On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump announced a major breakthrough: American military forces had seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, then airlifted them out of the country – an operation that represents the dramatic peak of Washington's confrontation with Caracas. "The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country," Trump posted on Truth Social. "This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement," he continued.
The United States had indicted Maduro in March 2020 on narco-terrorism charges. The formal accusation alleged that Maduro and senior government associates had conspired with FARC (the Colombian rebel group) to traffic cocaine and weapons, while Maduro himself allegedly directs the "Cartel of the Suns" – a narcotics smuggling enterprise operating within state structures and named by Washington for the insignia worn by Venezuelan military officers. The cartel received formal designation as a foreign terrorist organization last year, and the bounty on Maduro's head was recently increased to $50 million.
Trump turns up the heat
Throughout recent months, Trump had been steadily ramping up pressure against Maduro. November saw Trump greenlight CIA operations inside Venezuela, and when pressed on whether agency officials had received a green light to assassinate Maduro, he pointedly declined to rule it out. During a direct phone conversation, Trump issued Maduro a stark ultimatum: Leave Venezuela immediately, with exile possibilities in Qatar or Turkey suggested as alternatives. Reports indicate that regime insiders in Caracas attempted to broker a settlement through Qatari intermediaries that would have permitted Maduro safe passage into exile while allowing Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume the presidency – an arrangement the American government flatly rejected. By December, Trump had publicly stated that "Maduro's time is running out," and shortly before the holiday season declared: "If he chooses confrontation, this will be his last opportunity to do so."
Rodríguez took to the airwaves on Saturday morning to respond, asserting that the government remains unaware of Maduro's whereabouts or his wife's location. "We are demanding immediate proof of life from the Trump administration," she announced during a televised address to state media, simultaneously announcing that she now holds the reins of government.
From working-class roots to authoritarian rule
Nicolás Maduro, who turned 63 this year, was born and raised in Caracas within a working-class household. He attended public secondary school though never graduated. At 24, he relocated to Cuba for a year of political training at the Communist Youth Union's educational institute. Following his return to Venezuela, Maduro made his living as a bus driver in Caracas while simultaneously serving in union leadership – a period marked by friction with the pro-Western administration.
During the 1990s, Maduro became active in Hugo Chávez's revolutionary movement, working tirelessly for his mentor's prison release. He proved instrumental in constructing the political structure that propelled Chávez into the presidency in 1998. His own parliamentary career began that same year, and by 2005 he was chosen to lead the National Assembly. Subsequently, he held the portfolio of foreign minister through 2012, later advancing to the vice presidency after Chávez won re-election.
When other potential successors were in consideration, Chávez personally anointed Maduro as his chosen heir – a designation that proved decisive following Chávez's cancer-related death in March 2013. He subsequently won the 2014 presidential contest on his own merits, though opposition figures contested the legitimacy of the results. Yet throughout his tenure, Maduro failed to replicate his predecessor's magnetic appeal to the masses.
Venezuela – once a continental economic juggernaut thanks to its vast petroleum reserves – deteriorated markedly under his stewardship. Chávez had already depleted the oil sector through mismanagement and pursued economic strategies that triggered sustained collapse; Maduro maintained this trajectory while simultaneously tightening his stranglehold on dissent. Beginning in 2014, roughly eight million citizens – nearly one-quarter of the total population – abandoned the country, clutching worthless bolivar notes rendered valueless by hyperinflation. The manipulated ballot in July 2024 effectively eliminated organized opposition, forcing remaining activists into either permanent exile or clandestine operations.
A showman in crisis
Maduro may be an iron-fisted autocrat who has systematically dismantled domestic opposition, yet publicly he has crafted an image as a cultural figure: he replicated his predecessor's Sunday television spectacle – "Hello, President," which frequently stretched for hours – with his own April 2023 launch of "With Maduro."
Even as American military pressure mounted in recent weeks, Maduro attempted to project calm through his stage performances. In November, he took to a rally platform in Caracas and performed John Lennon's "Imagine," and in December doubled down on his entertainment strategy by delivering his own rendition of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" with revised lyrics reading "no war, be happy. Peace and love." That same evening, he unsheathed a blade he claimed belonged to Simón Bolívar (the legendary military commander who led independence campaigns against Spanish colonial rule) – and proclaimed: "We must rise as combatants, prepared to shatter the grip of North American imperialism."
Venezuela, as it gravitated toward the anti-American camp, severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 following Operation Cast Lead (Israel's military campaign in Gaza), and cultivated a strategic partnership with Iran – which constructed a domestic drone manufacturing facility, deployed military liaisons, and granted Hezbollah (the Lebanese militant organization) operational space throughout the nation. Maduro has previously asserted his own Jewish ancestry, stating in 2013 that "my grandfathers on both the Maduro and Moros lines were Jewish," explaining that "they embraced Catholicism once in Venezuela."
