Under Donald Trump’s presidency, USA military launched ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ a large-scale military intervention on Venezuela and captured president Nicolus Maduro on 3rd January this year. This is not any isolated incident, but a result of a long diplomatic & economic pressure of US against Venezuela. Donald Trump gives the excuse of National security and narco-terrorism threat from Venezuela.
The actual root of the tension lies in history, when Venezuela nationalised its oil sector in 1976 and replaced by a state-owned company named Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), provided almost $1 billion dollars of compensation. Although later in 1990’s they allowed foreign companies, but in 2007 president Hugo Chávez demanded all major foreign companies to hand over their major stakes to PDVSA. American Companies like ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips refused and left where companies like Chevron, Statoil and BP continued their operation by agreeing on a minor stake. Combined with the Venezuela’s closeness towards Russia, China and Iran and an anti-USA foreign policy alerted USA.
Between 2012 to 2017 oil prices dropped significantly due to that revenue also fells but when after 2017 oil prices starts rising still Venezuelan economy could not recover due to sanctions of US, and this created a deep economic crisis in Venezuela. Whether the Maduro govt was affected by these sanctions or not is still a question but normal civilians faced critical situation, crippling private sector capacity to import food, medicine and goods essential for survival. The country was isolated from international economic commerce and its people couldn’t get any opportunity.
Beginning in august 2017 Trump administration imposed economic sanctions against Venezuela’s economy followed by prohibiting Venezuelan govt access to US financial markets and bond trading, in may 2018 Ban on purchasing Venezuelan debt and in January 2019 a comprehensive oil embargo freezing PDVSA’s $7 billion in US assets, also stopped exporting naphtha (a critical chemical to refine heavy crude) to Venezuela. Venezuelan govt claimed sanctions cost $30 billion dollars of loss annually.
Geopolitical experts also mention two other factors for this escalation. First one is Monroe Doctrine, by which US need to maintain it’s strong hold in Americas for its own national security. But many South American countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil are getting out of US’s hand by allying with Russia & China. Second reason is current domestic pressure- Increasing Inflation, Epstein file and other factors decreased Donald Trump’s approval rating and US’s mid-term election is also near. So many experts saying this sudden escalation is to undermine domestic issues and propagate about National security threat.
In Trump 2.0, since beginning Trump and his adviser Stephen Miller pushed their propaganda by declaring Venezuela’s oil nationalisation as ‘theft’ of American resources, also alleged president Maduro as an illegitimate president and a supporter of narco-terrorism against US. Although according to the experts, these claims were simply just an excuse to legitimate their aggression against Venezuela, as there are not sufficient proofs of their claims.
US pressure escalated from September 2025 when US strikes against Venezuelan boats allegedly transporting drugs, following seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers in December to destabilize its exports. On January 3 2026 US’s operation breached Venezuelan air space, disabled air defence system and radars, bombed military and civilian establishments in Caracas & captured Maduro, extracted him to US via helicopter with fighter jets’ protection.
This unilateral action of US raises serious concern about whether the international law is actually maintained or not by big powers. This also creates a way where other powerful countries may try to do same against any weak nation under the disguise of ‘National security’.