On Saturday, January 3, 2026, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes on infrastructure and military sites in northern Venezuela, then seized the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro Moros, from his residence in Caracas.
This operation was named ‘Absolute Resolve,’ and carefully rehearsed for months, according to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who spoke at President Donald Trump’s news conference. The operation happened around 2 a.m. local time in Venezuela, with explosions heard in the capital. Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, described it as part of a “massive joint military and law enforcement raid,” which lasted less than 30 minutes. Soon after, news of 63-year-old Maduro being abducted under the control of U.S. President Donald Trump took over global news.
Caine said that “the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could move through.” There were about 150 aircraft involved, taking off from 20 different airbases across the Western Hemisphere. As a part of this operation, US forces disabled Venezuela’s air defense systems, which Trump’s conference didn’t elaborate on further.
It is known that Maduro was arrested after alleged involvement in shipping drugs to the United States. In addition, the US has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest. Now in New York City, Maduro faces criminal charges, including drug trafficking and ‘narco-terrorism.’ Many questions have been raised about the future of Venezuela’s government, economy, and what will happen next, but especially its oil industry.
President Trump has stated that he now “runs” the oil-rich South American country, and Maduro’s vice president was sworn in as acting president. Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leaders, many of whom have been living in exile, have vowed to return to the country and take back the power they claim was taken from them.
There are two main sides of this event: the ‘Opposition’ or ‘anti-Maduro,’ and the government, to which these people are still loyal to Maduro.
One of the main faces of the anti-Maduro movement is 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been one of President Trump’s most vocal supporters. In an interview with Fox News, Machado spoke out and expressed her gratitude to Trump “on behalf of the Venezuelan people.” She also referred to Venezuela’s current acting president as one of the “main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, and narcotrafficking” and a “liaison’ for Russia, China, and Iran, and called for “free and fair elections.” Machado continued and said, “We have to move on; we won the election by a landslide under fraudulent conditions. In free and fair elections, we will win with 90%, I have no doubt.”
On the government side of things, despite Maduro’s abrupt removal from power, there doesn’t seem to be much upheaval within the government. The vice president took over, and the Defense Minister is still there as well; both of these people are still doing their jobs, even with a large bounty being placed over their heads by the US government.
Though this is a heavy topic, we can only hope for the brightest future and great things to come for both the US and Venezuela.
