For decades, Venezuela’s transformation under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro was not just a national tragedy—it was a regional and global security emergency. What began as populist politics devolved into kleptocracy, terror facilitation, and a nexus of Islamist extremist collaboration with Iranian terror networks. The United States, warned repeatedly by policymakers and intelligence officials, ultimately acted—and rightly so.
For years, the Venezuelan state’s weakening institutions and corrupt elite created fertile ground for transnational criminal and extremist networks. Senior U.S. officials repeatedly highlighted how Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah found safe haven within Venezuela’s porous security apparatus. These networks used Venezuela’s state infrastructure to support financing and operations, embedding themselves within illicit economies that fueled extremist objectives and threatened regional stability. U.S. media reporting cited intelligence officials describing the regime’s permissive environment as “exploited by Iran to embed terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” and used as a logistics corridor for broader terror activism.
Senior U.S. officials repeatedly highlighted how Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah found safe haven within Venezuela’s porous security apparatus.
Meanwhile, the Maduro regime served not only ideological allies but also criminal enterprises that funded terror and destabilization. U.S. authorities designated two major criminal networks—the Cartel of the Suns (Cartel de los Soles) and Tren de Aragua as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, underscoring how the cartel state and terror facilitation had become entwined. U.S. Department of the Treasury reporting states that the Cartel of the Suns provides “material support” to terrorist groups and traffics drugs into the United States and Europe, even as it served to undermine democratic order in Venezuela.
Taken together, these dynamics created something unprecedented in the Western Hemisphere: a petro‑state that was simultaneously a narco‑terror pipeline, a safe harbor for extremist networks, and a strategic foothold for Iranian influence. This was the culmination of years of Chávez’s and Maduro’s policies that collapsed public services, enabled corruption at all levels, and weaponized Venezuelan resources against democratic norms across the region.
In response, U.S. policy evolved from threats to decisive pressure. Beginning with sanctions during the Trump administration, the U.S. government targeted Maduro and his enablers repeatedly. As early as 2017, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Maduro himself under Executive Order 13692, freezing assets he held in U.S. jurisdictions and barring Americans from transacting with him—a rare rebuke against a sitting head of state.
Over subsequent years, the Trump administration expanded this “maximum pressure” campaign. In 2025, it sanctioned high‑level Venezuelan officials responsible for repression, undermining elections, and subverting democracy. These sanctions targeted key military, oil, and security leaders who enabled Maduro’s authoritarian grip and enriched his inner circle while the Venezuelan people suffered.
Trump also rolled back the limited sanctions relief granted under the previous administration, terminating a Biden‑era oil export license that allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela, citing Maduro’s failure to enact democratic reforms and accept accountability.
As pressure mounted, the Trump administration broadened its actions beyond financial and diplomatic tools. Beginning in late 2025, U.S. forces conducted a series of targeted strikes against vessels allegedly tied to narcotics trafficking and narco‑terror networks in the Caribbean—a campaign framed as both counter-drug and counter-terrorism operations. Analysts described these as the U.S. military’s first publicly acknowledged military strikes in South or Central America in decades.
The United States framed the action as a law‑enforcement and security necessity against narco‑terrorism and corruption,
In the final escalation, a U.S. operation on January 3, 2026, resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, a culmination of the multi‑layered policy campaign. The United States framed the action as a law‑enforcement and security necessity against narco‑terrorism and corruption, not mere regime change. Regional governments and international actors reacted variously, but the thrust of U.S. justification centers on confronting an illegitimate, criminal regime that had become a threat not just to Venezuelans but to hemispheric stability.
Critics in international institutions question the legal frameworks for such an operation, but the U.S. government maintains its actions were taken in defense of regional security and in pursuit of justice for decades of narco‑violent abuses tied to Maduro’s inner circle.
What past U.S. administrations threatened—isolating Maduro through sanctions and diplomatic pressure—the Trump administration executed. It showed that “maximum pressure” tools, including economic sanctions, legal indictments, and targeted operations, could dismantle entrenched criminal regimes that harm not just their own populations but also neighboring nations and the United States.
Today, Venezuela faces a crossroads. The removal of a terror‑enabling regime opens a pathway for democratic governance, reconstruction, and reintegration into the community of free nations. Venezuelans win as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah lose. For the United States, this moment vindicates decades of policy focus and underscores the imperative of confronting authoritarian kleptocracies that enable terror networks and destabilize the democratic order.
