Why did Donald Trump attack Venezuela and take Maduro?

US President Donald Trump said the United States would “lead” Venezuela “until we can make a safe, appropriate and wise transition.”

This comes after US forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following strikes against the country.

Maduro flew out of Venezuela with his wife and was charged with drugs in New York.

The strikes in Venezuela come after a U.S. pressure campaign against the Maduro government, which the Trump administration accuses of flooding the United States with drugs and gang members.

Here’s what led to this moment.

Trump accuses Nicolás Maduro of being responsible for the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in the United States.

They are among the nearly eight million Venezuelans estimated to have fled the country’s economic crisis and repression since 2013.

Without providing evidence, Trump accused Maduro of “emptying his prisons and insane asylums” and “forcing” his inmates to emigrate to the United States.

Trump has also focused on combating the influx of drugs – including fentanyl and cocaine – into the United States.

He designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and claimed they were led by Maduro himself.

Analysts have emphasized that the Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but a term used to describe corrupt officials who allowed cocaine to pass through Venezuela.

Trump also doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture and announced he would designate Maduro’s government as an FTO.

Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and accused the United States of using its “war on drugs” as a pretext to try to remove him and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Pressure has increased on the Maduro government since Trump began his second term last January.

First, the Trump administration doubled the reward it was offering for information leading to Maduro’s capture.

In September, U.S. forces began targeting ships they accused of transporting drugs from South America to the United States.

Since then, more than 30 strikes against ships of this type have taken place in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 110 people.

The Trump administration says it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with suspected drug traffickers, whom it accuses of waging an irregular war against the United States.

Many legal experts say the strikes are not aimed at “legal military targets.” The first attack – on September 2 – received particular attention because there were not one but two strikes, with survivors of the first being killed in the second.

A former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the BBC that the US military campaign more generally fell into the category of a planned and systematic attack against civilians in peacetime.

In response, the White House said it had acted under the laws of armed conflict to protect the United States from cartels “trying to bring poison to our shores…destroying American lives.”

Last October, Trump said he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.

He also threatened to launch ground strikes against what he called “narcoterrorists.”

He said the first of these strikes took place on December 24, but he gave few details, saying only that it had targeted a “dock area” where boats believed to be transporting drugs were loaded.

Before Maduro’s capture, Trump had repeatedly said that Maduro “was not a friend of the United States” and that it would be “smart for him to go.”

He also increased financial pressure on Maduro by declaring a “total naval blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. Oil is the Maduro government’s main source of foreign revenue.

The United States has also deployed a considerable military force in the Caribbean, the stated goal of which is to stop the flow of fentanyl and cocaine into the United States.

In addition to targeting ships they accuse of drug trafficking, the force has also played a key role in the U.S. naval blockade.

Counternarcotics experts say Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the global drug trade, acting as a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled.

Its neighbor, Colombia, is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, but most of that cocaine is believed to enter the United States by other routes, not through Venezuela.

According to a 2020 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report, nearly three-quarters of cocaine arriving in the United States is estimated to be trafficked via the Pacific, and only a small percentage transits by speedboats in the Caribbean.

While most early US-led strikes took place in the Caribbean, more recent strikes have focused on the Pacific.

In September, Trump told U.S. military leaders that the targeted boats “were filled with bags of white powder containing mostly fentanyl and other drugs.”

Fentanyl is a synthetic drug 50 times more potent than heroin and has become the leading drug responsible for opioid overdose deaths in the United States.

On December 15, Trump signed an executive order designating fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” arguing that it was “closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.”

However, fentanyl is produced primarily in Mexico and reaches the United States almost exclusively by land through its southern border.

Venezuela is not mentioned as a country of origin for fentanyl smuggled into the United States in the DEA report. National Drug Threat Assessment 2025.

Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, succeeded Chávez and has been president since 2013.

During Chávez and Maduro’s 26 years in power, their party took control of key institutions, including the National Assembly, much of the judiciary and the electoral council.

In 2024, Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential election, even though voting results collected by the opposition suggested that his candidate, Edmundo González, had won a landslide victory.

González had replaced main opposition leader María Corina Machado on the ballot after she was blocked from running in the election.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Machado defied a travel ban and traveled to Oslo in December to collect the prize after months of hiding.

She said she planned to return to Venezuela, a move that would put her at risk of arrest by Venezuelan authorities, who declared her a “fugitive.”

The United States has deployed 15,000 troops and a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

Among the American flotilla is the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier.

American helicopters reportedly took off before American forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on December 10.

The United States said the tanker had been “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.” Venezuela called the action an act of “international piracy.”

Since then, the United States has targeted two other oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela.

Trump said after Saturday’s strikes that “the American armada remains in position.”

Maduro has long accused the Trump administration of trying to remove him so the United States can take control of Venezuela’s oil wealth, highlighting a remark Trump made after the United States seized the first oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

Asked by reporters what would happen with the tanker and its cargo, he replied: “I guess we’ll keep the oil.”

However, U.S. officials have previously denied Venezuela’s allegations that the moves against Maduro’s government were an attempt to secure access to the country’s untapped reserves.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil, and profits from the oil sector fund more than half of its government budget.

However, its exports have been affected by sanctions, lack of investment and mismanagement of the crumbling Venezuelan oil company.

In 2023, Venezuela produced only 0.8% of the world’s crude oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

It currently exports around 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer.