2026 United States intervention in Venezuela
On 3 January 2026, the United States launched a military strike in Venezuela and captured incumbent Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The US operation, codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, began around 2 a.m. local time, when explosions were observed. The U.S. Armed Forces bombed infrastructure across northern Venezuela to suppress air defenses as an apprehension force attacked Maduro's compound in Caracas. Maduro and Flores were transported to New York City by US forces to face trial there.
The US federal government announced that Maduro and Flores had been indicted on several charges related to narcoterrorism. Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty to the charges in Manhattan federal court on 5 January 2026. US president Donald Trump and his administration justified the operation as a law-enforcement action, with military support, that the president has "inherent constitutional authority" to undertake.
Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez denounced the capture as a kidnapping. Venezuelan officials said at least 23 Venezuelan security officers were killed during the attack. The Cuban government said that 32 members of the Cuban military and intelligence agencies were killed. Officials in the United Nations, the US, and other countries, as well as international law experts said the raid violated the UN Charter and Venezuela's sovereignty. Other reactions around the world included celebrations by the Venezuelan diaspora and protests against the attack.
The Venezuelan government remained in place, with Rodríguez sworn in as acting president on 5 January 2026. Multiple political prisoners detained in Venezuela were released, a gesture which, according to Trump, contributed to avoiding a second wave of attacks. On 30 January, Rodríguez announced an amnesty bill for political prisoners covering the period of 1999 to present. As of 1 February, the number of political prisoners released confirmed since 8 January was 344 out of an estimate of over 800 held, according to human rights organizations.
Trump and his administration made clear that access to Venezuelan oil was a core reason for the action. United States announced a 50-million-barrel oil supply deal with the remaining government in Venezuela, with the first $300 million already received on 20 January. On 29 January, a new law was passed by Rodríguez to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil. In parallel, the United States lifted sanctions imposed on Venezuelan oil trade.
Background
Political, economic and international
has been criticized for authoritarian rule since Hugo Chávez hand-picked him as the next president of Venezuela in 2013. According to Reuters, "Maduro ruled Venezuela with a heavy hand... presiding over deep economic and social crises and resisting pressure from domestic opponents and foreign governments for political change", and was "long accused by critics both at home and abroad of being a dictator who jailed or persecuted political opponents and repeatedly staged sham elections". Mark Weisbrot states that Venezuela has faced an economic crisis since the oil glut of the 2010s, due to its export-dependent economy.For years, the US government pressured Maduro, considering him an "illegitimate leader". Maduro's victory in the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election was disputed and 45 countries did not accept the results, causing a presidential crisis that divided the international community from 2019 to 2023. Absent any vote tallies, Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election by the government-controlled National Electoral Council; the result was "widely condemned as fraudulent by international observers and the opposition" who found statistical improbabilities in the results. The opposition showed evidence and vote tallies that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won a majority, matching the results of pre-election opinion polls, who was "widely believed to have won election, and by a landslide", according to The New York Times. The Venezuelan government issued an arrest warrant for González, who left the country and was granted asylum in Spain. In January 2025, the Biden administration recognized González as Venezuela's legitimate president-elect. The Trump administration had sought to prosecute Maduro on narco-terrorism charges since at least 2020. At a 2023 press conference, Trump said, "Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it ... kept all that oil."
Cilia Flores is a Venezuelan lawyer and politician who rose to power after she represented Chávez, who was imprisoned following the 1992 coup attempt; Flores helped secure his release in 1994. She was an influential part of Chavez's movement, Chavismo, although known for keeping a low public profile. In 2000, one year after Chavez became president of Venezuela, Flores was voted into the National Assembly. After becoming 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 in Venezuela. She was the Attorney General of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013. Having known each other since the 1990s, Flores and Maduro married in 2013 following his succession of Chávez as president. Maduro, rather than describing her as the First Lady, has used the term "primera combatiente" or "First Combatant" of the revolution. US Drug Enforcement Administration officers arrested two of her nephews in a Haitian sting operation in 2015, and they were sentenced on drug conspiracy charges but released in a 2022 prisoner swap with the Biden administration that included the Citgo Six. Flores has been sanctioned or the subject of travel bans by the United States, Canada, Panama, and Colombia for allegations of corruption and undermining democracy.
Oil and mineral resources
Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 17% of the global total, or 300 billion barrels. In December 2025, the US began a maritime blockade of sanctioned oil or shadow fleet tankers.The 2025–2026 operations are seen by the Trump administration as serving the triple goals of crippling Maduro, disrupting drug trade routes, and getting access to Venezuelan oil; Trump stated that revenue generated would go to the Venezuelan people, US oil companies, and "to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country". Following the raid, Trump's press conference made clear that oil was a motivation for action in Venezuela. Citing the restructuring of Venezuela's oil industry in 1976 and 2007, Trump, Stephen Miller, and others claimed that Venezuela had stolen oil from US companies. Trump suggested on 5 January that seized oil could be treated as a US asset, asserting the willingness to sell it or add it to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. On 9 January, after other sanctioned vessels were seized, and a tanker was returned to Venezuela as part of a joint operation between interim authorities in Venezuela and the US, Trump said: "This tanker is now on its way back to Venezuela, and the oil will be sold through the GREAT Energy Deal, which we have created for such sales."
The Trump administration also expressed interest in Venezuela's large deposits of gold and rare earth minerals. Some experts noted that the Maduro government had previously attempted to offer the US access to these minerals in a failed attempt to stave off military action, with the ongoing operations marking a return to "resource imperialism".
Trump stated on the day of the military operation that US oil companies would invest billions to increase oil production in the country; ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron Corporation reportedly had no prior knowledge of the operation to remove Maduro and unnamed sources said they had no discussions with the Trump administration before the operation about investing in the country if Maduro was removed. Trump further stated that US oil companies would invest $100 billion in Venezuelan oil production; in a meeting between Trump and two dozen oil company executives on 9 January, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods stated that Venezuela was "uninvestable" due to the legal framework in the country while the majority of the executives in attendance did not make firm investment commitments. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips left Venezuela after their assets were expropriated in 2007, while Chevron continued its operations. Two days after the meeting, Trump told reporters that he was "inclined" to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela because he "didn't like Exxon's response" to his proposed investments for the country and thought that "They're playing too cute."
Unlike Congress, Trump claimed to have spoken with oil companies both "before and after".
Indictment of Maduro
The United States accused Maduro of electoral fraud and presiding over a "narco-state". In March 2020, during Trump's first term, the United States Justice Department indicted Maduro on cocaine-trafficking conspiracy charges, which Maduro denied. Trump designated two Venezuelan drug gangs, the Tren de Aragua and the Cartel of the Suns, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in January and July 2025 respectively, and alleged that the latter was led by Maduro. Maduro denied being involved in cartel leadership and characterized the designations as an attempt to use the war on drugs for regime change. Some Latin American crime experts have described the Cartel of the Suns as more of a general network of Venezuelan government and military corruption than as an organized group. Also in July 2025, a secret order instructed the US military to use force against cartels listed as terrorist organizations. In August 2025, the reward for Maduro's arrest increased to $50 million with US attorney general Pam Bondi calling Maduro "one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security."However, the Associated Press reported in January 2026 that while the US government has never publicly accused Delcy Rodríguez of criminal wrongdoing related to the drug trade, the Drug Enforcement Administration has nonetheless gathered an extensive intelligence file on Rodríguez since 2018 and designated her as a "priority target" in 2022—which the agency does for individuals suspected of having "significant impact" on the drug trade.