Donald Trump has flagged Venezuelan drug trafficking as a key explanation why for the U.S. army operation on Jan. 3, 2026, that captured President Nicolás Maduro and whisked him to New York to stand federal drug fees.
Trump has described Maduro as “the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States.”
In 2025, the management offered the U.S. army buildup within the Caribbean and repeated moves on alleged drug trafficking vessels off Venezuela’s coast as important to counter the drift of cocaine into america.
However as a global members of the family pupil involved in Latin The united states, I do know that once assessed in opposition to laborious information on cocaine manufacturing and transit, the U.S. pretense for army motion in opposition to Venezuela falters.
Venezuela hasn’t ever been a big cocaine manufacturer. That difference belongs overwhelmingly to Colombia, which accounts for nearly all of coca cultivation and cocaine processing within the Western Hemisphere.
That suggests the arrest of Maduro and next U.S. makes an attempt to keep watch over Venezuela’s govt are not likely to stem the inflow of cocaine into the U.S.
Justifying intervention
Whilst Venezuela’s geography and governance gaps make it a transit nation for Colombian merchandise, maximum U.S. cocaine originates and flows thru corridors north and west of Venezuela. This contradicts the declare that Caracas was once the central hub of cocaine trafficking into america.
Additionally, the opioid overdose disaster within the U.S. lately is overwhelmingly pushed by means of artificial medication comparable to fentanyl, that have provide chains rooted in Mexico and Asia, now not Venezuela.
So why did Washington carry Venezuela’s function in narcotics?
Nicolás Maduro, in handcuffs, is escorted by means of federal brokers en path to a federal courthouse in New York on Jan. 5, 2026.
XNY/Famous person Max/GC Photographs
The solution, I consider, lies much less in illicit markets than in energy. By means of conflating felony networks with govt authority, an act amplified thru criminal designations and indictments, the Trump management may justify army intervention with out particular congressional authorization.
As soon as Maduro was once got rid of, the substance underneath the rhetoric become clearer. The U.S. has now not grew to become energy over to an opposition democratic coalition. As an alternative, it facilitated the swearing-in of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as intervening time president, a determine deeply tied to the prevailing regime and whose community comprises other people lengthy accused by means of U.S. government of unlawful actions.
The discharge of political prisoners by means of the intervening time govt and U.S. strikes to reopen Venezuela’s oil sector to American pursuits underscore that what spread out was once now not purely a counternarcotics project however a reconfiguration of governance in Caracas.
Pretext for army motion
The function of the Cartel de los Soles – or Cartel of the Suns – on this narrative merits explicit scrutiny. At the start a label for alleged trafficking networks inside of Venezuela’s safety forces, U.S. criminal indictments and terrorist designations expanded that idea. That amplified the narrative that Maduro was once on the head of a transnational felony endeavor.
In reality, the Cartel de los Soles isn’t a structured cartel in any respect. But the narrative of Maduro as head of a narco-terrorist empire was once politically and legally potent. It supplied a pretext for army motion, making a justification that may be offered regionally and across the world as an effort to shield U.S. electorate from an exterior felony risk.
However the U.S. assault in Venezuela was once now not, in substance, a counternarcotics project. It was once a strategic financial and geopolitical operation framed within the language of legislation enforcement.
Two days after the Venezuela assault, the Justice Division retreated from its November 2025 declare that Maduro was once the top of Cartel de los Soles, underscoring that the hyperlink between drug enforcement and regime removing was once extra instrumental than evidentiary.
Rodríguez stated simply days after the U.S. assault, “Drug trafficking and human rights were the excuse; the real motive was oil.”
President Donald Trump arrives at a White Area assembly with oil and gasoline executives on Jan. 9, 2026, to speak about plans for funding in Venezuela after ousting its chief, Nicolás Maduro.
Alex Wong/Getty Photographs
No significant relief
Whilst the U.S. operation in Venezuela indisputably disrupted the trafficking networks that operated underneath Maduro’s umbrella, a minimum of quickly, the motion can’t be convincingly framed as a drug provide intervention.
The truth of drug trafficking itself underscores this level.
Cocaine manufacturing and distribution networks are dynamic. When one course is disrupted, traffickers invariably to find selection pathways.
Routes that when used Venezuelan territory have most probably rerouted moderately than collapsed. This has traditionally characterised drug drift in Latin The united states based on drive from legislation enforcement.
Despite the fact that Venezuelan transit networks are in short destabilized, there’s no proof that U.S. intervention will result in a significant relief within the quantity of unlawful medication flowing into america. Probably the most important drivers of U.S. drug issues, together with Mexico-based distribution programs and the surge of artificial opioids, function in large part out of doors Venezuela.
The U.S. operation might benefit Venezuela politically by means of toppling a long-standing authoritarian determine. That opens the potential for political trade.
But when the lens by which policymakers view those occasions is drug coverage, they’re misreading each the proof and the incentives. The motion was once targeted on power and strategic realignment, with counternarcotics rhetoric serving as a justification moderately than a motive force of the U.S. assault.
And whilst trafficking networks adapt and continue to exist, those shifts is not going to scale back the drift of substances into america, which has lengthy been formed by means of elements some distance past Venezuela’s borders.
