Pro-government supporters attend a rally a day after the capture of Nicolas Maduro by US forces on January 4, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: Carlos Becerra/Getty Images
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;