What President Nicolás Maduro's Capture Says About The US

One thing you can almost appreciate about President Donald Trump is that, arguably, no other administration in modern history has done more to lay bare what America has always made some effort to mask: that it’s a white supremacist, imperialist nation that specializes in assuming authority across the globe, destabilizing the governments of foreign nations full of Black and brown people, plundering their resources, and doing it all under the guise of protecting America.

Trump doesn’t seem to realize that modern-day America is supposed to have a poker face. It’s supposed to be racist while presenting the false appearance of being a nation where “all men are created equal,” not one where the president is saying almost explicitly that this is a white refugee-only country, where Somalis, Haitians, Nigerians, and South Americans are not welcome. We’re supposed to pretend to be a nation with a non-authoritarian government when getting into conflicts with other governments, supposedly because they’re authoritarian. And — my god — the president is not supposed to come right out and essentially say his country is getting into yet another foreign conflict for another nation’s oil. He’s supposed to call it “freedom.”

Don’t get me wrong: Trump has never come right out and said, “America is a racist empire, and I’m its dictator,” but he has done his best to send that exact message loud and clear through virtually every executive action since the start of his second term.

And now we’re out here kidnapping presidents.

On Saturday, Trump confirmed that a “large-scale strike” was carried out in Venezuela, and that our government went into the country and captured PresidentNicolás Maduro and his wife. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for our military to bomb boats from Venezuela and expect people of both nations to just take it at face value that those boats carried drugs and were headed to the U.S. Now, we’re going into sovereign nations to arrest their leaders on drug and weapons charges, barely a month after Trump issued a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in the U.S. for his part in a major drug trafficking operation.

As we previously reported, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that Maduro has been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” and that he “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

Meanwhile, Trump was talking about oil.

From CNBC:

President Donald Trump made clear Saturday that U.S. investment in oil-rich Venezuela’s energy sector is a central objective of the regime change operation that ousted President Nicolas Maduro.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” Trump said in a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

“Let’s start making money for the country,” Trump said.

Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC, sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world at 303 billion barrels or 17% of global reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Chevron is the only major U.S. oil company operating in the South American nation. It exported about 140,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to data from energy consulting firm Kpler.

So, are all of these aggressive actions about drugs, safety, or oil? Is Trump out here just deciding that other countries are now U.S.-owned until his administration says otherwise? After all, Trump also said Saturday that  the U.S. will “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” 

Then he went back to talking about oil.

“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be,” he said. “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries, many of whom are using it now, but I would say many more will come.”

It’s also worth mentioning that Trump also suggested he might take his “your country is now my country” act on a global tour.

From the New York Times:

President Trump suggested on Sunday that the United States could take action against other countries after its attack on Venezuela. He threatened Colombia and its president, described Cuba as “ready to fall” and reasserted his desire to take control of Greenland.

Mr. Trump has been facing questions about his plans for Venezuela since a U.S. raid in Caracas captured the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and brought him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking and weapons charges. As Mr. Trump took questions about that on Sunday, he spoke of other countries in Latin America and beyond.

On Air Force One, Mr. Trump told reporters that Colombia was being “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

“He’s not going to be doing it for very long,” he said of Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who has frequently criticized Mr. Trump. “He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories.”

Trump also suggested the U.S. could take action against Mexico, claiming drugs are “pouring” in from our southern neighbor, and “we’re going to have to do something.”

Of course, while talking about all the countries he’s putting on notice — you guessed it — he went right back to oil.

“We are in the business of having countries around us that are viable and successful and where the oil is allowed to freely come out,” Trump said, according to CNN, “It gets the prices down. That’s good for our country.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s actions in Venezuela are receiving widespread international criticism.

From the Guardian:

International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) issued a joint statement condemning the actions, including condemning the military intervention, defending the sovereignty of Venezuela, and calling for the release of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, his wife, Cilia Flores, and any other citizens detained in the operation.

The ITUC represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and territories and has 340 national affiliates.

“These acts in no way defend democracy; they are clear acts of aggression as part of a militarised foreign policy agenda motivated by unilateral economic interests,” said ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle in a statement. “Threats of kidnapping and the misuse of the courts to attack a sovereign government undermine the international rule of law and set a precedent of imperial coercion that jeopardises peace everywhere.”

The labor union federation noted it agreed with positions expressed by the governments of Brazil, Mexico, and other countries calling for a return to diplomatic channels and peace.

It’s only fair to note that Maduro is also an authoritarian leader who is despised by many in his country. So, maybe Trump’s actions are somewhat of a “game recognize game” situation, and our president’s true message is simple: my authoritarian stick is bigger than yours, and this is how I’m wielding it.

Trump has spent much of his first presidency and all of his second term’s first year peeling back America’s mask, and things are only set to get scarier.

SEE ALSO:

President Trump Confirms Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s Capture

Trump Admin’s Lawlessness On Full Display In Unhinged Venezuela Attack

Everything We Know About The Capture Of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro

With The Capture Of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump Is Making Imperialism Great Again was originally published on newsone.com