Venezuela after the American intervention

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and lost three quarters of its economy and a quarter of its people in a decade under Nicolas Maduro, who held on to power after an election in 2024 that, by the tally sheets the opposition published and independent analysts checked, he lost. On 3 January 2026 American forces struck Caracas, seized Maduro and his wife and flew them to New York to stand trial on drug charges. Washington then left his vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, in charge, and has spent the year signing oil agreements with her. The opposition that won the 2024 vote is still waiting.

Where it stands · September 2026

On 1 September the United States and Venezuela signed a 100-year oil deal. Chevron and Eni pledged $7 billion on 2 September to double Venezuela's oil output. On 16 September US oil companies signed further deals as the American president eased drug sanctions. On 23 September María Corina Machado was blocked from returning to Venezuela while Delcy Rodríguez met the American president. On 24 September Rodríguez, Venezuela's interim leader, promised elections at the United Nations. On 15 September Alex Saab, an ally of Maduro, pleaded guilty in a US money laundering case.

What the dispute is about

Who governs. Maduro's party still runs the state under his deputy. The opposition claims the mandate of 2024. Washington, which holds the decisive power, deals with the first and praises the second.

The oil. Venezuela's founding political idea under Hugo Chavez was that its oil belonged to the nation. The interim government has signed much of its future production over to American partners for decades, and calls that a defence of sovereignty.

The precedent. One state seized another's head of state by force without a mandate from anyone. Most of Latin America, which had no love for Maduro, asks who is next.

How each side explains it

Washington's account

Maduro was not a president but the head of a criminal organisation that stole an election, flooded America with drugs and gang members, and drove eight million people out of their country. He had been indicted since 2020. American forces arrested him in an operation of a few hours. Since then political prisoners have been freed, relations restored, sanctions lifted, and the oil industry, wrecked by twenty years of theft, is being rebuilt with American capital to the benefit of both peoples. Elections will come when the country can hold them safely.

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The account of the government in Caracas

Venezuela was attacked and its president kidnapped. Faced with a superior force, the government chose to protect the population, keep the state functioning and negotiate. It has kept the peace, freed detainees under an amnesty, reopened the economy and secured investment on terms that leave ownership of the subsoil with the nation. It governs a sovereign country, not a protectorate.

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What each account leaves out

Washington's leaves out that the operation had no authorisation from Congress or the Security Council and killed some eighty people; that before it, American forces killed scores of men on boats whom they never identified or tried; that it left in charge the deputy of the government it called criminal; and that it has delivered oil contracts and deferred the election.

Caracas's leaves out that it is the same apparatus that United Nations investigators hold responsible for crimes against humanity and that, by those tally sheets, lost the 2024 vote; that the oil agreements run for generations and were made by a government no one elected; and that, by the United Nations' account, arrests of opponents go on.

The opposition's leaves out that its leader welcomed the American military build-up, dedicated her Nobel prize to the American president and gave him the medal; and that it supported the oil sanctions that deepened the collapse its voters fled.

The critics' leaves out that most of them had refused to recognise Maduro's claimed victory and had no plan of their own; that for ten years they watched eight million people leave; and that China and Russia were his creditors and arms suppliers.

The ledger

The United States

Wanted: Maduro gone, migrants and drugs stopped, and the oil.
Gained: the first and the third.
Paid: the hostility of most of the hemisphere's governments, and the question it now cannot avoid, of whether it came for Venezuelans or for their reserves.

Maduro's party

Wanted: to survive.
Gained: it governs still, with sanctions lifted.
Paid: its leader, and the principle that gave it meaning.

The opposition

Wanted: the government its voters chose.
Gained

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

arrest, capture / kidnapping
narco-state / constitutional government
transition / continuity
investment / plunder
interim president
sovereignty
liberation / aggression