US captures Venezuelan President Maduro, deepening crisis in Venezuela

On January 3, United States forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, an operation that resulted in at least 100 deaths and the destruction of key infrastructure, including a medicine and food warehouse at La Guaira port and research facilities of the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research.

U.S. officials claim the intervention will channel oil‑sale revenues to the Caracas government and be spent transparently, yet analysts say rebuilding the oil sector would cost more than $180 billion and take over a decade. Since the kidnapping, the Venezuelan bolívar has continued to collapse, the minimum wage falling to roughly $0.27 a month, and ordinary citizens face severe hunger and poverty.

Venezuelan professors describe the promised U.S. “prosperity” as an illusion. One said, “In the last five years the currency has devalued so much that my salary was equivalent to four dollars a month,” highlighting how the intervention has done little to improve daily life for most Venezuelans, while some fear the country could become a strategic U.S. foothold in competition with China.