Trump Captures Maduro. Here's What You Need to Know

The United States government has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been captured and flown out of the country. This operation was done in conjunction with US law enforcement. This was a message posted by American President Donald Trump on Saturday, the 3rd of January, at 4.21 AM Eastern Time, announcing to the world that the American government had achieved one of its key objectives, the capture of President

Maduro.

The date is important because 1. It's only a few hours ago, and 2. It's exactly 35 years since the day that American forces captured Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who, like Maduro, had also been accused of drug trafficking and was clinging onto power after a disputed election. In a later interview with Fox News, President Trump announced that Maduro and his wife had

been taken to the USS Iwo Jima, one of the American warships that had been prowling the Caribbean. According to a statement by Attorney General Pam Bondi, they will both be tried in a US court. The announcement came just hours after residents of Caracas, including several CNN correspondents, reported hearing explosions and seeing military aircraft flying overhead.

According to the correspondents, the first blast they witnessed happened at 12.50am Eastern Time, which means that in barely three hours, American forces had captured a sitting head of state and evacuated him from his country. I'll say that again. This entire operation took just three and a half hours. So because 2026 has decided to get off to an insane start, hence why I'm here on a Saturday afternoon, let's examine what we know, what we don't know and what this attack

means for the wider region. Let's start with what we know as the time of around 4 PM Central European Time. 4.15! We're getting this out! On Friday, the 2nd of January, President Maduro appeared on state television while meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials in Caracas.

This was the last time he would be seen in public. A few hours later, the strikes began. A local journalist who spoke with NPR reported hearing two explosions at La Colota Military Airport, the main airbase in Caracas, followed by fires on the runway that were quickly put out. Immediately afterward, they reported hearing similar detonations in other parts of the

city and planes flying low over Caracas for about an hour. Quoting, The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes. The Associated Press reported that at least seven explosions were heard in Caracas during that time, and according to Ossend Fender, an ex-account that uses open-source intelligence

to track conflicts around the world, Fuerte Tuna, the capital's main military base, had also been targeted in these strikes. Other sites that were targeted include Cerro Al Volcan, a major communications and signals antenna site, La Garera Airport, Venezuela's primary seaport north of Caracas, and Hirata Airport, an airbase in Miranda State. While other locations may have been targeted, these are the only ones that have been confirmed by sources on the ground.

According to American officials who spoke with CBS, Delta Force, an elite special forces unit of the US Army, carried out the attacks. The same officials told CBS that the military had discussed conducting the mission in Venezuela on Christmas Day, but US airstrikes in Nigeria against ISIS targets took precedence. The days after Christmas gave the military more options, but the operation was held off until the weather was favourable enough to proceed.

And proceed it did. Once the dust had settled, Maduro had been captured, and Trump made his announcement on Truth Social. And with that, the unspoken assumptions of that last three and a half decades of US policy towards Latin America had been flipped on their head. At the moment, it seems that there won't be any further attacks.

Mike Lee, a US Senator who spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the attacks, posted on Axe that the Secretary anticipated no further action now that Maduro was in custody. He also announced that Maduro would stand trial on criminal charges in the US, where he has been charged with narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and a host of other criminal charges. Not that the lack of planned further attacks made much difference in Caracas.

The government announced a state of emergency, demanded proof that Maduro was alive, and an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the US attacks. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, while calling for calm and a unified front, announced that the military would be deployed across the nation to defend against what he called the worst aggression ever against Venezuela. Quoting me here, they've attacked us, but they will not subdue us. Let's not succumb to the panic the enemy seeks to instill.

Additionally, Caracas urged supporters to take to the streets. This call was answered in neighborhoods in which Maduro enjoys popular support, where, according to the AP, armed individuals and un-uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets while holding posters of Maduro. In other parts of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

Outside of Venezuela, reactions have been varied, to say the least. In Latin America, Argentinian President Javier Millet celebrated the news, saying that freedom had finally come to Venezuela, while Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has also been a target of Trump's ire, condemned the strikes as an assault on the sovereignty of Latin America. Warning of a humanitarian crisis Additionally, Colombia is deploying its military to its 2,219 km long border with Venezuela

ostensibly to handle the influx of asylum seekers, but likely also as a defensive measure in case the conflict expands beyond Venezuela's borders. In Europe, the reaction has been more measured, with Germany saying that it was watching the situation with great concern, Spain offering to mediate, and the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs urging restraint while insisting that Maduro lacked legitimacy. More telling, though, might have been the reaction, or lack of it, from Venezuela's

most important allies, Iran, Cuba and Russia. For Russia's part, the Kremlin said it was deeply worried by the attack, saying that it was important to prevent escalation and to use dialogue to find a way out of the conflict. What it didn't say was that today's events came just months after Moscow and Caracas signed a new strategic partnership meant in part to improve Venezuela's military. A partnership that seems to be a bit about as useful to Caracas as Iran's partnership with Russia was for Tehran during last year's war with Israel.

Savage. Speaking of Tehran, Iran's foreign ministry described the attack as a flagrant violation of the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Venezuela, while Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called for the international community to denounce what he described as state terrorism against the Venezuelan people.

And just in case you're playing Axis of Resistance, bingo there! China and other friend of Venezuela is yet to publicly respond. With all this in mind, let's now look at what we don't know. First, there is the question of the legality of the strikes. While Senator Lee, a constitutional lawyer, insisted that the Trump administration was justified in conducting the strikes since the President had the authority to protect

US personnel from an actual or imminent attack, Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Andy Kim, a former diplomat, have termed the action illegal, saying that it put American lives at risk and signaled to other superpowers that targeting a sitting head of state is acceptable to the US government. Now, we're not experts on the nuances of the American Constitution. But we can guarantee that this is a question that Congress and possibly the Supreme Court will have to answer at some point in the future.

Second, we don't know who is now in charge of Venezuela and how long their rule will last. At the moment, it seems much of Maduro's inner circle survived the strikes and the Vice President will take over, maintaining the current status quo. However, there are two distinct scenarios that we have to consider. One, that America negotiates with the remaining government officials to hand over power to Edmundo Gonzalez, who Washington recognized as Venezuela's rifle president after the contested

2024 elections. or two, that the military takes advantage of the confusion and disarray created by the American strikes to seize power in a coup. It wouldn't be the first time that the military sought to gain power by taking advantage of a crisis. This was a fear expressed by Pedro Ras Arroyo, a Venezuelan entrepreneur who, speaking exclusively

to War Fronts, said that the vacuum of power left in Maduro's absence could embolden individuals in the military to launch violent bids for the presidency, resulting in, and we'll quote him here, a bloodbath. If the second scenario were to occur, there is the possibility that Washington will be forced to launch another operation to install a government that has their support. The third thing we don't know, and which may be the most important, is whether Maduro made a deal with Washington and the attacks were theatre to give him a face-saving exit from power.

While this does seem unlikely, some in the Venezuelan opposition told Sky News that this could be the case, given that Maduro has repeatedly expressed his willingness to negotiate with Trump. However, we gotta be honest here, this doesn't seem super plausible considering that Senator Lee announced Maduro would be facing charges in the United States. It's also unlikely that Trump would be willing to let Maduro's safe face after the acrimonious year that the duo have had.

Additionally, Rubio is a long-time Maduro opponent who has been pushing for the latter's ouster. So the possibility that Washington chose to be gracious to Maduro is incredibly slim. However, slim ain't zero. So what does this mean for the region? When looking at this attack against Venezuela, it is tempting to see it as just part of Trump

and Rubio's campaign against Maduro. However, that would be missing the forest for the trees. There's a bigger strategy at play here. One that was revealed in the recently published National Security Strategy. In case you missed our video analysing that document, here's what you need to know. On Latin America, the Trump administration announced that it would be reinstituting the Monroe Doctrine, which basically means that the entire Western Hemisphere is Washington's backyard.

Other superpowers are not welcome, and regimes in every country need to be aligned with America's interests, or they will have to deal with an angry Washington. This is why the operation matters, far beyond Venezuela's borders. Every leader in Latin America is now watching and calculating. If the United States can conduct a decapitation strike against a sitting president in a matter of hours, what does that mean for their own security?

What red lines exist anymore? Cuba's gotta be particularly nervous right now. The island nation depends heavily on Venezuelan oil, and has sent thousands of personnel to Venezuela over the years. It has also spent entire decades on Washington's hit list, with the CIA infamously trying to bump off the Del Castro with everything from regular bullets to exploding cigars.

With Maduro gone, Cuba loses a critical economic lifeline, while its leadership will be terrified that they're next for special US treatment. Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, another vocal critic of Washington with close ties to Russia and China, must also be wondering if he's on the list. And while Colombian President Gustavo Petro is likely safe due to Bogota's long history of cooperation with Washington, he is likely at the very least feeling a bit anxious today.

But it's not just America's adversaries who should be recalculating. Even friendly governments should be asking questions about what their relationship with Washington means for their rule. Mexico's President, Claudia Sheinbaum, has maintained a delicate balancing act between Washington and her own agenda. Now, she undoubtedly faces pressure to more definitively support what Trump wants, even if it goes against what she wants, even if it goes against what she wants. Brazil's Lula has tried to position himself as a mediator in regional conflicts.

That role just became a lot more complicated. The operation also changes the calculus for Chinese and Russian investment in the region. Beijing has poured billions into Latin American infrastructure, mining and energy projects. Moscow has sold weapons and provided technical assistance to several governments. Both have used Venezuela as their primary foothold in the hemisphere.

If Washington can remove a government this decisively, does that make other countries think twice about deepening ties with Beijing or Moscow? Or does it push them to seek stronger guarantees from those powers? Do these guarantees mean anything in the face of a Washington that has proven extremely capable of removing a leader in his own capital city? Again, we have to insist here. The entire operation took less than three hours and change.

That's so short, it makes Israel's decisive 12-day conflict against Iran look like the 30 f***ing years war. There's also the question of what happens to Venezuela's oil. The country has the world's largest proven oil reserve. With Maduro gone, those reserves could be up for grabs. China has massive investments in Venezuelan oil infrastructure.

Russian companies have been involved in joint ventures. American companies were largely shut out under sanctions. The scramble to control Venezuelan oil could reshape global energy markets. Finally, there's the humanitarian dimension. Venezuela has already produced one of the largest refugee crises in recent history, with millions fleeing the country since 2015. Colombia, which hosts the largest number of Venezuelan refugees, is already deploying

troops to the border. If violence escalates, or the economy collapses further, that number could surge. Peru, Ecuador, Chile and other countries hosting Venezuelan migrants are bracing for what comes next. And hovering above all this is the question of what will happen if Venezuela splits apart. If the remnants of the regime try to cling to power while the people rise up in the streets? Could there be wide-scale violence?

A civil war? Or will the regime or military quickly consolidate under new leadership and carry on effectively as before? As Tiziano Breda, senior analyst for Latin America at ACLAD, has noted, quote, A smooth transition remains unlikely, and the risk of resistance from pro-regime armed groups, including elements within the military and Colombian rebel networks active in the

country, remains high. In short, we can't say for certain what will happen next. What we can say is that this is a crisis whose impact will be felt long after Maduro's successor has been chosen. A crisis that could reshape Latin America as we know it. A crisis that could reshape Latin America as we know it.

Thank you for watching, we'll be posting more updates as soon as we know more.