2026 United States intervention in Venezuela

• 1. Introduction

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  Operation Absolute Resolve, the American strike on Venezuela, began around 2 a.m. local time on the 3rd of January 2026, when explosions were observed in the dark above Caracas. By the end of that night, United States forces had captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They flew the couple to New York City to face trial.

  If the operation is counted as a war, it lasted 2 hours and 28 minutes. That would make it one of the shortest wars in history.

  The speed hides a long and tangled story. Why did Washington decide that this was the moment to act? How do you take a sitting head of state out of his own fortified compound in a single night? And who was left running Venezuela once he was gone? The answers reach back years before the first explosion.

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• 2. Maduro and Flores

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  Hugo Chávez hand-picked Nicolás Maduro as his successor, and Maduro became president of Venezuela in 2013. Critics have accused him of authoritarian rule ever since. Reuters described a leader who governed with a heavy hand while the country sank into deep economic and social crises. Critics at home and abroad said he jailed or persecuted political opponents and repeatedly staged sham elections. Analyst Mark Weisbrot traces the economic crisis to the oil glut of the 2010s, which struck an economy that depended on exports.

  Maduro's victory in the 2018 presidential election was disputed, and 45 countries refused to accept the result. That refusal produced a presidential crisis that divided the international community from 2019 to 2023. In 2024 the government-controlled National Electoral Council declared him the winner without publishing any vote tallies. International observers and the opposition condemned the result as fraudulent and pointed to statistical improbabilities in it.

  The opposition then produced tallies showing that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won a majority, in line with pre-election polls. The New York Times said he was widely believed to have won by a landslide. Venezuela issued an arrest warrant for González, who left the country and was granted asylum in Spain. In January 2025 the Biden administration recognized him as the legitimate president-elect.

  Cilia Flores first gained influence as a lawyer. She represented Chávez when he was imprisoned after the 1992 coup attempt, and she helped win his release in 1994. She became a force inside his movement, known as Chavismo, while keeping a low public profile. In 2000, one year after Chávez became president, voters sent her to the National Assembly.

  Flores became president of the National Assembly in 2006. She banned journalists from the legislative chamber and was criticized for appointing dozens of relatives to public positions. From 2012 to 2013 she served as Attorney General of Venezuela.

  Flores and Maduro had known each other since the 1990s, and they married in 2013, after he succeeded Chávez. Maduro avoided the title of First Lady. He called her the primera combatiente, or First Combatant, of the revolution.

  Her family brought its own legal trouble. In 2015, officers of the US Drug Enforcement Administration arrested two of her nephews in a sting operation in Haiti. They were sentenced on drug conspiracy charges, then released in 2022 in a prisoner swap with the Biden administration that also included the Citgo Six. The United States, Canada, Panama and Colombia have each sanctioned Flores or placed travel bans on her over allegations of corruption and undermining democracy.

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• 3. Oil and Minerals

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  Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 300 billion barrels, or 17% of the global total. Trump had spoken about that wealth at a 2023 press conference. He said: "Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it... and kept all that oil."

  In December 2025 the United States began a maritime blockade of sanctioned oil tankers, often called the shadow fleet. The Trump administration saw its 2025 and 2026 operations as serving three goals: crippling Maduro, disrupting drug trade routes, and gaining access to Venezuelan oil. Trump said the revenue would go to the Venezuelan people, to US oil companies, and to the United States as reimbursement for damages.

  After the raid, Trump's press conference left little doubt that oil was a motive. He, Stephen Miller and others cited the restructuring of Venezuela's oil industry in 1976 and 2007. They claimed Venezuela had stolen oil from US companies. On the 5th of January Trump suggested that seized oil could be treated as a US asset, sold or added to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

  On the 9th of January, after a tanker was returned to Venezuela in a joint operation with the interim authorities, Trump said the oil would be sold through the "GREAT Energy Deal", which his administration had created for such sales.

  Minerals joined the list. The administration also showed interest in Venezuelan gold and rare earths. Some experts noted that Maduro's government had earlier offered the US access to those minerals in a failed attempt to stave off military action. They described the new operations as a return to "resource imperialism".

  The oil industry itself was less eager. Trump said US companies would invest billions, and later named a figure of $100 billion. ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron reportedly had no advance knowledge of the plan to remove Maduro. Unnamed sources said they had held no talks with the administration about investing in a Venezuela without him.

  At a meeting on the 9th of January with about two dozen oil executives, ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods called Venezuela "uninvestable" because of its legal framework. Most executives made no firm commitments. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips had left Venezuela after their assets were expropriated in 2007, while Chevron stayed. Two days later Trump said he was inclined to keep ExxonMobil out, because he did not like its response and thought "They're playing too cute."

  The money began moving within days. On the 14th of January the US Department of Energy announced its first sales of Venezuelan oil, worth $500 million, as part of a $2 billion deal. On the 20th of January Delcy Rodríguez confirmed that she had received the first $300 million. Reuters later cited anonymous US officials saying the remaining $200 million was returned on the 3rd of February.

  The proceeds were deposited in a Qatari bank account, which kept Venezuela's creditors from seizing them. Democrats questioned the legality of that arrangement and criticized the lack of transparency in routing the funds. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing that the funds would sit in an account under US oversight.

  On the 29th of January Rodríguez signed a hydrocarbon law that let private and foreign companies run oil projects under contracts covering production and sales. It also lowered certain taxes and expanded the authority of the oil ministry. Opposition proposals for transparency and for National Assembly approval of oil contracts were rejected. The law reversed 2006 changes by Chávez that had made the state company PDVSA the main stakeholder in every oil project.

  The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control lifted various oil-related sanctions. US companies could now buy, sell, transport, store and refine Venezuelan crude. Sanctions on oil production were not lifted. On the 13th of February two further licenses allowed international companies to operate oil and gas projects and negotiate contracts. Royalties and federal taxes must be paid into a fund managed by the United States.

  Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived in Caracas on the 11th of February. He said sales had passed $1 billion since Maduro's capture, with about $5 billion more expected in the coming months. The last US energy secretary to visit Venezuela was Bill Richardson in 2001. In his State of the Union address, Trump said the US had just received more than 80 million barrels of oil.

  Venezuela also pruned its own oil sector. Reuters reported in February that the oil ministry had cancelled 19 contracts with private companies signed under Maduro. In March the United States issued a license authorizing trade in Venezuelan gold and deals with Minarven, the state-owned gold mining company.

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• 4. Preparing the Strike

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  In August 2025 the United States began massing warships and military personnel in the southern Caribbean. The Central Intelligence Agency sent a team into Venezuela that tracked Maduro's movements, using a source close to him. Plans for his capture were made months in advance.

  Delta Force and other participants built a mockup of the safe house where Maduro was believed to be hiding. Trump described the real building as a "very highly guarded... fortress". General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later said the military had spent months planning and rehearsing. Forces were positioned and ready by early December.

  In September, US Southern Command began striking vessels in the Caribbean Sea. It alleged that some were trafficking drugs on behalf of Venezuela. In late December the campaign moved onto land, including a strike on a remote northern port reportedly used by Tren de Aragua for smuggling. The CIA also launched covert operations in Venezuela. Around that time Maduro rejected an offer from the US to go into exile in Turkey.

  In the weeks before the raid, Trinidad and Tobago signed an agreement allowing the US military to use its airports.

  Diplomacy ran alongside the military buildup. In November 2025, opposition leader María Corina Machado promised at a business meeting in Miami, attended by Trump, to open Venezuela's oil and gas reserves. The Trump administration meanwhile held secret talks with Maduro's government about those same reserves.

  Maduro, for his part, played down the danger. He danced on a stage to electronic music that sampled one of his speeches, in which he said "No crazy war". According to The New York Times, those public displays were a factor in Trump's decision to begin the operation.

  Inside Maduro's government, some figures were reportedly hedging. Reuters, citing anonymous sources, said US officials had spoken months earlier with interior minister Diosdado Cabello. The aim was to keep the security services and militant ruling-party supporters from targeting the opposition in the event of an attack.

  The Miami Herald reported that a circle around Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge sketched a roadmap for a post-Maduro Venezuela. Delcy would act as figurehead, and exiled general Miguel Rodríguez Torres would lead a "transitional government". The scheme was dubbed "Madurismo without Maduro".

  In return, Venezuela would welcome US investors and gradually loosen its ties to rivals such as Iran and Russia. The proposals reached US envoy Richard Grenell through Qatari channels, and the Trump administration reportedly rejected them. The Financial Times reported that Jorge Rodríguez had held talks in 2025 about his sister leading a transition, though those talks assumed Maduro would be allowed into exile.

  American officials said Delcy Rodríguez told them in December that "Maduro needs to go" and that she would "work with whatever is the aftermath."

  One last obstacle was the weather. Trump said the operation had been ready to launch several days earlier but was postponed because poor weather and cloud cover made flying into Caracas hazardous. Caine said US forces waited to minimize the risk to civilians. The mission went ahead only when the weather "broke just enough" for aircraft to maneuver safely into position.

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• 5. The Night of the Raid

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  General Dan Caine said Trump gave the order to proceed at 23:46 Venezuelan time on the 2nd of January, which was 22:46 in the eastern United States. At least seven explosions followed, and low-flying aircraft were seen over La Guaira, Higuerote, Meseta de Mamo, Baruta, El Hatillo, Charallave and Carmen de Uria. Most of those places are in or near Caracas.

  The operation involved 150 aircraft from the US Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. The fixed-wing aircraft included F-22A Raptors, F-35A and F-35C Lightning IIs, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, E-2D Hawkeyes and B-1B Lancers. Helicopters included MH-47G Chinooks and MH-60M DAP gunships. Refueling tankers, electronic-warfare planes and numerous drones, including the RQ-170 Sentinel, supported them.

  Trump boasted that the United States "had a fighter jet for every possible situation". The operation also reportedly used one-way attack drones, believed to be the first such use by the US military.

  Most explosions hit antennas and active military bases. Early reports pointed to the Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, known as La Carlota, and to Fort Tiuna, two installations in Caracas. Large explosions were also reported at Higuerote Airport on the coast.

  At Higuerote, an aircraft believed to be a Beechcraft Baron and a Buk-M2E surface-to-air missile system were destroyed. In the port of La Guaira, multiple shipping containers were destroyed or damaged. Satellite imagery showed at least five destroyed warehouses, burned vehicles and a blown-up security post.

  Venezuelan science minister Gabriela Jiménez Ramírez posted footage of crumbled buildings at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research in La Guaira. She attributed the damage to AGM-154 glide bombs.

  The strikes lasted half an hour. They ran under cover of darkness, helped by the timing and by the US military's disruption of power in Caracas. Smoke rose from one military hangar, while another was left without power.

  Helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment carried Delta Force soldiers into Caracas, with fighters and bombers providing air cover. One helicopter was damaged by Venezuelan ground defenses but kept flying. FBI personnel, including the Hostage Rescue Team, went along to formally arrest Maduro at his compound.

  Strange claims followed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared an eyewitness account of Venezuelan personnel with injuries consistent with sonic weaponry. Trump told Katie Pavlich: "we have weapons nobody else knows about." In another interview he named a secret weapon, the "discombobulator", and said it made Venezuelan defenses, including Russian and Chinese rockets, "not work". CNN noted that the reported injuries might instead have come from acoustic or non-lethal systems such as the Active Denial System.

  At 05:21 Venezuelan time, Trump announced that Maduro and Flores had been captured and flown out of the country. Delta Force made the capture, with on-the-ground intelligence from the CIA. Trump posted a photograph on Truth Social showing Maduro aboard a vessel. He was blindfolded, wearing soundproof headphones and a gray Nike sweatsuit, and holding a plastic water bottle.

  Rubio said Maduro had been "arrested" and would face criminal charges in the United States. A Venezuelan party leader said the couple were taken at Fort Tiuna, where they reportedly slept at multiple locations and had a fortress-like compound. Delcy Rodríguez demanded proof that they were alive in an audio message on state television. Reports differed on her own whereabouts. Reuters sources placed her in Russia, other rumors said Margarita Island, and other reports said Caracas.

  Shortly before 18:00 Venezuelan time, the plane carrying Maduro and Flores landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York. Maduro walked off the jet surrounded by federal agents and entered a hangar. A helicopter took him to the Westside Heliport in Manhattan, and an armored convoy carried him to a DEA field office for processing. He ended the night in the Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn.

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• 6. The Cost

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  Defense minister Vladimir Padrino López said US combat helicopters fired rockets and missiles in urban areas. He also said most of Maduro's personal guard were killed. Estimates of the dead shifted for days. On the 3rd of January an anonymous Venezuelan official told The New York Times that at least 40 people had died, including civilians and soldiers. A senior official raised that figure to 80 the next day.

  Independent Venezuelan reporting found that most of the dead were members of the presidential guard, along with two civilians. Attorney General Tarek William Saab said dozens of soldiers and civilians had died and the total was under investigation. A day later Diosdado Cabello put the figure at 100. Independent monitors counted 42 or 43 Venezuelan soldiers, mostly at Fort Tiuna, plus 32 Cuban personnel and 2 civilians.

  The raid exposed a secret. Cuban troops had been in Venezuela, though their presence was denied as far back as 2008. In 2019 Maduro claimed in an interview that no Cuban military personnel were stationed in the country and that his guard was Venezuelan. Trump said after the raid: "You know, a lot of Cubans were killed yesterday."

  Cuba reported that 32 of its people died in Venezuela, all of them members of the armed forces and intelligence services. One of the most senior was Colonel Humberto Roca, who had once been responsible for the security of Fidel Castro. On the 6th of January, Cuba and Venezuela released the identities of 55 confirmed military dead, 32 Cubans and 23 Venezuelans.

  On the 16th of January, Padrino López said 47 Venezuelan soldiers had died, including 9 women. Acting president Delcy Rodríguez declared seven days of mourning. The remains of the Cubans were repatriated on the 15th of January and received a mass funeral in Havana. Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel attended a tribute there alongside 94-year-old Raúl Castro. Reuters later reported that some Cuban security forces and doctors were returning to Cuba.

  Civilians died too. In Catia La Mar, strikes hit a three-story apartment complex, killing one person, seriously injuring another and destroying an exterior wall. Yohana Rodríguez Sierra, a Colombian citizen, was reported as a civilian fatality in El Hatillo. Her relative said the US had been bombing nearby telecommunications antennas.

  The Department of Defense said seven US soldiers were wounded by shrapnel and gunfire and were expected to survive. One of them, Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, was the lead Chinook pilot for the air assault. As his flight approached Maduro's compound, his helicopter came under fire, and four bullets hit him in the leg and hip. Though wounded, he kept control of the aircraft, and the Delta team fast-roped to the ground over the compound.

  Slover then flew back to the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea. During the 2026 State of the Union address, Trump awarded him the Medal of Honor.

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• 7. Law and the Courtroom

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  In March 2020, during Trump's first term, the Justice Department indicted Maduro on cocaine-trafficking conspiracy charges. Maduro denied them. The case against him grew through 2025. Trump designated two Venezuelan gangs, Tren de Aragua and the Cartel of the Suns, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in January and July respectively. He alleged that Maduro led the second one.

  Maduro denied leading any cartel and called the designations an attempt to use the war on drugs for regime change. Some Latin American crime experts describe the Cartel of the Suns as a general network of government and military corruption rather than an organized group. Also in July 2025, a secret order told the US military to use force against cartels listed as terrorist organizations.

  In August 2025 the reward for Maduro's arrest rose to $50 million. Attorney General Pam Bondi called him "one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security." After the raid, Rubio joked that the government saved the reward money, and Trump replied: "Don't let anybody claim it. Nobody deserves it but us."

  Hours after the capture, Bondi announced that Maduro and Flores had been indicted in the Southern District of New York. The charges were narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess them. An amended indictment no longer described the Cartel of the Suns as an organized group. It called the cartel a corrupt patronage system, which matches what experts say about it.

  The Trump administration justified the operation as a law-enforcement action with military support, which the president has "inherent constitutional authority" to undertake. Officials at the United Nations, the US and other countries said otherwise, as did international law experts. They said the raid violated the UN Charter and Venezuela's sovereignty.

  Congress was not told in advance, because the administration feared that would endanger the mission. Semafor reported that The New York Times and The Washington Post knew about the strikes beforehand and held back. Rubio later thanked news organizations that had received leaks and did not report them.

  Republican senator Mike Lee first expressed uncertainty, then said the actions likely fell under the president's Article II powers against "actual or imminent attack". Democratic senator Ruben Gallego said "this war is illegal". The New York Times editorial board called the attack "dangerous and illegal".

  On the 5th of January 2026, Maduro and Flores were arraigned in a Manhattan federal court. Before pleading, Maduro said: "I am the president of Venezuela, I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured at my home in Caracas." Both pleaded not guilty. Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered Maduro held until at least a hearing set for the 17th of March. That appearance was delayed to the 26th of March, after which the couple returned to jail in Brooklyn.

  The case reached beyond the defendants. On the 23rd of April 2026, US Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested. Prosecutors say he placed more than $33,300 in bets on the prediction site Polymarket on whether Maduro would be "out by the 31st of January 2026". The bets paid off, and he won more than $409,000. The Justice Department says Van Dyke took part in planning and executing the operation. He pleaded not guilty on the 28th of April.

  Alex Saab, Maduro's industry minister, offers a different thread. Saab had been released from US custody in a prisoner exchange. Delcy Rodríguez dismissed him on the 16th of January, and Venezuelan intelligence arrested him in February in a joint operation with the United States. On the 16th of May the Venezuelan government announced his deportation to the United States, where he is a possible witness against Maduro.

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• 8. Who Governs Now

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  On the 3rd of January 2026, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered Delcy Rodríguez to take over as interim president because of Maduro's absence. The military said it would recognize her. Her brother Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, swore her in as acting president on the 5th of January.

  Rodríguez called Maduro Venezuela's "only president" and described his capture as a "kidnapping". She said Venezuela would "never again be a colony of any empire". Trump took a different line. He said the United States would "run the country" until a "safe, proper and judicious transition", and that Rodríguez "really doesn't have a choice".

  On the 4th of January, Rubio retracted the claim, saying the US would not govern Venezuela but would keep enforcing the oil quarantine. On the 7th of January he outlined three phases: stability, recovery, then transition. Rodríguez denied that any deal existed, saying "no external agent" dictated her decisions. On the 8th of January the US Senate voted 52 to 47 to advance a war resolution that would block military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.

  The Associated Press reported in January that the DEA had kept an extensive file on Rodríguez since 2018 and had named her a "priority target" in 2022. She has never been publicly accused of crimes related to the drug trade. When Senator Jeanne Shaheen asked about the report on the 28th of January, Rubio did not confirm it. He noted only that she had not been indicted.

  The release of political prisoners became the first visible concession. On the 8th of January, Jorge Rodríguez announced a "gesture", and nine prisoners were freed that day out of an estimated 800. On the 9th of January Trump said he had cancelled a second wave of attacks because of this cooperation.

  On the 23rd of January, the human rights group Foro Penal confirmed 154 releases since the 8th. Rodríguez announced an amnesty bill on the 30th of January, covering political violence from 1999, when Chávez first took office, to the present. It excluded murder, drug trafficking, corruption and human rights violations. She also announced that El Helicoide prison, where independent groups have documented torture, would become a cultural and sport center. The National Assembly approved the amnesty law on the 19th of February. By the 8th of March, human rights organizations had confirmed 621 releases out of more than 800 held before January.

  Diplomacy moved quickly. Trump spoke by phone with Rodríguez on the 14th of January, and CIA director John Ratcliffe met her in Caracas the next day. Diplomat Laura Farnsworth Dogu was appointed chargé d'affaires on the 22nd of January and arrived on the 30th. On the 5th of March the two governments agreed to restore diplomatic and consular relations.

  On the 12th of March the United States told a court it recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela's sole head of state. Two days later the American flag rose over the US Embassy in Caracas for the first time in seven years. The embassy reopened on the 30th of March, and direct commercial flights resumed on the 30th of April after a seven-year suspension.

  The opposition was left on the sidelines. María Corina Machado, the opposition leader, had accepted the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize instead of passing it to Trump, which reportedly angered him. Influenced by a CIA analysis, Trump said she lacked the support to govern. On the 15th of January she met Trump privately and presented him with her Nobel Medal. The Nobel Prize Committee has said the prize "cannot be revoked, shared or transferred". She met him again at the White House on the 6th of March.

  Elections remain unscheduled. The constitution calls for a new vote within 30 days if a president is permanently unavailable, but the Supreme Court ruled that Maduro's absence was temporary. Jorge Rodríguez ruled out elections in the immediate period of stabilization. Machado estimated that a manually counted vote could be held in 9 to 10 months.

  The raid also reshaped Trump's talk about the hemisphere. He called it an application of the Monroe Doctrine, which he styled the "Donroe Doctrine". He said a similar operation in Colombia "sounds good to me", though he later agreed with Colombian president Gustavo Petro to cooperate against drug trafficking.

  Most pointedly, he renewed his demand for Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Asked whether the goal was psychologically important to him or to the United States, he answered: "Psychologically important for me."

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