Maduro Out, Chevron In

If you squint hard enough, the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces looks less like a coup and more like a petrol-price policy wrapped in camouflage. 

Trump, never one to hide his priorities, seems to be saying: inflation is the enemy, oil is the cure, and Venezuela just happens to be sitting on the medicine cabinet. 

The Reuters report below gives the news; what follows is the uncomfortable, ironic, and occasionally absurd aftertaste.

Venezuela's Maduro in custody, Trump says US will run the country

By Susan Heavey and Jana Winter

January 4, 2026

Summary

• US launched attack on Venezuela, captured leader Maduro
• Trump says US to run Venezuela until a 'safe, proper and judicious transition'
• Trump says he is not afraid of putting 'boots on the ground'
• Maduro arrived in the US Saturday evening, hearing scheduled for Monday
• Global leaders urge adherence to international law, some criticize Maduro regime

CARACAS/NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was in a New York detention center on Sunday after President Donald Trump ordered an audacious U.S. raid to capture the South American leader and take control of the country and its vast oil reserves.

As part of the dramatic operation early on Saturday that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations, U.S. Special Forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and transported them via helicopter to a U.S. Navy ship offshore before flying them to the U.S.

"We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

For months, his administration criticized Maduro, 63, over what it called his involvement in shipping drugs to the U.S. It ramped up pressure with a massive military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats.

POTENTIAL POWER VACUUM IN VENEZUELA

While many Western allies oppose Maduro and say he stole Venezuela's 2024 election, Trump's boasts about controlling the nation and exploiting its oil revived painful memories of past U.S. interventions in Latin America, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some legal experts questioned the legality of an operation to seize the head of state of a foreign power, while Democrats who said they were misled during recent Congress briefings demanded a plan for what is to follow.

Trump said as part of the takeover, major U.S. oil companies would move back into Venezuela, which has the world's largest oil reserves, and refurbish badly degraded oil infrastructure, a process experts said could take years.

He said he was open to sending U.S. forces into Venezuela. "We're not afraid of boots on the ground," he said.

A plane carrying Maduro landed near New York City on Saturday night, and he was helicoptered to the city before being taken by a large convoy to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn under a heavy police guard.

Images released by U.S. authorities showed the leader handcuffed and blindfolded during the flight, and later being led down a hallway at the offices of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was heard wishing a "happy New Year."

Indicted on various federal charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, Maduro expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Monday, according to a Justice Department official.

It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela. U.S. forces have no control over the country, and Maduro's government appears not only to still be in charge but to have no appetite for cooperating with Washington.

Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on Venezuelan television on Saturday afternoon with other top officials to decry what she called a kidnapping.

“We demand the immediate release of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores," Rodriguez said, calling Maduro "the only president of Venezuela." A Venezuelan court ordered Rodriguez to assume the position of interim president.

RECALLING PAST REGIME CHANGES

Trump did not say who will lead Venezuela when the U.S. cedes control, but appeared to rule out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, widely seen as Maduro's most credible opponent.

"She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country," he said.

In Venezuela, the streets were mostly calm after a rush for groceries and fuel. Soldiers patrolled some parts and small pro-Maduro crowds gathered in Caracas.

Others expressed relief. "I'm happy, I doubted for a moment that it was happening because it's like a movie," said merchant Carolina Pimentel, 37, in the city of Maracay.

Many Venezuelan migrants around the world erupted in celebration.

"We are free. We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country," said Khaty Yanez, who lives in the Chilean capital Santiago, one of an estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans - 20% of the population - who have left the country since 2014.

The U.N. Security Council planned to meet on Monday to discuss the actions, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as "a dangerous precedent." Russia and China, both major backers of Venezuela, criticized the U.S.

"China firmly opposes such hegemonic behavior by the U.S., which seriously violates international law, violates Venezuela's sovereignty and threatens peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean," China's foreign ministry said.

Trump's comments about an open-ended military presence in Venezuela echoed the rhetoric around past invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which ended in American withdrawals after years of costly occupation and thousands of U.S. casualties.

A U.S. occupation "won't cost us a penny" because the United States would be reimbursed from the "money coming out of the ground," Trump said, referring to Venezuela's oil reserves, a subject he returned to repeatedly during Saturday's press conference.

Trump’s focus on foreign affairs provides fuel for Democrats to criticize him ahead of midterm congressional elections in November, when control of both houses of Congress is at stake, with Republicans controlling both by narrow margins.

Opinion polls show the top concern for voters is high prices at home, not foreign policy.

Trump also runs the risk of alienating some of his own supporters, who have backed his "America First" agenda and oppose foreign interventions.

Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by William Mallard

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Let’s start with America’s track record. The United States is very good at breaking things. Fixing them? That’s more of a “Phase Two” problem, usually subcontracted to chaos. 

From Iraq to Libya, the sales pitch is familiar: bad guy removed, people liberated, democracy incoming. The delivery often includes militias, smuggling rings, ISIS franchises, and PowerPoint presentations explaining why this was “unavoidable.”

From the American perspective, the moral case against Maduro is well rehearsed: a fraudulent election, three decades of alleged corruption, narco-terrorism claims, and a country hollowed out by kleptocracy. 

In that narrative, removing Maduro is not an invasion but a public service announcement with helicopters. International law? Borders? Those are footnotes when the villain is clearly labelled.

Yet comparisons matter. Manuel Noriega was removed under a rule-based order framework, with at least the fig leaf of international consensus and congressional involvement. 

This time, Congress appears to have been left on “read.” No Gang of Eight briefing, no serious UN choreography.  It looks less like Panama 1989 and more like a late-night police operation justified after the fact.

Supporters argue this is no different from Honduras, where a former president was eventually jailed for drug trafficking. 

Critics reply that indictments are not blank cheques for military extraction. The troubling question is consistency: if this logic applies to Maduro, how many other leaders are suddenly auditioning for a dawn raid?

And then there is the Libya problem. Regime change is always sold as “long-term good for the people.” Libya was supposed to be that story too. Instead, it became a cautionary tale taught in whispers: once the lid comes off, you don’t control what crawls out. 

Iraq, with its Wolfowitz–Cheney–Rumsfeld pedigree, didn’t exactly end as advertised either.

Marco Rubio insists this isn’t regime change, just a drug case. That would be more convincing if Trump hadn’t casually announced that the U.S. will now “run Venezuela.” 

If America is running the country, will Venuzuela's opposition leaders- González and Machado be back? Will the Venezuelan military stick with the currently in Moscow Vice President, or discover a sudden enthusiasm for cooperation? 

And will it be less corrupt under foreign management, or merely corrupt in better English?

History suggests a dangerous pattern: remove the leader, realise the vacuum is worse, decide to “temporarily” administer the country. Temporary, of course, tends to last until the next election cycle. 

Venezuela has many people who profited from the shadow economy; they are unlikely to retire quietly because Chevron has arrived with a clipboard.

Which brings us to responsibility. If the U.S. is running Venezuela, does it pay the military? Police the streets? Fix electricity? Own the consequences? 

This starts to look less like a raid and more like a hostile takeover with ongoing maintenance costs.

Geopolitically, the ripples are obvious. Russia and China are watching closely. If Venezuela is declared a U.S. backyard where all major trade requires American permission, what does that say about Ukraine or Taiwan? 

Spheres of influence are apparently back in fashion. Taiwan, the Baltics, even Finland may be wondering whether “rules-based order” has been quietly retired.

And yes, it’s about oil. “Maduro out, Chevron in” is not subtle. Gasoline at USD3 a gallon in San Francisco — unseen in seven years — is a powerful campaign ad. 

Trump knows tariffs may be shot down by the Supreme Court; cheap oil is inflation relief that doesn’t require judicial approval. Democrats who think this is impulsive miss the point: it’s brutally transactional.

Domestically, the reaction is oddly muted. MAGA cheers the projection of power. Democrats grumble about authority and process but seem unsure how loudly to object. U.S. troops in harm’s way usually trigger outrage; this time, the personality cult buffers it. 

JD Vance is conspicuously quiet, while Rubio’s ideological instincts — especially on Cuba and socialism — are fully engaged.

Will this help Venezuelans? Maybe. Or maybe it will simply rearrange who hijacks the country’s wealth. 

Trump loves headlines and show of strength; long-term nation-building is someone else’s problem. The world, as always, is not black and white — but it is increasingly run on oil prices.

Maduro is gone. Chevron is in. The rest of us are left to wonder who’s next — and who’s paying the bill.