By now, the whole world knows what happened on January 3, 2026. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were abducted from their residence and taken to the United States by Donald Trump’s military.
Trump appeared on television and tried hard to project the operation as a clean, one sided operation. But media outlets across Latin America, including Telesur, and even international organizations like the BBC, reported that Maduro’s security personnel did try to resist the aggression to the very best of their ability. The United States, too, suffered significant losses during the raid.
Trump’s main justification for bringing Maduro to New York and putting him through what is effectively a farcical trial process is the allegation that, under Maduro’s orders, the Venezuelan military has been directly involved in drug trafficking into the US. In Latin American countries like Colombia or Mexico, accusations usually revolve around sections of the administration facilitating drug trafficking into American markets. In Maduro’s case, however, the allegation is far more extreme, that drug trafficking into the US is a state policy directed from Caracas. According to this claim, it is not professional criminals but the Venezuelan armed forces themselves who play a central role in managing and executing these operations.
Whether international law permits such an unprecedented act of aggression against Venezuela to go unchecked, or whether the global community will stand by Maduro, are obviously important questions. But an even more fundamental question is this; does the United States have any moral authority at all to accuse any Latin American Nation of drug trafficking and aiding the smugglers?
One does not need to dig very deep for answers. Just open theJio Hotstar app in India and watch a two hour long Hollywood film titled ‘Kill the Messenger’. Based on Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb’s book ‘Dark Alliance’, the film clearly shows how, during the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, the CIA ran a sophisticated drug distribution networks within the US itself. The money earned from these operations was then used to buy weapons, which were supplied to Nicaragua’s notorious Contra rebels, who carried out mass killings of Sandinista National Liberation Front members, communists, and other left wing activists.
In the 1980s, the US Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prevented the Reagan administration from directly funding the Contras. To get around this restriction, the White House allowed cocaine and heroin to flood American streets, using the profits to finance left-wing massacres in Central America.
Initially, Gary Webb’s reports were dismissed as fabricated. However, the Kerry Committee report later substantiated the truth of these allegations.
What is particularly shocking is the justification offered by members of the Reagan administration at the time. They openly argued that the drug crisis did not affect white Americans, since the primary consumers were poor African Americans and Mexican immigrants. Therefore, according to them, there was nothing wrong with this strategy.
Fast forward to today, the president of that very country has abducted the head of a sovereign nation in the name of fightingthe drug menace.
And this hypocrisy does not ends here.
Honduras’s former right wing president Juan Orlando Hernandez faced serious charges in multiple US courts. Testimonies from arrested drug traffickers revealed that Hernández won the 2013 presidential election using drug money. Evidence also emerged of his close ties with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. In April 2022, Hernández surrendered himself to US authorities and was later convicted by a court in New York’s Southern District. It was proven that, in exchange for money, he deliberately allowed drug shipments to pass through Honduras into the US and failed to act against traffickers.
On February 21, 2024, he was formally convicted in New York and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Yet, in November 2025, Donald Trump ordered Hernandez’s release and openly supported Nasry Asfura, the right wingpresidential candidate from Hernandez’s party, in the Honduran elections. Asfura went on to defeat the incumbent left wing president Xiomara Castro. Trump justified Hernandez’s release by claiming that the “leftist Biden administration” had framed him in false cases.
Today, that same Trump administration claims it abducted Maduro as part of a war on drugs.
Listening to Trump’s recent statements makes it clear that Maduro’s abduction has nothing to do with drug enforcement. Even in 2025, Washington has revived the steamroller of naked imperial aggression, and Maduro has become its first major casualty.
The US president has openly declared that the Western Hemisphere is America’s personal playground. Along with the Pacific region, Latin America falls within this hemisphere. According to Trump’s new imperial doctrine, no competing national interest that runs against US interests will be allowed to exist in this region. Any country that dares to challenge American dominance will see its leader meet the same fate as Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has already issued direct official threats to Colombia and Cuba.
There are, of course, many allegations against Maduro’s rule in Venezuela. From retaining power through questionable elections to maintaining control over neighborhoods using armed biker gangs, the Maduro administration, the political successor of Hugo Chávez, faces serious criticism. Despite being home to one of the world’s largest oil reserves, the government has also failed to ensure equitable distribution of this wealth among all ofits people. However, the impact of more than a thousand US sanctions imposed on Venezuela has also played a role in this failure.
Still, by fully nationalizing its oil industry and blocking American corporations from extracting unlimited profits, Venezuela directly challenged US economic interests.
By dragging Maduro and his wife out of their bedroom, Trump appeared to mock that very act of defiance.
So far, Maduro’s arrest has not led to the collapse of the Venezuelan state. Massive crowds have gathered across the country, including in Caracas. Armed pro Maduro biker groups are visible on the streets, but so are ordinary citizens demanding the return of their president. Standing in uniform on the streets, the defence and interior ministers have warned that they will not let this humiliation go unanswered, and let their country fall apart.
Initially, there was speculation that Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado might seize the opportunity to take power. But facing overwhelming public pressure, the openly pro American leader has been forced to step back.
Strong voices of support for Maduro are now emerging across Latin America. From Bolivia’s former president and indigenous leader Evo Morales to Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro, leaders have spoken out in his defence. Petro, a former left wingguerrilla, has gone so far as to say that if the US believes it can also undermine Colombia’s sovereignty, he would not hesitate to take up arms again.
Cuba, too, has expressed solidarity. From the Democratic camp in the US, Kamala Harris has directly called Trump ‘stupid’ for abducting Maduro, arguing that the move has further weakened America’s standing on the global stage.
A glance at global economic indicators shows that the US is steadily losing economic strength. The unipolar world order that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union is now breaking apart. Countries like China, India, South Africa, and Brazil are rising on the global stage, while former European imperial powers are already in decline. In this context, Trump’s America resembles an ageing strongman trying one last time to assertstreet level dominance through brute force. The global surge of far right politics is only fueling this mindset.
The only force capable of stopping this dangerous and distorted impulse is a united global voice of ordinary people resisting imperialism and domination;the same kind of resistance that forced Israel’s military to halt operations in Gaza long before achieving its declared “operational objectives”.
Cover Image Credit – Satish Acharya
