On Saturday, President Trump ordered the capture and arrest of Nicolas Maduro. The American military successfully extradited the Venezuelan leader to New York, where he awaits trial in federal court.
While skeptics charge that Trump is simply making an oil grab, the facts paint a different picture. America’s intervention in Venezuela could enhance U.S. security, liberate an oppressed nation, and expand freedom in our hemisphere.
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Let’s review those facts—and examine why critics’ objections don’t hold up.
The United States has previously identified Maduro as part of a criminal conspiracy. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Maduro and senior figures in his circle with narcoterrorism and related offenses, alleging large-scale cocaine trafficking and collaboration with FARC, a Marxist guerilla group. In November 2025, the State Department designated Cartel de los Soles, a criminal organization headed by Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelans, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Under Maduro, Venezuela became a failed narco-state that endangers regional stability and U.S. security. As detailed in the indictment, Maduro’s regime allegedly pumped deadly drugs into our communities and used the profits to entrench his dictatorship.
He has partnered with violent groups to do his bidding. His regime has co-opted gangs like Tren de Aragua—the country’s largest organized crime syndicate, which has wreaked havoc across the Americas—to attack pro-democracy protesters and assassinate his political opponents.
Maduro also gave American adversaries a foothold in the Americas. Russia and China have backed Maduro’s regime as a wedge against American influence and pledged solidarity with Maduro upon his arrest. Iran and Cuba also have deep ties to Caracas, from Iranian oil smugglers to Cuban security personnel embedded in Venezuela. Keeping Maduro in power would have allowed these hostile nations to establish a base of operations in the Americas, clearly violating the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine.
Finally, the Maduro–Hugo Chávez regime has sown division within America by funding radical groups. Chávez reportedly called for creating a leftist “fifth column” within America to “thwart U.S. policy.” Indeed, a Venezuelan defector revealed that Chávez gave at least $20 million in cash to a Black Lives Matter founder in 2012 to help project his “Bolivarian revolution” onto U.S. streets. Maduro also appeared with a BLM founder and later met with three members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Intervening in Venezuela not only neutralizes threats to the United States; it could also expand freedom and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere.
Venezuela was once one of Latin America’s most prosperous democracies. Under Maduro’s socialist kleptocracy, however, it has become a horror show of human suffering, with chronic food shortages, collapsed hospitals, and one of the worst peacetime economic contractions ever recorded. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014—the largest exodus in Latin American history.
A change in leadership could reverse those patterns. Most Venezuelan exiles desperately want to return to their homeland if it becomes safe and free. Most Venezuelan migrants in Panama, for example, expressed a desire to come home.
A free Venezuela could also give America a newly prosperous trading partner. Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves and was once a major oil supplier to the U.S. Its abundant natural resources—oil, gas, minerals, fertile agricultural land—are now largely off the global market due to Maduro’s mismanagement and the sanctions on his regime.
Venezuela once had the world’s fourth-highest GDP per capita. Historically, Venezuela and the U.S. enjoyed a flourishing trade relationship. That could happen again with the right leadership.
Capturing Maduro also advances the cause of liberty in Latin America. It sends a message to other would-be dictators that the United States will not tolerate tyranny in our hemisphere. It could embolden pro-democracy movements in Cuba and Nicaragua, regimes with which Maduro was closely allied.
Venezuelans have tried every peaceful, democratic means to restore their freedom, to no avail. The most recent presidential election, in July 2024, was won in a landslide by Maduro’s opponent, Edmundo González. Since then, Maduro has jailed, exiled, or silenced nearly all prominent opposition leaders. González himself was hit with an arrest warrant and had to flee into exile.
Maduro then continued in power and stole an election, falsifying the results. America’s intervention signals that such corruption will no longer be tolerated.
Despite these pluses, many have denounced Trump’s arrest of Maduro and his strikes on Venezuelan military facilities. Here are some of the most common objections, with an accompanying response.
Trump just wants Venezuela’s oil. If President Trump were interested only in oil, he wouldn’t need to intervene militarily at all. In fact, recent reports revealed that Maduro offered Trump everything—including control over Venezuela’s vast oil wealth—in exchange for staying in power. Trump flatly rejected the deal. Similarly, Trump could have continued Biden’s license for Chevron to sell Venezuelan oil. Instead, the administration tightened the screws—imposing a total blockade last year on sanctioned oil tankers coming into and leaving Venezuela.
Intervention will trigger mass migration. In fact, Maduro’s rule has fueled a mass exodus of refugees; deposing him is the key to stopping that flow. Freeing Venezuela and achieving a democratic transition would not create more refugees—on the contrary, it would allow millions to return home. Indeed, many have expressed a desire to return if conditions improve.
It’ll be another Iraq/Afghanistan. If Venezuela were simply the site of another distant civil conflict, skeptics would have a point: America should be cautious about open-ended missions with vague objectives. But Venezuela is not “another endless war.” It is a cartelized state accused of narco-terrorism; a hub that exports organized crime and instability throughout the hemisphere; and the driver of the largest displacement crisis in the Americas. When a regime operates as both a dictatorship and a transnational criminal enterprise, foreign-policy restraint becomes a kind of recklessness: the passive acceptance of an expanding security threat on our doorstep.
Maduro’s Venezuela was a narco-terrorist state exporting cocaine, gangs, and instability to the United States, while inviting America’s adversaries to build influence in our own hemisphere. Removing him is plainly in the national interest. If the next phase is handled with discipline—supporting a democratic transition, targeting the cartel apparatus, and getting economic development moving—Venezuela can once again prosper and trade with the United States.
A hemisphere where Venezuelans can go home; criminals lose sanctuary; China, Russia, and Iran lose one of their greatest assets; and dictators understand that there are consequences for their behavior is not an “interventionist fantasy.” It is what American leadership is supposed to deliver—and so far, President Trump has executed magnificently.
Photo by XNY/Star Max/GC Images