This opinion piece analyses the tensions between Venezuela, Trump and Europe. Written by Cesar Sabs, a Venezuelan expert with a Master’s degree in International Relations and Security Policy—it depicts the brutal reality of a world where sovereignty seems to be nothing more than an optional concept for Washington. By reviving the Monroe Doctrine in a radical form, Donald Trump is no longer content to rule his “backyard”: he is redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable.
For Europe, this precedent is an existential warning. Between predatory pressure on Greenland’s resources and the stated desire to divide the nations of the continent to better establish transactional domination, the spectre of a break-up of the European Union looms large.
3 January 2026 was no ordinary day in the Venezuelan calendar. It was the date on which the fundamental principle of national sovereignty was brutally violated. Venezuela woke up, and the world with it, to surreal, Dantean images: columns of smoke rising from strategic points in Caracas, the dull rumble of targeted explosions, and the ominous buzz of US Special Forces Apache and Black Hawk combat helicopters cutting through the Caracas sky. The news, first reported by anonymous accounts on social media and then confirmed by official statements, shook the foundations of international law: the incumbent President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been captured in a lightning military operation carried out by the United States.
This act of war, presented by the Trump administration as an “operation against narco-terrorism”, was in fact the culmination of a two-year campaign of narrative construction, economic pressure and military escalation. It was not a spontaneous event, but the logical and premeditated result of a strategy that, by intertwining myths, half-truths and geopolitical ambitions, always sought to justify the unjustifiable: direct intervention for regime change and the economic recolonisation of a sovereign country.
The Construction of the Perfect Enemy (2024-2025): From the “Tren de Aragua” to the “Narco-State”
Any major show of force requires the creation of a legitimate enemy. For Donald Trump’s political machine upon his return to the presidential stage in 2024, Venezuela offered a multifaceted and convenient target. The narrative was built on two intertwined pillars, both amplified by sectors of the Venezuelan opposition in exile and Cuban-American congressmen from Florida.
The first pillar was the criminalisation of Venezuelan migration. During the 2024 campaign, Trump resurrected and amplified to the extreme the figure of the “Tren de Aragua”, a criminal gang originating in Venezuela and present in several countries in the region. In his speeches, the narrative was simplified and distorted to the point of transforming hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, mostly hard-working families fleeing the economic crisis, into a monolithic threat linked to this organisation. This generalised association allowed him to justify one of his first measures in 2025: the mass cancellation of protective immigration statuses (such as TPS or Parole) implemented under the Biden administration, sealing the fate of thousands of people and sending a clear message: Venezuelans were, by association, potential criminals.
The second pillar, older and rooted in certain circles of power in Washington, was the myth of the “Cartel of the Suns”. For more than a decade, the idea was promoted that Venezuela had turned into a “narco-state”, where senior military officials and government figures were running an institutionalised drug cartel. Despite the fact that annual reports from the DEA and the UN consistently indicate that the main route for cocaine entering the United States is via the Pacific (controlled by Mexican and Colombian cartels, with a stopover in Central America), and that Venezuela, with no access to the Pacific, is a secondary route, the narrative took hold in Republican discourse. Trump and his allies skilfully merged the two pillars: the “Tren de Aragua” would be the street-level enforcement arm and the “Cartel of the Suns” the leadership, headed by Maduro.
This discursive construction had a clear political objective: to dehumanise the Venezuelan government and people, presenting them not as political actors with whom one negotiates, but as a transnational criminal organisation against which one must “wage war”. It was the perfect pretext for actions that would otherwise violate all international norms.
From Sanctions to Blockades: The Strategy of Asphyxiation and Modern Piracy
Trump’s relationship with Venezuela was not new. His first term (2017-2021) was marked by a failed attempt at regime change through extreme sanctions and the recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president”. These sanctions, described by the UN and humanitarian organisations as “collective punishment”, paralysed oil exports, prevented financial transactions and blocked imports of food and medicine, plunging the country into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that exacerbated migration. In 2023, in a revealing act of cynicism, Trump expressed regret that he had not gone “all the way” to “take all of Venezuela’s oil”.
When he began his second term in 2025, Trump did not repeat exactly the same formula. He allowed the American oil company Chevron to continue operating in Venezuela, a gesture not of goodwill, but of corporate pragmatism. But the pressure took on a new and more aggressive form.
First, after the cancellation of migration programmes, came military escalation. In mid-2025, a gradual deployment of the US Navy began in the Caribbean, based in Puerto Rico. The operational point of no return was reached in September 2025. A US Reaper drone bombed and sank a small boat in international waters near the Venezuelan coast, accused of transporting drugs. Eleven people died without any attempt at interception or positive identification. This was a unilateral and extrajudicial act of force that ushered in a new phase: the “preventive war” against drug trafficking, in which the United States granted itself the right to attack any “suspicious” vessel. Trump even mocked this publicly, claiming that his attacks had deterred local fishermen, leaving coastal communities without a livelihood.
The escalation culminated in December 2025 with an act of modern piracy: the naval blockade of Venezuelan oil exports. The US Navy began to board, seize and divert oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude to destinations such as China, India and Cuba, on the pretext that they were violating unilateral sanctions. Trump declared that all Venezuelan oil destined for destinations other than the United States was “subject to seizure on the high seas”. The stolen crude was then sold, and the funds retained. This policy was aimed not only at economically strangling the government, but also at forcibly redirecting the flow of this strategic resource to US soil, cutting Caracas’ economic ties with its allies. At the same time, the Maduro government was formally designated a “transnational terrorist organisation” by the Trump administration, paving the legal and political way for more drastic action.
3 January 2026: The Incursion and the State Abduction
The dawn of 3 January 2026 was the culmination of the accumulated tension. Despite assurances given by the Trump administration to a wary Congress that it would not attack Venezuelan territory without authorisation, the operation was launched. It was an illegal military attack, without a declaration of war, without a mandate from the UN Security Council and without a casus belli recognised by international law (the capture of a head of state for alleged crimes does not justify an invasion).
The operation, presumably based on intelligence from infiltrated special forces and supported by cyber attacks to neutralise defences, focused on key targets in Caracas and possibly on the coast, to distract and isolate. The reported bombings, although limited in scope, sought to create chaos and paralyse a coordinated response. The main objective was clear: to capture President Maduro. In a precision operation, Delta or SEAL forces located and captured him and his wife, then extracted them by helicopter to an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean.
According to initial reports, the death toll was around 80 people, including Venezuelan soldiers who responded to the attack and, most likely, civilians caught in the crossfire or diversionary attacks. The message was as clear as it was frightening: the United States reserved the right to enter any country militarily, remove its leaders and try them according to its own laws. It was the doctrine of the “war on terror” taken to its most extreme logical conclusion: the very negation of national sovereignty.
“Quasi-Colonisation”: The New Order under Vice-President Rodríguez
With Maduro removed and transferred to a base in the United States to stand trial on charges of drug trafficking and terrorism (charges that, in this context, would be perceived as a legal travesty by much of the world), power fell, constitutionally, to Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez. But her “interim” government was born under the boot of a foreign power.
The US Navy did not withdraw from the Caribbean Sea. On the contrary, its presence became permanent, ensuring control of maritime traffic. In the days that followed, under unsustainable military and economic pressure, Rodríguez’s government was forced to sign an “agreement” that constitutes the manual for economic colonisation in the 21st century:
1. Oil Monopoly: Venezuela will only be able to export its oil to the United States. 2. Disguised Confiscation: Payment for the oil will be made "at market price", but the funds will remain frozen in US accounts under the control of the Trump administration. 3. Commercial Colonialism: These funds may only be used to purchase exclusively American products and services. 4. Geopolitical Isolation: The United States demands the severing of alliances with Russia and China, and distancing from initiatives such as BRICS.
This mechanism transforms Venezuela into a captive oil factory. It produces wealth, but this wealth is immediately confiscated and recycled into the economy of the colonial power, which also secures a captive market for its goods. This is “free market imperialism” imposed by force of arms, a crude return to the model of relations between metropolis and colony.
A Dangerous Precedent and Complicit Silence
The events of 3 January 2026 and their consequences represent a deep wound in the international order. By removing a head of state, the United States has legitimised the law of the strongest as the guiding principle of relations between nations. It has proclaimed itself global judge, jury and executioner, openly practising piracy and economic colonialism. The fact that Nicolás Maduro is a controversial figure internationally is irrelevant in the face of the principle of sovereignty; tomorrow, it could be the leader of any country challenging Washington’s interests.
The final twist, with Shakespearean cynicism, is that Trump preferred to come to terms with decapitated Chavism (with Delcy Rodríguez administering the country on his behalf) rather than with the Venezuelan opposition, which had been begging for this intervention for years. The opposition was used to construct the narrative and then discarded, as it had no real control over the territory or institutions. Chavism’s “anti-imperialism”, for its part, was forced to manage the country’s submission to the empire. This is a historic defeat for both internal camps and a Pyrrhic victory for an imperial project that is showing its ugliest face.
The darkest aspect of this whole story is the “complete silence of the international community” mentioned in the original text. The absence of unanimous and firm condemnation, the lack of real sanctions against the United States, and the paralysis of multilateral forums such as the UN confirm a unipolar world where power can act with impunity. Venezuela woke up on 3 January 2026 not only with its president captured, but with proof that the rules protecting small states from large ones had been abolished, perhaps forever. The precedent has been set, and its echo will resonate in the capitals of all countries that dare to follow a sovereign path.
He does not believe in international law and has a deep contempt for liberal institutions. His behaviour does not even resemble that of an autocrat like Putin or Xi Jinping. Trump is transforming the United States into a new Mongol empire that will rule its relations with other countries by force, and his next victim will be Europe, as he has already made clear in his National Security Strategy published in November 2025.
