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When you strip away diplomatic euphemisms and policy whitewash, the U.S.–Venezuela relationship comes down to three immutable facts: oil reserves, strategic hemispheric hegemony, and geopolitical signalling. The United States, whose foreign policy establishment touts democracy and human rights, has never once acted toward Venezuela on pure principles. It’s always been interests first, justifications later.
Venezuela sits literally atop the largest proven oil reserves in the world, roughly 17% of global totals, with centuries’ worth of hydrocarbons that once made it the crown jewel of U.S. energy strategy.
Caracas’s proximity to U.S. shores, its position bordering the Caribbean and northern South America, and its potential as a swing node in global energy flows made Washington sit up long before Hugo Chávez declared Bolivarian socialism.
Oil, Empire, and the Early Cold War
The American obsession with Venezuelan oil predates Chávez by decades. In the early 20th century, U.S. oil companies carved out concessions that kept Caracas firmly within Washington’s economic sphere. When democratically elected leaders drifted away from Washington’s preferred policies, the U.S. government didn’t contact think tanks; it leaned on Wall Street, the Pentagon, and covert services.
During the Cold War, anti‑communism provided moral cover. Venezuela’s location made it a strategic partner against Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere. This was not about Venezuelan self‑determination. It was about making sure a leftward political shift didn’t threaten U.S. naval routes, oil shipments, or the Monroe Doctrine’s hegemonic grip.
Often overlooked: U.S. policy was as much about stopping Soviet proxies from taking root as it was about preserving access to resources and markets. But even then, ideology was just packaging for access, not the driver.
The Chávez Effect and the Long U.S. Strategy
Enter Hugo Chávez in 1999, a former paratrooper with a messianic streak who made Washington’s establishment grind its teeth. Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution wasn’t just a domestic political insurgency. It became a symbol of defiance against U.S. hemispheric dominance.
He nationalized oil, redistributed wealth (however incompetently), and forged alliances from Cuba to Iran.
For Washington, this was intolerable. Not because Venezuela was an existential threat, but because it offered a different model in a region historically corralled into IMF orthodoxy and pro‑U.S. governance. Sanctions followed. Decades of economic pressure ensued. Venezuela was isolated diplomatically. U.S. intelligence kept tabs on every Venezuelan cabinet reshuffle and oil deal.
Chávez’s death in 2013 only deepened U.S. resolve. Nicolás Maduro, his handpicked successor, stumbled into a perfect storm of economic collapse, hyperinflation, and political polarization.
These were the conditions that allowed Washington to paint him as a narco‑trafficking authoritarian. Sanctions intensified, Venezuela’s oil sector was crippled, and Washington’s messaging pivoted hard to “liberation” language.
By the mid‑2020s, “Venezuelan sanctions history” had become a litany of punitive measures targeting oil exports, access to international finance, and the political legitimacy of Caracas… all justified under the twin banners of democracy and counter‑narcotics.
But these were measures, not end goals. The end goal was regime change.
The 2026 U.S. Attack: A Pattern, Not an Aberration
Then came January 3, 2026. In a move that will define this era’s foreign policy debates, the United States launched a large‑scale military operation on Venezuelan soil. U.S. forces struck military installations and key infrastructure, and, in dramatic fashion, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, flying them to New York to face U.S. federal charges including narcoterrorism and cocaine trafficking.
It’s worth pausing here. Whatever else one thinks of Maduro’s governance, this was the first explicit direct military strike on a major Latin American capital by the United States in more than four decades. The operation was framed in U.S. official rhetoric as a targeted “law enforcement” mission.
But look at the pattern: months of military buildup, blockade of Venezuelan tankers, intercepting oil shipments, and then, once conditions were right, a surgical strike and extraction of a sitting head of state. This wasn’t a spontaneous decision. It was the logical endpoint of decades of escalating economic, political, and now kinetic pressure.
To call this a “U.S. attack on Venezuela” glosses over the reality: Washington treated Venezuela as a theater of strategic interests where sovereignty is negotiable and international norms are optional if economic leverage and geopolitical messages are at stake.
Oil, Sanctions, and the Real Motivations
Again, here’s the blunt truth: one of the central drivers of Washington’s intervention calculus was oil and minerals. Venezuelan crude is not some peripheral bounty. It’s massive, and American energy elites have watched in frustration as Caracas shifted oil deals toward China and India, bypassing the U.S. market. Venezuelan sanctions history illustrates a consistent effort to throttle Caracas’s ability to export oil except under terms favorable to U.S. interests.
Sanctions under successive U.S. administrations did not merely aim to pressure Maduro. They aimed to reshape Venezuela’s economic infrastructure so that energy flows could be redirected toward markets friendly to U.S. companies and strategic leverage.
And when sanctions and diplomacy hit limits, military muscle becomes the next lever.
There’s a long lineage here: from Iraq’s alleged WMD to Libya’s “no‑fly zones”, Washington has shown a consistent willingness to use force when vital interests, real or constructed, are on the line. Venezuela’s vast energy reserves are not a sideline interest.
Justifications vs. Interests: The War on Drugs and International Law
In Washington’s telling, the attack was about drug trafficking and narco‑terrorism. Maduro was indicted on narcotics charges. But this narrative conveniently sidelines the fact that U.S. policy has weaponized the war on drugs as a geopolitical justification rather than a standalone, effective drug policy.
That’s the same logic that has historically underpinned costly and endless military campaigns elsewhere: paint the target as an existential criminal threat to domestic well‑being, and suddenly invasion becomes law enforcement.
The international community has slammed the strike as a violation of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty. But Washington’s long‑standing pattern is clear: legal niceties are secondary to strategic gains when it comes to resources and influence.
The Regional Domino: Latin America and Beyond
Make no mistake: Washington’s 2026 escalation is a message to the hemisphere, not just Caracas. To Cuba, to Colombia’s leftward leadership, to Mexico’s fragile policy equilibrium, the U.S. has signalled it is willing to directly intervene when it interprets “strategic interest” broadly enough.
This is not subtle diplomacy. This is aggressive projection of power that recalls Orwell’s dictum: freedom for friendly elites, intervention for hostile ones.
And the repercussions will not be contained within Venezuelan borders. Refugee flows, trade disruptions, ideological polarization, and regional insurgencies loom as real consequences of a policy that treats regime change as a tool of statecraft.
Culture, Society, and the Human Cost
For Venezuelans, this is not an abstraction. Years of economic collapse, political repression, and outmigration have already hollowed out social institutions. Now add bombardments, a captured president, and the threat of continued external control over national assets, and you get a society pulled apart at the seams.
Even among Venezuela’s diaspora, millions scattered across the Americas, the narrative is mixed. Some hail the removal of Maduro as liberation; many fear chaos. This duality reflects a society traumatized by decades of economic mismanagement and foreign intervention.
The notion that Washington’s actions will magically stabilize the country ignores the reality on the ground: societies do not heal simply because a foreign power removes an unpopular leader.
The Pattern That Never Changes
History isn’t a straight line, but there are patterns.
What happened on January 3 was neither an accident nor an aberration. It was the predictable outcome of decades of geopolitical prioritization where oil reserves, political alignment, and strategic leverage always outrank international norms.
If we genuinely want to understand Venezuela-U.S. relations, we must stop pretending this is about democracy or the war on drugs. It’s about power. It has always been about power. And until that truth is confronted directly, we’ll see similar chapters in other theaters where U.S. interests and local sovereignty collide.
