Trump’s Venezuelan Takeover

Nora Geoghegan

Staff Writer

On Jan. 3, the U.S. Military conducted an operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro. According to CNN, he is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The US Department of State explained that “In March 2020, Maduro was charged in the Southern District of New York for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.”

President Trump claimed that drugs present in the US, infiltrated by a gang known as Cartel de los Soles, were under the direction of Maduro. This led Trump to directly blame Maduro for these drug-related deaths.

That same day, President Trump and members of his cabinet, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, debriefed the operation in a press conference, which was named “Operation Absolute Resolved.”

During the conference, Trump stated that the US will “run the country” until it can have a “safe, proper, and judicious transition,” according to CNN. Given this, Trump has also expressed that the US will seize oil reserves due to Venezuela allegedly stealing oil from the US.

Trump validated this argument by citing the Monroe Doctrine, which was created by President James Monroe back in 1823. It asserts that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further European colonization.

Since its establishment, the Monroe Doctrine has served as a justification for US intervention in Latin America, most notably used by Theodore Roosevelt in his “Roosevelt Corollary,” which expanded US involvement in Latin America, creating long-lasting impressions of imperialism.

Currently, Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is serving as interim president. Rodriguez claimed that Trump seized Venezuela as a means to deplete them of oil.

Trump fired back by stating she will “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” according to Time Magazine. She has since doubled down, calling for a respectful relationship with the United States. Venezuela’s future remains in the balance.