On Jan. 3, the United States conducted Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’, a pre-dawn military raid in the heart of Caracas that led to the capture and extradition of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Shortly after 2 a.m., under the cover of darkness and citywide blackouts triggered by cyberattacks on local power grids, more than 150 U.S. aircraft, including but not limited to F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters, F/A-18 carrier launched fighters, EA-18G electronic warfare variants of the F/A-18 used to disrupt ground based air defense and radar systems, E-2 command and control aircraft, B-1 supersonic bombers, and numerous drones and other miscellaneous support aircraft. The air campaign was designed to suppress Venezuelan military response and provide coordination for forces on the ground.
At the center of the assault was the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, better known to the public as Delta Force. They were flown in aboard MH-60 Blackhawks and MH-47 Chinook helicopters attached to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment–aptly dubbed the “Night Stalkers.” They crossed into Venezuelan airspace shortly after 2:00 a.m. local time, flying at low altitude from the USS Iwo Jima positioned offshore. Backed by CIA field operatives, who had tracked Maduro’s schedule in the weeks leading up to the raid, as well as tactical agents from the FBI and DEA, the strike team came down on Maduro’s ‘secure’ compound in central Caracas around 2:28 a.m. They subdued Maduro’s personal security in a matter of minutes in a brief engagement and apprehended Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, when they were enroute to a fortified safe room. Both were evacuated by helicopter back to the Iwo Jima, the entire raid taking less than thirty minutes.
The raid came after years of escalating U.S. efforts to remove Maduro, who has been under federal indictment for narco-terrorism and other related drug trafficking charges since 2020. The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges that “for over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States,” and that “(Maduro) has partnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States.” The DOJ also described how the Maduro regime “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support for the transport of cocaine through Venezuela, with knowledge that their drug trafficking partners would move the cocaine north to the United States.”
Beyond the legal case, the operation represented broader U.S. interests, namely oil. From Washington’s perspective, Venezuela’s immense oil reserves have represented a hidden prize beneath the standoff over drugs. Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves, nearly 300 billion barrels by some estimates.
Analysts suggest that the vast reserves significantly elevated Venezuela on the American radar, even as the Trump administration justified its campaign against Nicolás Maduro in terms of ‘restoring democracy’ and ending narcotrafficking, officials scarcely hid their interest in Venezuela’s crude. National Security Advisor John Bolton candidly suggested during the first Trump administration in early 2019 that American oil firms investing in Venezuela would benefit the U.S. economy, saying “it will make a big difference to the United States” if U.S. companies could produce Venezuela’s oil.
On Jan. 9, less than a week after Maduro’s removal, Trump moved to transition military success into economic leverage, summoning the heads of America’s largest oil companies to the white house for what was described as a ‘strategy session’. The expectation from the administration was clear, with sanctions being lifted and a hostile regime removed, oil companies would rush to claim access to the world’s largest reserves.
Instead, the meeting exposed skepticism on Wall Street. According to accounts, Trump pressed executives to invest tens of billions of dollars into rebuilding Venezuela’s oil sector. He spoke of Venezuela’s oil as though it were already under U.S. management, telling the companies that Washington-not Caracas-would decide “which oil companies are going to go in.” He claimed that Venezuelan crude could be brought up quickly and used to flood the global market, driving down oil prices and reinforcing American energy dominance.
The response from industry leaders was not what the White House anticipated. Executives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other firms cautioned that Venezuela’s oil sector wasn’t just dormant, but damaged. Years of mismanagement and multiple removals of oil companies by Hugo Chávez and Maduro has left oil refineries corroded, pipelines leaking, and a simple lack of skilled labor in the country makes investment risky. Profit is also a concern, if the market is flooded with supply, then prices go down. Legal uncertainty was another concern, several companies still hold aberration claims against Venezuela from past nationalizations, and as ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods put, Venezuela is “uninvestable” without significant changes. Two days after Wood’s statement, Trump said his remarks were “too cute”, and he plans to exclude ExxonMobil from Venezuela. Daniel Sternoff, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy said to the AP, “You need to start with basic political stability before you’re going to have companies that are interested in making those kinds of investments.”
In the aftermath of the operation that removed him, Maduro has been held in federal custody and is facing criminal charges in New York. After his first court appearance, Maduro pleaded not guilty and called his capture a “kidnapping,” setting up a battle over U.S. jurisdiction and international law.
In Caracas, Maduro’s former vice president Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president and is recognized by the Venezuelan military and courts. Initially critical of the raid, Rodriguez has signaled a willingness to engage with Washington on economic and security issues, including oil sector reforms and cooperation against criminal networks.
The operation delivered a clear tactical win for the United States and the President, who cast it as law enforcement and a blow against narcotics trafficking. But, his broader objectives remain unclear. Venezuela’s interim government is navigating deep instability- entrenched military interests, fractured political parties, and a battered economy will complicate any quick transition to elections or full normalization.
At the same time, the removal is likely to brew tension between the U.S. and China over energy and geopolitical influence. Beijing has been Venezuela’s largest oil customer and one of Caracas’s biggest creditors since American oil companies pulled out. China condemned the raid, calling it a violation of international law, but any real confrontation beyond diplomatic protest is extremely unlikely. Venezuela’s oil exports to China accounted for a significant portion of Caracas’s revenue, held together by billions in Chinese loans repaid in crude oil, such arrangements now disrupted by Washington exerting control over Venezuelan oil flow and seizures of China-bound tankers.
In the grand scheme of geopolitics, Maduro’s capture was an assertion of American military reach, but it also overlooked the contradictions at the heart of the strategic goals. The raid removed a long standing adversary and disrupted a major narcotics network, yet it also raises questions of the limits of military force as a tool.
Oil wealth alone has not, and is unlikely to translate into stability and investment, and U.S. pressure has so far failed to produce a clear roadmap for Venezuela’s future government. With Venezuela’s economy in disrepair, it’s interim government fragile, and a largely difficult situation, the United States and Trump face a much more complicated task than the raid itself: turning a military success into a sustainable economic and political outcome.
