Taking aim at Venezuela’s autocrat

Why is the U.S. targeting Maduro?

The Trump administration has accused the Venezuelan president of waging war on the U.S. through “narco-terrorism.” Many experts dispute whether that label is appropriate, but what is clear is that Maduro, 62, is a foe of U.S. influence in Latin America and a strongman who has pushed Venezuela deeper into dictatorship and economic decline. A stolid former Caracas bus driver, Maduro claims to be continuing the socialist mission of his predecessor Hugo Chávez. But, lacking Chávez’s charisma, he has resorted to rigging the last two presidential elections and using security forces to persecute, torture, and, in some cases, kill opponents. The U.S. is offering $50 million for information that will lead to Maduro’s arrest—the biggest reward of its kind—and has labeled him “one of the world’s largest drug traffickers.” In recent weeks, the U.S. has deployed a naval task force to the Caribbean that includes some 4,500 Marines and sailors, destroyers, an attack submarine, and 10 F-35 stealth fighters. And it has used air strikes to destroy at least four alleged drug-smuggling boats off Venezuela— killing 17 people—without a legal process. Maduro calls President Trump’s claims of drug trafficking a lie, saying the U.S.’s real goal is regime change and the installation of a “puppet government” so it can “take control of Venezuela’s oil.”

How did he gain power?

While working as a bus driver, Maduro rose through the ranks of the trade union movement. He entered Chávez’s inner circle in the early 1990s when he began dating his now wife, Cilia Flores, a lawyer who helped secure Chávez’s release from prison following the former tank commander’s failed 1992 coup attempt. After Chávez won the 1998 presidential election, both Maduro and Flores took top posts in government. In December 2012, a cancer-stricken Chávez used his final speech to urge Venezuelans to vote for then–vice president Maduro in the upcoming election. Chávez died three months later and Maduro—who claimed his mentor’s spirit visited him in the form of a songbird—won the presidency that April by a slim 1.5-point margin. Many supporters of Chávez boycotted the vote to protest worsening economic conditions.

What policies did Maduro pursue? 

He continued Chávez’s campaign of nationalizing industries, expanding social programs, and cracking down on the fast-growing opposition. Maduro used El Helicoide—a futuristic, uncompleted 1961 mega-shopping mall in Caracas—as a prison and torture center for hundreds of political detainees. “We would hear the screams all night,” said former Venezuelan lawmaker Rosmit Mantilla, who was detained there from 2014 to 2016. “I heard about people raped with blunt objects, others given electric shocks.” Like Chávez, Maduro raided the coffers of the state-owned oil company—Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves—to pay for the social programs that kept the working class loyal. Then, in 2014, global oil prices crashed, a catastrophe for a petrostate that relied on oil for 95% of export earnings.

What happened to the economy? 

It cratered, shrinking 80% from 2014 to 2020. Three-quarters of Venezuela’s roughly 30 million people fell into extreme poverty, and 8 million fled abroad, including 800,000 who headed to the U.S. Inflation hit 800% in 2016 and zoomed past 1 million percent two years later. Maduro responded with price controls, but that only worsened food shortages. In 2017, Maduro nullified the opposition-controlled National Assembly by creating a new regime-controlled Constituent Assembly, which granted itself wide powers to write and pass legislation. Dozens of opposition supporters were killed in protests and hundreds more were arrested. Maduro was re-elected president in a rigged 2018 vote that triggered economic sanctions from the U.S. Today, a new Maduro-allied elite splashes money around Caracas gained through regime connections, as well as through criminal activity such as smuggling gasoline and minerals, and drug and human trafficking.

Does that make Maduro a ‘narco-terrorist’? 

Regime insiders are involved in the drug trade: About a quarter of the world’s cocaine passes through Venezuela, and narco-trafficking generated $8.2 billion in profits for Venezuela last year. Two of Maduro’s nephews were arrested in a 2015 DEA sting in Haiti, after attempting to transport 800 kilos of cocaine to the U.S.; they were later released in a prisoner swap. In 2020, at the end of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department indicted Maduro and high-ranking Venezuelan officials and military officers, accusing them of leading Cártel de Los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), a “narco-terrorism” network that works with Colombian guerrilla groups and Mexican cartels to ship cocaine to the U.S. Some regional experts doubt there really is such a cartel. “There has never been clear evidence that such an organization exists,” said Phil Gunson of the nonprofit International Crisis Group. And despite the Trump administration’s claims, there is no evidence that Venezuela is smuggling the deadly opioid fentanyl to the U.S.

Is the U.S. trying to topple Maduro?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has hinted as much, saying last month that “Maduro is not a government or political regime” but a member of a “terrorist organization and organized-crime organization.” A source close to the administration told NBC News that officials hope the boat strikes will lead cartel bosses inside and outside Venezuela to turn on Maduro, so they can return to business as normal. One administration official told Axios that wasn’t the goal, saying, “This is 105% about narco-terrorism, but if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.” But experts warn that this campaign could end up aiding Maduro, who now portrays himself as a defender of Venezuelan national sovereignty. “If their intention is to topple Maduro, it’s not working,” said former U.S. diplomat Brian Naranjo, who served in Caracas. “It’s bolstering him.”

A lifeline from Beijing 

“Ni hao!” Maduro said during an August speech, pretending to greet Xi Jinping on a Huawei phone that the Chinese president had personally gifted him. That’s not all China offers Maduro’s regime: It buys around 90% of Venezuelan oil and has invested more than $67 billion in the country since 2007, including military aid. Last year, Xi congratulated Maduro on winning a third presidential term, though international observers presented evidence showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won by a wide margin. But would Xi support Venezuela in a war with the U.S.? China’s Foreign Ministry has denounced U.S. “coercion and bullying” against Venezuela, but experts are skeptical that China will offer anything more than words of support for Maduro. “In Beijing,” said Ryan C. Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “they probably consider him to be a clown.”