With Venezuela, the U.S. Is Back in the Business of Empire

Gabriel Hetland is the author of the book “Democracy on the Ground: Local Politics in Latin America’s Left Turn.”

The first coup of 2026 is in the books. In the early hours of January 3, the U.S. launched a large-scale military operation involving over 150 airplanes, which culminated in the swift capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now imprisoned in New York. Hours after Maduro’s kidnapping, Donald Trump announced the U.S. would “run the country” for the foreseeable future. 

Venezuela posed no threat to the United States, and under international law, there is no plausible justification for Trump’s attack. But it goes beyond that: By forcefully deposing a sitting president, the U.S. has eroded any pretense that the already-battered rules-based international order exists. While many of Trump’s critics in government and policy circles bemoan his flouting of procedure, Trump operates as a blatant imperialist — and is immensely proud of it.

There are multiple reasons for Trump’s actions in Venezuela — a desire to destroy the Latin American Left; White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant crusade; Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s long-standing quest to topple Cuba, with Venezuela a first step to that end — but crude materialism is at the top of the list.

During a Saturday press conference announcing Maduro’s apprehension, which Trump astonishingly referred to as “an attack on sovereignty,” Rubio spoke of the operation in legalistic terms, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth waxed lyrical about the brave and manly “warriors” who carried it out. Trump returned over and over to his brazenly colonial intention to plunder Venezuela and profit from its valuable oil industry, one of his longtime fixations.

Trump’s removal of Maduro sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for Latin America. Trump and Co. have sent an explicit message to Latin American leaders, particularly leftists: Do our bidding or we will do with you as we please. The tactical success of the operation to remove Maduro will all but surely embolden Trump officials to consider, and likely attempt, similar actions elsewhere in the region and beyond. The most obvious next target is Cuba, which Rubio said is “in a lot of trouble” and Trump has said is “ready to fall.”

It’s critical to underscore that the U.S. invasion of Venezuela is a flagrant and entirely unacceptable act of neocolonial plunder, or as Sen. Bernie Sanders put it, an act of “rank imperialism.” As ABC News and Reuters have reported, the Trump administration has told Venezuela’s interim government that it must meet a set of nakedly neocolonial conditions before it can resume producing and selling oil: Sever economic and strategic ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba, and expel them from the country; exclusively partner with the U.S. on oil production; favor the U.S. in sales of oil, particularly of heavy crude; and give the U.S. control over oil logistics to block rivals’ access to Venezuelan oil.

These reports come after Trump claimed on Tuesday that Venezuela’s interim authorities are “turning over” 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., and Trump himself will control the profits. On Wednesday, he also announced Venezuela would be forced to buy only American-made goods with money from “our new Oil Deal.”

While it should be obvious, it must be said: The U.S. has absolutely no right to “run” Venezuela or to control or profit from its oil industry. Venezuela’s oil belongs to Venezuela — not to Donald Trump, the U.S. government, or U.S. oil companies. Trump’s attack on Venezuela also resurrects the darkest days of naked U.S. imperialism. Trump is eager to make this explicit by celebrating the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine, and the imperialism it came to represent, has been used to justify innumerable U.S. interventions in Latin America, including the 1954 CIA-sponsored overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz the 1973 U.S.-backed coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende, and the more recent U.S.-backed coups in Venezuela in 2002, Haiti in 1991 and 2004, Honduras in 2009, Bolivia in 2019, and the 2016 parliamentary coup in Brazil.

The illegal, imperialist, and neocolonial character of the coup in Caracas is clear, but much about Trump’s actions is not — starting with the fact that this regime change operation hasn’t brought about a change of regime. While Maduro is gone, the Maduro regime appears relatively intact. Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has become Venezuela’s acting president, and as of now it appears the Venezuelan military chain of command remains largely as it was before Maduro’s removal.

According to Trump, Rubio spoke with Rodríguez, and “she is willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.” (Tellingly, Trump also said she has been “quite gracious, but she really doesn’t have a choice.”) Rodríguez initially struck a defiant public tone, demanding Maduro’s restoration as president. A day later, however, she issued a conciliatory statement on Instagram, which read in part: “We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development.”

The swiftness and relative ease of the U.S. operation — alongside reporting from October on talks between the U.S. and Venezuela to install Rodríguez as president in place of Maduro — suggests that she and others in the upper echelons of the Maduro administration may have acted in some degree of coordination with the U.S.

The flipside of Trump’s apparent, if lukewarm, embrace of Rodríguez is his astonishingly explicit rejection of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, widely viewed as the heir apparent in a post-Maduro Venezuela. Trump has praised Machado in the past, but during his Saturday press conference, he unequivocally threw her under the bus, saying she “doesn’t have the respect within” Venezuela to be president. It would have seemed unthinkable to write these words a week ago, but it seems the biggest loser in Maduro’s removal, apart from Maduro himself, is Machado and the right-wing Venezuelan opposition.

The notion of democracy was strikingly absent from Trump’s press conference, and there are no signs that the Trump administration will be pressing Rodríguez on this issue any time soon. When reporters specifically asked Trump about the prospects for free elections in Venezuela, he said, “Well, it depends,” and immediately began discussing oil companies.

Rodríguez is notably serving as acting president with Venezuela’s Supreme Court declaring Maduro temporarily, rather than permanently, unable to fulfill his duties. This means Rodríguez does not have to call elections within 30 days, as Venezuela’s constitution would require her to do in the event that Maduro were to be deemed permanently unable to resume his duties as president. Those expecting Maduro’s ouster to lead to a political opening in Venezuela will have to wait.

The Culmination of Operation Southern Spear — For Now

While the timing and details of Maduro’s abduction came as a surprise, the action does not come out of the blue. It is the culmination, to date, of “Operation Southern Spear,” which has seen the largest buildup of U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean in decades. The U.S. has stationed 15,000 troops on at least eight warships in the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald Ford, touted as the most advanced aircraft carrier in the world. Since early September, Trump has engaged in a boat-bombing murder spree, which has now killed at least 115 in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific on unproven charges that they were involved in narco-trafficking. On Sunday, Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “We will continue to reserve the right to take strikes against drug boats.”

In December, the U.S. engaged in brazen piracy by seizing one Venezuelan oil tanker, boarding but not seizing another, and engaging in a weekslong pursuit of a third tanker, which Russia stepped in to protect. On Wednesday, the U.S. seized this vessel and another tanker.

On December 16, Trump announced he was imposing a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers. Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro called the blockade “unquestionably an act of war.” Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote that it “is likely to trigger the first major famine in the Western Hemisphere in modern history.”

After Maduro’s kidnapping, Rubio announced the blockade “remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela.” Rubio’s remarks clarify that the U.S. will not be involved in the day-to-day running of Venezuela, but instead will “control” the country using “leverage,” i.e., the threat of economic devastation, provided by the blockade. As a since-altered New York Times headline aptly put it: “Rubio Stresses U.S. Plan to Coerce Venezuela Rather Than Govern It.”

There is no question that the operation to oust Maduro was a tactical success. Trump boasted that no U.S. forces were harmed and no equipment damaged in the attack; however, reports suggest at least one U.S. helicopter was hit by Venezuelan forces, and six or seven U.S. troops were injured. Maduro’s removal occurred with relatively little bloodshed, although accounts indicate at least 80 civilian and military casualties, including 32 Cuban security forces based in Venezuela. 

However “smoothly” it may have gone, the operation cannot be considered a success for Venezuela. Trump’s plans to plunder Venezuela’s economy and Rubio’s strategy of openly coercing Rodríguez and others through the oil blockade suggest that the U.S. campaign will not only fail to lessen the profound suffering of ordinary Venezuelans, but will almost surely lead to even greater suffering. This is particularly true regarding the blockade, which will cause unimaginable harm if it continues for any length of time.

Trump’s Venezuela policy also seems to be ringing hollow among the powerful. Historian Greg Grandin argues that foreign policy is the realm in which domestic hegemony — agreement within the ruling class — is forged. But far from generating elite consensus and popular consent, Trump’s actions toward Venezuela have provoked significant dissent. This has been true for months, with Trump’s boat-bombing campaign provoking bipartisan pushback. Many Democrats and a smaller number of Republicans have strongly criticized Hegseth’s involvement in the campaign.

Much of this opposition centered on the so-called “double-tap” strike against the first boat bombed on September 2, which The Intercept first reported, where a military drone strike killed nine of the 11 passengers on a boat allegedly carrying cocaine destined for the U.S. For the next roughly 45 minutes, the two survivors struggled in the water before they were killed by a second drone strike.

An explosive November 28 Washington Post article stirred up furor over the double-tap strike, which many called a war crime. Maduro’s abduction has also provoked bipartisan critique. A vocal minority of Republicans, led by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have criticized the action, with Greene saying it followed the “same Washington playbook” and only serves “the big corporations, the banks, and the oil executives.” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., also condemned Trump’s actions, writing on X, “Wake up MAGA. VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

Many more Democrats have denounced Trump’s attack on Venezuela. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a notably mild procedural critique of Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer making a stronger, but similarly procedural statement, criticizing Trump’s actions in Venezuela as “reckless.” Progressive leaders such Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized Trump in a more forcefully anti-imperialist way.

Polls show the U.S. public is highly skeptical about Trump’s Venezuela policy. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from December 3 to 8, 48 percent of respondents opposed striking suspected drug boats without prior court approval, with just 34 percent saying they approve. There was a notable partisan split amongst respondents: 67 percent of Republican respondents backed the boat strikes, while only 9 percent of Democratic respondents did. A Washington Post poll conducted this weekend found that 42 percent of Americans disapproved of the U.S. sending troops to remove Maduro, with 40 percent approval. Only 24 percent of respondents support the U.S. controlling Venezuela and choosing a new government, with 45 percent opposed. A staggering 94 percent of respondents said Venezuelans, not the U.S., should decide Venezuela’s future leadership.

Critiques of Trump’s Venezuela policy have taken several forms. One line of criticism contests the claim that Venezuela is a narco-state supplying a significant portion of lethal drugs to the United States. This claim falls flat in numerous ways. First, Venezuela supplies none of the fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that causes a majority of lethal drug overdoses, that enters the United States. Second, while Venezuela is a transit route for cocaine, it is a very minor player as the vast majority of South American cocaine comes to the U.S. through the Pacific. Third, and relatedly, most cocaine that passes through Venezuela is destined for Europe, not the United States.

Finally, it is all but impossible to believe the boat bombings or Maduro’s ouster were motivated by concern over “narco-trafficking” in the wake of Trump’s December 1 pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, the Honduran ex-president who is as paradigmatic an example of a “narco-state leader” as you are likely to find. It is also telling that on Monday, just before Maduro’s indictment, the Department of Justice dropped its claim that the Cartel de los Soles — which Trump has repeatedly claimed Maduro is the head of — is an actual organization.

Another line of critique focuses on the lack of transparency around the operation, specifically the fact that Trump cut Congress out of the process. The growing number of Republicans willing to break ranks with Trump favor this line of attack, as do many Democrats. Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, for example, criticized Trump for circumventing Congress and issued a statement about Maduro’s ouster that failed to explicitly condemn it but merely raised concerns about how hard it is to get regime change right. Schumer called for congressional hearings on Trump’s Venezuela policy in December but refused to rule out regime change when pressed to do so.

On the Republican side, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul had been one of the most consistent and outspoken critics of Trump’s Venezuela policy, calling the boat bombings “outrageous” and questioning their legality in general, not just the double-tap strike. Paul has also been critical of Trump’s refusal to pursue his policy with congressional approval. Yet Paul has surprisingly supported Maduro’s forceful removal.

Conspicuously lacking in these procedural, legal, and occasionally moral criticisms is any gesture at the issue of empire. Precious few elected officials have raised the fundamental question: Does the U.S. have the right to infringe upon another nation’s sovereignty? There are some exceptions, with Sanders, arguably the most forceful critic of Trump’s recent actions, blasting Trump’s “illegal and unconstitutional” actions as  “rank imperialism.” Along with Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders is one of a handful of progressives who have condemned U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.

Maduro’s Kidnapping and Its Consequences

The possible repercussions of Maduro’s removal are terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, the swift tactical success of the military operation has emboldened the Trump administration. In his weekend press conference, Trump referenced the Monroe Doctrine and its updated life as the “Donroe Doctrine” and proudly stated, “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

Trump and Rubio have both indicated their openness to bringing about regime change in Cuba. Trump has repeatedly threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro and said he is open to invading the country. Trump and his officials have reiterated their desire to annex Greenland. Mexico has also been mentioned as a possible future target of U.S. aggression. 

U.S. power is not unlimited. On January 4, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Spain — all led by leftist governments, though Chile will soon be led by a far-right leader — issued a joint statement condemning the U.S. attack on Venezuela as a violation of international law that endangers peace and stability in the region. The statement also rejects foreign appropriation of another nation’s resources. During an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. attack on Venezuela was widely condemned including by U.S. allies, with the French ambassador stating the U.S. attack “chips away at the very foundation of international order.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll released January 5 found only one-third of the American public supports U.S. military action against Maduro and that 72 percent of Americans are concerned the U.S. will become too involved in Venezuela.

There is little doubt the Trump administration will continue to threaten Latin America and other regions of the world. But the results of this unchecked imperialism may not always be to Trump’s liking. In addition to intimidating leaders into submitting to U.S. power, there is also the possibility that imperial overreach will spark nationalist and popular backlashes that in turn benefit leftist and anti-imperialist forces. This is precisely what happened earlier this year when Trump’s heavy-handed support for jailed Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro and threats to slap Brazil with 50 percent tariffs boosted Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s flagging popularity. A similar pattern unfolded in 2002, when Evo Morales shot to the top of Bolivian presidential polls after the U.S. ambassador called him a narco-terrorist. Trump may think this is “our” hemisphere, as his State Department does, but Latin Americans will have the last word.