On January 3, 2026, the United States carried out a pre-dawn military operation inside Venezuela that President Donald Trump said resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Explosions were reported across Caracas and nearby military installations as U.S. forces targeted command-and-control nodes tied to the regime.
Mr. Trump announced the operation on his platform and released photo claims showing Maduro aboard a U.S. vessel, while U.S. officials said the capture followed months of pressure over narcotrafficking and corruption. The strikes hit communications and military sites and left parts of the port infrastructure damaged, according to reporting.
Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan American fellow at the Manhattan Institute who fled Maduro’s Venezuela, voiced what millions of exiles and victims of socialism feel: relief mixed with vindication that finally someone has acted decisively to remove a criminal regime. Di Martino’s long record of testimony about the devastation socialism brought to his homeland gives his support weight among conservatives who have watched helplessly as Venezuelan suffering grew.
President Trump wasted no time saying the United States will be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry as part of stabilizing the country and preventing narco-criminal networks from profiting. Conservatives should be blunt: controlling Venezuela’s energy infrastructure isn’t about greed, it’s about denying tyrants the financial lifeline to terror and corruption and protecting Western energy security.
Predictably, left-wing politicians and internationalists cried foul, invoking legalities while ignoring decades of Maduro’s crimes and the human carnage his rule produced. Complaints about sovereignty ring hollow to Venezuelan mothers and entrepreneurs who lived under theft, violence, and hunger; there comes a moment when inaction is complicity.
This is not warmongering for its own sake — it is the hard realism needed to confront regimes that traffic in narcotics, kleptocracy, and anti-American alliances. If America must act unilaterally to uproot a cartel-state that threatens our hemisphere, then we should do so with clear objectives: justice for the victims, prosecution of international criminals, and a secure transition toward genuine, free elections.
Patriots should demand clarity from Washington on next steps: a plan to safeguard Venezuelan civilians, expedite humanitarian relief, and pave the way for legitimate leadership chosen by the Venezuelan people. Let the left wring its hands and the experts wrangle over treaties; what matters to hardworking Americans and traumatized Venezuelans is that tyranny was confronted, and now we must help ensure freedom actually follows.
