On Jan. 3, the United States military led a strike in Caracas, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The operation was the culmination of months of action by the Trump administration, which authorized the bombing of boats allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela.
Now in New York City, Maduro and Flores face criminal charges, including drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism.” Many questions remain about the future of Venezuela's government and economy, especially its oil industry.
We asked University of Chicago experts to weigh in on Venezuela’s uncertain future: political scientist Prof. Michael Albertus, international relations scholar Assoc. Prof. Paul Poast, international law scholar Prof. Curtis Bradley and energy economics expert Prof. Ryan Kellogg.
In this edited Q&A, they discuss the history of the U.S. in the region, the legality of the charges against Maduro, how President Donald Trump’s shifting foreign policy may affect the global order and the U.S. interest in Venezuelan oil.
Why have U.S. relations with Venezuela and tensions with Maduro escalated so much in the past year?
Albertus: Since well before Trump's re-election to office, the U.S. and Venezuela have been at odds. But Trump and Maduro are staunch ideological foes. They are also both empowered hardliners.
On the U.S. side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio's hawkish stance toward Venezuela has found critical support from several Cuban-American lawmakers from Miami who have consistently opposed any cooperation with Venezuela.
Relations between the two countries then soured further with Venezuela's fraudulent election in July 2024 and the Trump administration's pressure campaign, which began with bombing alleged drug-trafficking boats and culminated in Maduro's removal.
In your view, was the U.S. action against Venezuela legal?
Bradley: No. The use of military force against another nation is not allowed under international law, except in self-defense in response to an armed attack, and Venezuela had not attacked the United States. Nor is it permissible to conduct a law enforcement operation in another country without that country’s consent, because doing so has the potential to lead to war.
Did the Trump administration violate constitutional limits on war powers by not seeking Congressional authorization?
Bradley: This is unclear. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. But presidents have long asserted the right to engage in limited military operations without seeking congressional authorization. The president is in charge of federal law enforcement and is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and it can be argued that those powers are sufficient to support the Maduro operation.
Ultimately, it is up to Congress to police the president’s use of force.
Does the U.S. have a legal basis for its case against Maduro?
Bradley: The government will need to prove its case at trial. But the United States certainly can apply its drug laws to individuals abroad who are involved in trafficking narcotics into the U.S. The fact that the U.S. may have apprehended Maduro illegally will not be a defense to his being tried in the United States. He might have certain immunity defenses because he was the de facto head of state of Venezuela, but I think those defenses are not likely to succeed.
How is this operation different or similar to other U.S. military-backed actions against government leaders? Are there any useful recent or historical comparisons?
Albertus: The closest historical parallel to the removal of Maduro was U.S. intervention in Panama in 1989 and the ultimate capture of its military leader, Manuel Noriega. Noriega and several top figures were forcibly removed, extradited to American courts on drug-trafficking and money laundering charges, and convicted. But there are also differences. Noriega's removal required American Marines on the ground in Panama and took weeks. And the American government then aided the installation of a democratic government. In Venezuela, the U.S. so far has snubbed the democratic opposition.
What could this mean for the future of Venezuela? What role do you foresee the U.S. having in the country’s government, both now and in the future?
Albertus: The U.S. now claims it will "run" Venezuela, by which it means issuing directives and ultimatums backed up by the threat of force. And it is trying to turn Venezuela's new leader, Delcy Rodríguez, into a puppet. But all of the top authorities in Venezuela are still in place, and the democratic opposition still wants change.
Inevitably, there are going to be tensions.
That leaves a lot of possible scenarios for the coming year or two as the regime tries to dig in, the opposition advocates for elections and the U.S. tries to extract oil.
Poast: While the claim by Trump that the U.S. would “run” the country caught the attention of many, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio almost immediately began walking back those statements, claiming instead that the U.S. would guide and pressure the transitional government led by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. But whether Rodríguez is only “transitional,” how the Trump administration will exercise pressure, and for how long, are all questions whose answers remain to be seen.
Similarly, Trump claimed that U.S. oil companies would immediately start operating in the country, with the goal of rebuilding its dilapidated infrastructure. But how and when that will take place is questionable, even for companies like Chevron that already have a presence in the country.
In short, this may yet be another instance of a U.S. administration using military force without adequately planning for the aftermath.
The action in Venezuela has raised the question of whether the U.S. is returning to the Monroe Doctrine of U.S. dominance in South America. What would that mean for the hemisphere over the long term? How could the administration’s evolving foreign policy affect the global order?
Poast: Trump is going to be a great 19th-century U.S. president. His explicit invoking and extension of the Monroe Doctrine, or what his staff calls the "Trump Corollary" and what Trump himself labels the “Donroe Doctrine”, is a case in point. Make no mistake, the U.S. has long maintained dominance in the region and has regularly militarily intervened in Latin America over the two centuries since Monroe. But Trump is asserting a fixation on the hemisphere and a willingness to threaten and apply force at a scale that has not been seen in decades, even in a century. This can have two consequences.
First, will Trump, emboldened by the relative military ease of this particular operation, now seek to take action elsewhere in the region? If those actions are against the interests of U.S. NATO allies, be it Canada or Denmark, it could undermine, if not effectively end, that alliance. However, I don’t see the application of force going that far. Instead, for instance, Trump is talking of buying Greenland … an action that has its own 19th-century flair.
Second, there is a worry that such actions point toward Trump granting a free hand to Russia and China in their respective regions, so long as they stay out of the Western Hemisphere. That is not so clear to me either, and this is where his 19th-century mentality runs into conflict with his desire for the U.S., through him, to remain what Madeleine Albright called “the indispensable nation.”
For instance, Trump thinks that Xi Jinping will not authorize an invasion of Taiwan so long as he is president, and Trump still appears to think that Vladimir Putin will eventually want to “do a deal” on Ukraine—a deal only he can craft.
President Trump has mentioned U.S. interest in Venezuela's oil. What is the state of that industry and can the U.S. take it over?
Kellogg: Venezuela’’s oil industry is in rough shape. The country used to produce around 3 million barrels per day of crude, but production has fallen to less than 1 million barrels a day due to lack of investment and maintenance in the capital infrastructure needed to get the oil out of the ground. Significantly increasing Venezuela’s oil production would require investments of tens of billions of dollars to build up the processing units, pipelines, port infrastructure, and so on that would be needed to handle larger production volumes. Private industry is going to be reluctant to make those investments unless and until there is a stable political and legal regime in place.
What effect could that have on oil and energy prices?
Kellogg: Even in a scenario in which there is substantial investment into the Venezuelan oil sector, that would have only a muted impact on oil prices. First, any such investment program would take place over decades. We simply are not going to see a gusher of new crude oil from Venezuela any time soon. Second, Venezuela is but one country in a global oil market in which more than 100 million barrels are produced and consumed every day. Even a gradual doubling of Venezuelan production will not have an impact on global oil prices beyond a couple dollars per barrel.
