What were Trump’s motivations for intervention in Venezuela?
Ok, Oil. But we’ll get to that.
The US doesn’t want another Cuba
Maduro had close links with the US’ enemies; it’s allies are/were China and Russia.
The US is extremely sensitive to having a hostile neighbour on its doorstep.
In the 1960’s we saw direct action against Cuba and Castro given the potential for Russia’s nuclear weapons to be in range of, and pointed at, the US’ Eastern seaboard.
Indeed, we’re now learning that Cuban defence personnel were staffing the Venezuelan facilities that were targeted during Maduro’s removal.
The US seem to have decided to nip the possibility of regional Russian and Chinese presence in the bud.
Maduro’s removal had been telegraphed for a while
The relative lack of resistance to the operation may be due to the fact that it was largely predicted.
It seems Maduro had already been in dialogue with Trump; Maduro may have been thinking they were discussing whether he’d go, Trump likely wishing to discuss how he’d go.
Bob McNally of Rapidan Energy Group summarised the pretext to the situation:
“Well, we weren’t surprised [that Maduro was removed] and our clients weren’t surprised. I can show you the proof. We told clients on December 15th, we raised our odds of the president removing Maduro from 60 to 70%.
We didn’t know the precise timing, but we were very sure the president had decided to remove the Maduro. He’s been negotiating with him, so it was a question of whether Maduro lives, rather would leave on Gulf Stream 3 and go to an apartment in Madrid or be taken out in a jumpsuit. I mean, there’s different options and it went that way.”
Probably not drugs
The war on drugs angle seems to be a ruse.
Trump has targeted seaborne drug trafficking as a precursor to the attack, but it’s well known that the majority of drugs from South America travels overland through Mexico.
If you want to stop drug smuggling you focus on that.
Removing the President and installing his puppet ensures Trump gets complicity from a geopolitical thorn in his side.
Probably not democracy
I suspect holding free and fair elections, something that commentators feel did not happen previously, may not be at the top of the US’ to do list.
The exiled opposition leader who was widely acknowledged to have won the most recent election – and is the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner – was sat by her phone over the weekend waiting for a call she seemingly didn’t get.
Trump has chosen Maduro’s deputy to run the country in the near term, who has agreed to work in tandem with the US.
Venezuela’s neighbours may agitate for elections but they can agitate all they want, the US is running the country now.
But also, oil
It is interesting that in 2003, US, UK and allied forces invaded Iraq to force regime change.
Much of the general public felt that reasoning was a duplicitous and the reason was really to shore up oil supply for the West.
The public reaction was fury, with a million people marched on Whitehall amongst many globally coordinated protests.
In 2026, Trump has conducted military action on Venezuela to force regime change.
He has quite brazenly admitted that part of the motivation was oil, and everyone has mostly Alan Partridge shrugged.
Donald Trump has said Venezuela will be “turning over” $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts.
“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump said in a post online.
…
Top Venezuelan officials have called Maduro’s capture a kidnapping and accused the US of trying to steal the country’s vast oil reserves, however Tuesday’s agreement is a strong sign that the government is responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to US oil companies or risk more military intervention.
Trump has said he wants interim president Delcy Rodríguez to give the US and private companies “total access” to Venezuela’s oil industry.
Shoring up future supply
Venezuela produces 1% of the world’s oil; not a lot.
Trump installed a puppet ruler that will invest in oil production and welcome back the foreign oil firms kicked out by Chavez to slowly return oil production to previous levels of 3%.
We used to think we’d hit peak oil demand in 2030.
The need to hit net zero, arrival of EVs and renewable energy will see oil demand decline next decade.
Now governments are rowing back on sustainability policies citing the need for energy security and affordability.
So, we now need more oil post 2030 than previously thought.
Venezuela has the largest untapped oil reserves.
But the oil in Venezuela is poor quality.
It will take a lot of time, money and focus to get it extracted and refined to useable quality.
It won’t be until next decade that someone can get it out in meaningful, useful quantities.
Thus, the ‘play’ (a horrible euphemism when people have died in a military strike) for Venezuela is about long term oil supply post 2030.