Insight,
Analysis and Implications of U.S. Capture of Venezuela’s Maduro
By Victor Sperandeo with the
Curmudgeon
Executive
Summary:
The
U.S. military struck Venezuela on January 3, 2026, capturing President Nicolás
Maduro and his wife in the largest American military operation in Latin America
since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Maduro
has long been on the U.S. government’s wanted list. In March 2020, a federal
judge in the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against him
and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials, alleging he has been at the head
of a narcotics trafficking ring with ties to U.S.-designated terrorist groups.
After the 2020 indictment, the Department of Justice announced a $15
million reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture.
President
Trump announced the U.S. would temporarily “run” Venezuela, while Maduro
faces narco-terrorism charges in New York. Despite that claim, Vice
President Delcy Rodríguez has assumed power as the de
facto leader of the beleaguered country, creating a highly uncertain
political situation.
Maduro’s
abduction aligns with U.S. objectives to remove a pro-Russian, anti-U.S. leader
and gain control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves - the world’s largest at an
estimated 300 billion barrels.
The
U.S. now bears singular responsibility for stabilizing Venezuela and preventing
further chaos. Its action has sparked significant international debate
regarding national sovereignty, the rule of law, and the U.S. role in global
affairs.
Comment,
Analysis & Opinions:
To
the best of our knowledge, Saturday’s U.S abduction of Venezuelan President
Maduro has not ever happened in any MAJOR country before! Other dictators have
been uprooted including Bashar Al-Assad of Syria, and Panama’s President
Noriega who also was kidnapped by the U.S.
However, they were not the leaders of a significant major country.
Venezuela is the 32nd largest country in the world with 353,841 square miles in
area and has 29 million people living there. It is 2.4 times larger in size
than Japan.
Several
points worth noting:
l
Maduro’s capture was most likely achieved
through a covert operation—possibly involving bribery—with senior
Venezuelan generals working in concert with the CIA. Credit also goes to the
U.S. Elite Delta Force, which reportedly completed the mission without
any American military casualties.
l
Venezuela people intensely hated Maduro, who
had stolen
the 2024 Presidential election from Edmundo González who had 67% of the
vote. They cheered his capture and arrest in Venezuela and Florida on Saturday.
l
Venezuela residents are not likely to back a
regime headed by Maduro protégé Delcy Rogdriguez, who has called for Maduro’s
immediate release. Venezuela’s military
and Defense Minister have stated they recognize Rodriguez as the country’s
acting leader for the next 90 days.
l
This U.S. incursion in Venezuela was 100% UNCONSTITUTIONAL,
as were the killings of Venezuelan motorboat people, and taking of oil tankers
(piracy) without Congressional approval. Sadly, the rule of law is gone in the
U.S.
l
The U.S. motivation was to orchestrate regime
change and the control of the country’s OIL - period and full stop! Yet because
Maduro harmed so many people in his own country it presents a dilemma for
judging the action.
l
This action shows that the U.S. “cherry picks”
who it wants to pursue for its own agenda… Why not Xi Jinping of China, or
former Mexican leaders who were complicit with narco-traffic organizations that
imported drugs into the US?
Geopolitical
Implications:
The
official justification centered on narcotics charges against Maduro sits
uneasily within the broader pattern of U.S. interventions over the past several
decades, where large-scale military or covert actions have disproportionately
targeted energy-rich states (e.g. Iraq). That perceived selectivity
erodes U.S. credibility when invoking international law or democratic norms.
This
operation risks cementing the perception of the United States as an
openly imperial power acting outside established international norms. If
the stated objective had been limited to removing Maduro and supporting a
credible transition process, without explicit moves to control Venezuela’s oil
supply or “run” the country, it would have been far more defensible in
geopolitical and legal terms. Instead, the decision to install Chevron
as the de-facto steward of Venezuelan oil production, while framing the
intervention primarily as an anti-narcotics and pro-democracy measure, appears
to many observers as a thinly veiled assertion of resource control and has
invited accusations of hypocrisy and illegality. We agree 100%!
A
more legitimate approach would have been to empower Venezuela’s constitutional
line of succession to assume interim leadership, coupled with an
internationally supervised electoral process under a neutral multilateral body
such as the United Nations or the Organization of American States.
In
that scenario, a future Venezuelan government could negotiate energy and
investment agreements with partners it chose, rather than having a major U.S.
oil company effectively preselected without their consent. The current path
reinforces the narrative that this covert U.S. operation is driven less by
norms-based intervention and more by a desire to secure strategic assets.
The
muted reaction from influential European capitals, where criticism has been
limited and largely rhetorical, underscores how fragmented and interest-driven
the international response has been. Reporting already describes a mixed global
reaction: U.S. allies have been cautious, while some regional governments
express concern about setting a dangerous precedent.
Inside
the United States, opposition figures and legal scholars argue that the
operation bypassed congressional war powers and may violate international law.
The fact that Congress and the judiciary have been silent without
offering any decisive push back, suggests a de facto expansion of U.S.
Executive branch authority in foreign military action and raises questions
about the durability of constitutional checks and balances in national security
matters.
-->One
has to wonder if the U.S. has become a monarchy with
Trump as its king and the Constitution trashed?
Impact
on the Markets:
l
Maduro’s capture is likely to create modest,
short-lived volatility in oil prices this week, rather than a major
structural move. Venezuela’s oil production is currently relatively low
compared with global supply. Key
production and refining facilities do not appear heavily damaged, which limits immediate
disruption risk. More meaningful energy market impacts depend on how political
transition and sanctions evolve over the next few months.
l
Taking Maduro should have a minor impact on
the equity markets this week, as it was over quickly on Saturday without
any damage to Venezuela’s infrastructure. It is my view to short the NDX 100 futures (equivalent to the QQQ NASAQ
100 ETF) into any rally on Thursday or Friday.
l If
the U.S. Treasury and the Fed do not treat the bond market with more respect,
it could result in a 2008-2009 like housing recession. For many Americans, home
prices are largely unaffordable. Studies
show over 75% of U.S. homes out of reach for the typical household due to a
combination of high prices, limited inventory (as current owners stay put), and
elevated mortgage rates, making home ownership feel more like a luxury than a
standard middle-class goal.
l While
stocks have soared, the TLT U.S. government bond ETF NAV has lost -42.67% in
the last five years or -15.7% per year compounded! That does not include
distributions of interest so the total return is
slightly better, but still deeply negative.
Conclusions:
Beyond
Venezuela, Maduro’s capture is likely to be interpreted as part of a wider,
informal re-partitioning of spheres of influence among major powers. Even if
not formally coordinated, the concurrent trajectories—China’s pressure on
Taiwan, Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine, and now U.S. asserted
control over a communist petro-state—feed a narrative that great world
powers are normalizing de facto territorial, economic and security carve-outs
for their own benefits.
South
American leaders such as Brazil’s President Luiz Lula de Silva, Chile’s Gabriel
Boric and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro are likely to view these developments with
heightened concern, particularly given past U.S. rhetoric toward left-leaning
governments and renewed invocations of the Monroe Doctrine
for the Western Hemisphere.
The
official rationale of narcotics charges against Maduro fits awkwardly with a
longer history of U.S. interventions that have often focused on energy-rich
states such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya. This perceived selectivity weakens U.S.
credibility when it references international law or democratic principles. In
this case, U.S. officials have explicitly linked military action and sanctions
to ambitions to gain leverage or even directly control, Venezuelan oil fields.
….………………………………………………………………………..
End
Quotes:
Evidently,
Trump never read George
Washington’s farewell address.
On Foreign Entanglements/Alliances, Washington advised
against permanent alliances and excessive attachment to or hatred of foreign
nations, stressing that such influences could draw the U.S. into conflicts and
undermine its independent policy and interests.
On
the potential abuse of Executive branch power (bold font added):
“It
is important that the habits of thinking in a free Country should inspire
caution, in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves
within their respective Constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of
the Powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of
encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and
thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates
in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.
The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power;
by dividing and distributing it into different depositories,
and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions
by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient & modern; some of
them in our country & under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as
necessary as to institute them.”
….………………………………………………………………………….
Wishing you good
health, success, and good luck. Till next time…………………………………………………………..
The Curmudgeon
ajwdct@gmail.com
Follow the Curmudgeon on Twitter @ajwdct247
Curmudgeon is a retired investment professional. He has been involved in financial markets since 1968 (yes, he cut his teeth on the 1968-1974 bear market), became an SEC Registered Investment Advisor in 1995, and received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from AIMR (now CFA Institute) in 1996. He managed hedged equity and alternative (non-correlated) investment accounts for clients from 1992-2005.
Victor Sperandeo is a historian, economist and financial innovator who has re-invented himself and the companies he's owned (since 1971) to profit in the ever-changing and arcane world of markets, economies, and government policies. Victor started his Wall Street career in 1966 and began trading for a living in 1968. As President and CEO of Alpha Financial Technologies LLC, Sperandeo oversees the firm's research and development platform, which is used to create innovative solutions for different futures markets, risk parameters and other factors.
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