On Jan. 2, Trump announced via social media that the United States had captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro after a series of US-initiated strikes on Caracas and was flying him out of Venezuela. Shortly after, Trump added that Maduro was now being held in New York and that he was going to “run” Venezuela.
This latest move by the Trump administration follows a series of increasingly aggressive US actions against Venezuela. Last November, the Wellstone House of Organizing and Activism (WHOA) held a meeting on anti-war organizing and (at the time) recent American actions in Venezuela.
“We talked about the basic context of what at the time looked like was going to happen with the US and Venezuela,” said Zack Shawn ’26, the WHOA House Program Manager. “The Trump administration was continuously hinting at it with the movement of American ships towards Venezuela and being stationed near Venezuela, along with the drone strikes in the Caribbean.”
Professors Al Montero and Silvia Lopez from Carleton’s political science and Latin American studies departments respectively, gave a talk about Venezuela on Jan. 15. “I think we just had a U.S. intervention in Latin America that goes back to the 19th century,” Montero said.
“We have a sort of return to some of the things that kind of dominated American foreign policy in Latin America prior to World War I, and at the end of the 19th century, where we’re doing things overseas to extract [Latin American] resources and build things that were economically important to the United States at the time.”
Although the U.S. Justice Department charged Maduro with drugs and weapons charges, which Trump used to justify his invasion, along with general accusations of governmental corruption, many believe his comments about accessing Venezuelan oil feel more genuine.
“I think the most necessary context is what Trump has been saying consistently, which is about American access to Venezuelan oil and that they’re proposing a lot of ways of sort of directly control that oil that are compatible with international law but would do nothing to improve the situation of anyone in Venezuela because it would just be taking resources out of the country,” said Shawn.
“[Trump] doesn’t care about Venezuelans,” said Venezuelan student Mariana Duran Amaya ’27. “If he did, he wouldn’t have taken away the Temporary Protection Status, which now leaves around 600,000 Venezuelans without a legal status and vulnerable. So now they can be harassed by ICE, put in prison, then sent back to the repressive regime they were trying to escape.”
However, even among the students and faculty who believe Trump’s capture of Maduro to be out of imperialist intent, many have complicated feelings due to the controversialness of Maduro’s regime.
“It is pivotal for people to understand that the regime of Maduro was neither a democratic one nor one righteous to its people. Handpicked by the former president, Hugo Chavez, Maduro reigned with terror and reified his power through fraudulent elections and a number of human rights violations to silence dissent from Venezuelans,” Amaya said.
“Venezuela has gone through so much in the past 25 years. The economy crumbled, food became scarce and extremely expensive. After the 2016 protests, Venezuela has faced heightened military repression, increased tension, extralegal arrests of journalists, opposition activists and politicians. At this point, arrests [are made] of anyone who shows dissatisfaction towards the government. People are being put in El Elicoide, a torture center for government critics, and most don’t ever escape this chamber. It breaks my heart to hear of the abuse and torture Venezuelans are facing at the hands of a tyrannical regime.”
For many Venezuelans, Maduro’s capture brings a newfound sense of hope for a better future for the country. “When Maduro was taken […] for the first time in 25 years, my dad felt hope. Hope to see his children return to their homeland so they can see their family for the first time since they left. Hope to see a change for the better after years of fighting tooth and nail to survive,” said Amaya. “My mom left Venezuela with my little brother and me — nothing else. She sold her car and her belongings in order to bring us to a country where we could prosper. For her, thinking of the possibility of returning to Venezuela fueled her joy. She was filled with hope and was overjoyed to see the man who forced her to flee her home being ‘served justice.’”
