On January 5, 2026, Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, appeared in a federal court in New York City. He pleaded not guilty to U.S. drug and narco-terrorism charges. Prosecutors say he led a group of Venezuelan officials who worked with groups like Colombia’s FARC to send a lot of cocaine to the U.S. Maduro defiantly said that during a U.S. military raid in Caracas, he was “kidnapped” and that he is still the president of Venezuela.
President Donald Trump said that U.S. forces caught Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a big attack and flew them to face “American justice.” If Venezuela’s interim government, led by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, doesn’t help open up its oil industry and stop drug trafficking, Trump said there would be more strikes. He said that the U.S. is now “in charge” of Venezuela’s future and that an oil quarantine would give the U.S. more power. He also said that opposition leader María Corina Machado did not have enough support.
The raid has thrown Venezuela into chaos, with reports of gunfire near Caracas’ Miraflores palace. Rodríguez is trying to balance claims of U.S. cooperation with claims of defiance at home. A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that only one-third of Americans support the military action that removed Maduro from power after more than 12 years. The U.N. Security Council plans to talk about whether or not the operation was legal, since some people are against taking a foreign head of state.
