1 day ago

Vanessa BuschschlüterLatin America editor

Reuters

A destroyed anti-aircraft unit at La Carlota military air base

US President Donald Trump says the US is going to "run" Venezuela "until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition".

It comes after US forces captured the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following strikes on the country.

Maduro and his wife have been brought to the US, where he has been indicted on drug charges in New York.

The strikes inside Venezuela come after a US pressure campaign against the Maduro government, which the Trump administration accuses of flooding the US with drugs and gang members.

Here what has led up to this moment.

Trump on Venezuela: "We are going to run the country"

Why has Trump targeted Venezuela?

Trump blames Nicolás Maduro for the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in the US.

They are among close to eight million Venezuelans estimated to have fled the country's economic crisis and repression since 2013.

Without providing evidence, Trump has accused Maduro of "emptying his prisons and insane asylums" and "forcing" its inmates to migrate to the US.

Trump has also focused on fighting the influx of drugs - especially fentanyl and cocaine - into the US.

He has designated two Venezuelan criminal groups - Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles - as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and has alleged that the latter is led by Maduro himself.

Analysts have pointed out that Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but a term used to describe corrupt officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through Venezuela.

Trump had also doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro's capture and has announced that he would designate the Maduro government as an FTO.

Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and has accused the US of using its "war on drugs" as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela's vast oil reserves.

How has the US ramped up pressure on Venezuela?

There has been a build up of pressure on the Maduro government since Trump began his second term in office last January.

First, the Trump administration doubled the reward it offered for information leading to the capture of Maduro.

In September, US forces began targeting vessels it accused of carrying drugs from South America to the US.

There have been more than 30 strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific since then, killing more than 110 people.

The Trump administration argues that it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers, whom it accuses of conducting irregular warfare against the US.

Many legal experts say the strikes are not against "lawful military targets". The first attack - on 2 September - has drawn particular scrutiny as there was not one but two strikes, with survivors of the first hit killed in the second.

A former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court told the BBC that the US military campaign more generally fell into the category of a planned, systematic attack against civilians during peacetime.

In response, the White House said it had acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect the US from cartels "trying to bring poison to our shores... destroying American lives".

Back in October, Trump said he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.

He also threatened strikes on land against what he described as "narco-terrorists".

He said that the first of such strikes had been carried out on 24 December, though he gave little detail, just stating that it had targeted a "dock area" where boats alleged to carry drugs where being loaded.

Prior to Maduro's capture, Trump repeatedly said that Maduro "is no friend of the US" and that it would be "smart for him to go".

He also increased the financial pressure on Maduro by declaring a "total naval blockade" on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. Oil is the main source of foreign revenue for the Maduro government.

The US has also deployed a huge military force in the Caribbean, whose stated aim is to stop the flow of fentanyl and cocaine to the US.

As well as targeting vessels they accuse of smuggling drugs, the force has also played a key role in the US naval blockade.

Is Venezuela flooding the US with drugs?

Counternarcotic experts say that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in global drug trafficking, acting as a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled.

Its neighbour, Colombia, is the world's largest producer of cocaine but most of it is thought to enter the US by other routes, not via Venezuela.

According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report from 2020, almost three quarters of the cocaine reaching the US is estimated to be trafficked via the Pacific with just a small percentage coming via fast boats in the Caribbean.

While most of the early strikes the US has carried out were in the Caribbean, more recent ones have focused on the Pacific.

In September, Trump told US military leaders that the boats targeted "are stacked up with bags of white powder that's mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too".

Fentanyl is a synthetic drug which is 50 times more potent than heroin and has become the main drug responsible for opioid overdose deaths in the US.

On 15 December, Trump signed an executive order designating fentanyl as a "weapon of mass destruction", arguing that it was "closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic".

However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border.

Venezuela is not mentioned as a country of origin for fentanyl smuggled into the US in the DEA's 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment.

How did Maduro rise to power?

Reuters

Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, succeeded Chávez and has been president since 2013.

During the 26 years that Chávez and Maduro have been in power, their party has gained control of key institutions including the National Assembly, much of the judiciary, and the electoral council.

In 2024, Maduro was declared winner of the presidential election, even though voting tallies collected by the opposition suggested that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won by a landslide.

González had replaced the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, on the ballot after she was barred from running for office.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for "her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy".

Machado defied a travel ban and made her way to Oslo in December to collect the award after months in hiding.

She said that she planned to return to Venezuela, a move which would put her at risk of arrest by the Venezuelan authorities, who have declared her a "fugitive".

How big is the force the US has deployed in the Caribbean?

US Navy/Reuters

The USS Gerald Ford played a key role when the US seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast

The US has deployed 15,000 troops and a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

Among the US flotilla is the USS Gerald Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier.

US helicopters reportedly took off from it before US forces seized an oil tanker off Venezuela on 10 December.

The US said the tanker had been "used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran". Venezuela described the action as an act of "international piracy".

Since then, the US has targeted two more tankers in waters off Venezuela.

Trump said after Saturday's strikes that the "American armada remains poised in position".

How much oil does Venezuela export, and who buys it?

Maduro has long accused the Trump administration of attempting to depose him so the US could gain control of Venezuela's oil riches, pointing to a remark Trump made after the US seized the first oil tanker off Venezuela's coast.

When quizzed by reporters as to what would happen with the tanker and its cargo, he said: "I assume we're going to keep the oil."

However, US officials have previously denied Venezuela's allegations that moves against Maduro's government were an attempt to secure access to the country's untapped reserves.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves and profits from the oil sector finance more than half of its government budget.

However, its exports have been hit by sanctions and a lack of investment and mismanagement within Venezuela's state-run oil company.

In 2023, Venezuela produced only 0.8% of global crude oil, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

It currently exports about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer.