Trump Ordered U.S. Military Operation to Capture Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores

Details

On January 3, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that U.S. military forces conducted an operation in Venezuela resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. U.S. officials stated that Maduro and Flores were taken into U.S. custody and transported to the United States in connection with federal criminal charges.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice indictment from the Southern District of New York, Maduro and Flores face charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons-related offenses. Prosecutors allege that Maduro led a drug trafficking organization known as the Cartel de los Soles ("Cartel of the Suns"), conspiring with the FARC and other groups to import cocaine into the United States while using military-grade weapons to protect the operation.

Operational Details

According to The New York Times reporting, the operation—dubbed "Operation Absolute Resolve"—involved extensive planning and intelligence gathering:

• CIA Presence: A clandestine CIA team entered Venezuela in August 2025, remaining undetected for months while gathering intelligence on Maduro's daily movements and routines
• Military Assets: More than 150 military aircraft participated, including drones, fighter planes, and bombers, launched from 20 different military bases and Navy ships
• Execution: Delta Force commandos conducted a pre-dawn raid on Saturday, successfully extracting Maduro with no American fatalities

An inside account of the decision-making behind the operation arrived in June 2026 with Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump (Penguin Press, June 24, 2026), by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. According to an Associated Press preview published June 18, the book — written with unprecedented access to the second-term White House and drawing on extensive interviews, including with Trump himself — recounts the administration's internal deliberations over the military operation against Maduro. The AP presented that account as part of the book's larger portrait of a president who has moved "from hunted to hunter" in a sustained push to test the limits of executive power, with the internal guardrails of the first term removed. The White House dismissed the book, and the authors discussed their reporting on PBS NewsHour.

Casualties

According to The New York Times, at least 40 people were killed in the operation, including military personnel and civilians, while approximately six U.S. soldiers were injured.

Public Opinion

American Opinion:
Polling data shows Americans overwhelmingly oppose military intervention in Venezuela. A December Quinnipiac poll found 63% opposed U.S. military action in Venezuela, with only 25% in support. Additionally, 75% of Americans, including 58% of Republicans, believe the president must get congressional approval before taking military action in Venezuela.

Venezuelan Opinion:
Polling conducted for The Economist by Premise surveyed 600 Venezuelan residents following the operation. The results show strong support among Venezuelans for Maduro's removal: only 13% opposed his capture, and more than half said their opinion of America improved after the raid. Nearly four in five Venezuelans believe the political situation will be better in a year.

However, Venezuelan preferences diverge sharply from the Trump administration's plans. While almost half support some form of American governance temporarily, two-thirds want new elections, with 91% of those wanting them within a year. More than a third believe Edmundo González, who won the disputed 2024 election, should take office immediately. Only 10% support Vice President Delcy Rodríguez completing Maduro's term, despite Trump's backing of her as interim leader.

Market Response:
The Caracas Stock Exchange experienced a dramatic rally following Maduro's capture. According to Trading Economics, Venezuela's main stock market index climbed 231% over the month following the operation, with the benchmark reaching record highs before pulling back. The rally reflects investor optimism about potential sanctions relief, the return of international oil companies, and economic reconstruction. An investment firm filed paperwork to create the first ETF focused on Venezuela-listed equities just two days after Maduro's capture.

Congressional Response

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) condemned the operation as unlawful and called on Congress to check Trump's war powers, stating "The Constitution is unambiguous: Congress has the power and responsibility to authorize the use of military force and declare war."

Democrats broadly condemned the action as violating international law and lacking congressional authorization. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries demanded immediate briefings and called for "compelling evidence to explain and justify this unauthorized use of military force."

Republicans largely supported the operation, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune calling it "an important first step to bring [Maduro] to justice for drug crimes." However, some Republicans dissented, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who questioned its constitutionality, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who criticized the focus on Venezuela over Mexico.

Among conservative commentators, Richard Hanania endorsed the operation, arguing that Maduro's governance was so catastrophic—with Venezuela's GDP falling 75% under his rule—that regime change represented "a good calculated risk" despite uncertainties about the country's future.

Legal Analysis

The legality of the operation remains contested, according to Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith, who served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush.

International Law:
The operation appears to violate the U.N. Charter's Article 2(4), which prohibits "the use of force against the territorial integrity" of any state. However, this violation carries no domestic legal implications and lacks enforcement mechanisms.

U.S. Domestic Law:
Goldsmith identifies two key precedents that could support the operation's legality under U.S. law:

1. 1989 Barr Opinion: Then-Assistant Attorney General Bill Barr issued an opinion (six months before the Panama invasion) concluding that the FBI's statutory arrest authority authorizes extraterritorial arrests even when they violate customary international law and impinge on other countries' sovereignty

2. Unit Self-Defense: The use of force can be justified to "protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant"—a form of Article II self-defense with a long lineage, often invoked when U.S. troops face "hostile acts or demonstrated hostile intent" abroad

Goldsmith notes that while executive branch precedents could support a Justice Department legal opinion justifying the action, this "does not mean that the action is in fact lawful—and it pretty clearly isn't under the U.N. Charter."

Yale Law professor Oona Hathaway, president-elect of the American Society of International Law, agrees the operation violates international law and adds that the administration's self-defense arguments regarding drug trafficking "don't fall within anything that anyone would recognize as self-defense under international law." She emphasizes the operation violates not only the U.N. Charter but also U.S. constitutional law, which requires the President to seek congressional authorization before using force against another country.

The Transition: Six Months On

In the months after the raid, the post-Maduro picture came into clearer focus — and on most measurable indicators it improved, even as the central questions of democracy and sovereignty remained open.

The Rodríguez Government

Rather than install opposition figures, the Trump administration chose to work with Maduro's former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as acting president days after the raid. By April she had reshuffled more than half the cabinet she inherited from Maduro and recast herself as a U.S. ally and a promoter of "democratic coexistence," approving an amnesty law and opening the economy to private capital. On April 1, the U.S. Treasury lifted its sanctions on Rodríguez — the clearest signal yet of Washington's recognition of her as the legitimate authority, allowing her to work more freely with U.S. companies and investors.

Political Prisoner Releases

Rodríguez's government announced on January 8 that it would free a significant number of detainees, a central demand of the opposition and human rights groups. On February 19, the National Assembly unanimously passed an amnesty law, and a lawmaker said 379 prisoners would be released within days; prominent Machado ally Juan Pablo Guanipa was among those freed. By March 8, the NGO Foro Penal had verified 621 releases of an estimated 800-plus political prisoners held before 2026.

The releases came with serious caveats. Those freed are largely not permitted to speak publicly and must report to a judge every 30 days, and human rights organizations described a "revolving door" in which some detainees were released while others were newly arrested. The UN-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela documented at least 87 politically motivated arrests after January 3, said the measures fell short of Venezuela's human rights obligations, and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners. Guanipa himself was briefly re-detained before being placed under house arrest.

Oil and the Economy

The economic opening was rapid. In January, the National Assembly overhauled the Hydrocarbons Law to loosen terms for private oil companies, and in March the Treasury issued a broad authorization allowing PDVSA to sell oil directly to U.S. companies and on global markets. On April 13, Chevron signed an asset swap with PDVSA, raising its stake in the Petroindependencia joint venture to 49% and gaining rights to the Ayacucho 8 block, cementing its position as the country's largest private producer. PDVSA reported production of about 1.095 million barrels per day — up 75,000 from the prior month — and the oil minister set a 1.3 million bpd target for the end of 2026. Analysts at Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy judged that output could plausibly reach pre-2019 levels of around 1.5 million bpd within two years if reforms held.

The Opposition and Elections

The opposition that most observers believe won the 2024 election can now operate in the open, but it has not been brought into power. Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado and former candidate Edmundo González — recognized by the Carter Center, Freedom House, and much of the international community as the legitimate 2024 winner — have publicly pressed for new presidential elections with independent referees and international observation. Machado, speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum on June 2, called for a negotiated transition "without surrender or revenge," and has insisted she intends to return to Venezuela to run for president. She has also argued the Rodríguez government remains an "illegitimate power" whose acts have "no legality" absent free elections, and said the opposition is not in contact with that government. As of mid-2026, no election date had been set, and observers reported that Washington was not eager for Machado's rapid return.

Writing in late April, conservative commentator Richard Hanania — who had endorsed the operation from the start — argued that "Venezuela has worked out," citing the prisoner releases, Rodríguez's purge of Maduro loyalists, the space for Machado's supporters to organize, and rising oil flows, and calling Maduro's removal "a heroic thing."

Criticism: Sovereignty and the "Occupation" Debate

The sharpest criticism concerns who controls Venezuela's wealth. A January 9 executive order directed that Venezuelan oil and mining revenues be deposited into U.S. Treasury-administered "Foreign Government Deposit Funds," shielded from creditor claims and disbursed back to Caracas only as Washington approves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Venezuela must submit a "budget request" before it can access the funds. Critics — including former Chavista officials and the left-wing outlets Venezuelanalysis and Truthout — describe the arrangement as a "neocolonial" or "semi-colonial" occupation comparable to U.S. control over Iraq after 2003, noting that the licenses also bar dealings with China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia. Supporters counter that the structure protects the funds for "public sovereign purposes" and underwrites stability during reconstruction. The result is a country materially better off than under Maduro on several fronts, but one whose finances and foreign policy now operate under heavy U.S. supervision, with its democratic transition still pending.