela (unlike the conflicts between the diverse groups found in Iraq).

Similarly, critics argue that Venezuela is not comparable to the 1989 US invasion of Panama (Operation “Just Cause”), which ousted military dictator Manuel Noriega and installed the rightful winner of the 1989 election, Guillermo Endara. The capture of Noriega is seen as a success in US intervention history because of the subsequent transfer of power and return to civilian governance (although its morality and long-term democratic outcomes are debated). Critics of the Venezuelan intervention argue that, unlike in Panama, the US does not plan to support the opposition candidate and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado. Although Trump plans to meet with her, he told reporters that it would “be very tough for [Machado] to be the leader, because she doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” Instead, the Trump administration is negotiating with Maduro’s former Vice President (and current acting president), Delcy Rodríguez. In the eyes of critics, Trump’s cooperation with Rodríguez is seen as a prioritization of stability over a genuine democratic transition. In typical neoliberalist fashion, Trump’s plan to democratize and rebuild Venezuela hinges on US oil companies investing billions of dollars in repairing the country’s brutally deteriorating oil infrastructure, a process experts argue could take years to implement.

For Trump, acquiring indirect control over Venezuela through intervention and US corporate ownership of oil is about reasserting American dominance. Trump is harkening back to the Cold War Reagan principle of “peace through strength.” As put quite plainly in a recent State Department post on X, Trump wants to assert control over the Western Hemisphere to create an American-centric bulwark against China and Russia. Venezuela was China’s entry point into Latin America, with the CCP lending over $100 billion since the early 2000s. As some leftist scholars argue, Trump is using neocolonial practices to create an American empire, one that strikes fear in our adversaries. After Maduro’s arrest, Trump threatened several other nations and territories, including Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, and, most notably, Greenland. As Georgetown Professor Charles Kupchan explains, Trump is unable to deliver on his isolationist, protectionist “America First” strategy because of the complex interconnectedness of modern globalization. Thus, he is turning his “America First” strategy outward, seeking to reassert American hegemony through force, whether through neocolonial economics, rhetoric, or physical intervention. Trump is reviving the Monroe Doctrine, an 1823 policy that opposed European interference in the Western Hemisphere, to assert the United States' sphere of influence. Calling his renovated version the “Donroe Doctrine,” Trump seeks to control the Western Hemisphere in order to keep it in line with American security interests (hence why he argued that Venezuela hosted foreign adversaries). Trump’s aggressive and neocolonial foreign policy strategy is drawing criticism from the left, with scholars comparing it to Germany’s 20th-century racial-expansionist ideology of Lebensraum.

Trump’s recent intervention in Venezuela was much more than about stopping drug trafficking and arresting Maduro. Rather, it solidifies Trump’s new “America First” strategy: aggression, colonialism, and dominance. While the removal of Maduro opens avenues for democratic advancement, it is impossible to determine whether Trump can revitalize Venezuela and transform it into a functioning democracy. Trump is carving the globe into spheres of influence, and his recent aggression may have paved the way for China to justify an invasion of Taiwan and for Russia to continue invading Ukraine. As our world increasingly globalizes, so do our problems. Climate change, human-aligned AI development, and democratic backsliding are just a few of the issues that affect all humans. It is more important than ever that we prioritize global cooperation rather than competition if we want to create and secure a prosperous future for humankind. Trump’s strategy is outdated, arrogant, and dangerous. If the recent intervention in Venezuela teaches us anything, it is that we must adopt a cosmopolitan worldview in which democracy and global human success are prioritized over aggressive corporate and nationalist interests.

Global News, DomesticRishi ChandraComment