In his first major act of 2026 US President Donald Trump followed through on his threat to intervene in Venezuela by green-lighting Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’, which on 3 January led to the successful capture and rendition back to the United States of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Adela Flores, both of whom face charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
However, the big question that remains is: what now?
Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’, which was months in preparation, was by any measure a stunning success militarily. Using more than 150 aircraft – including an RQ-170 Sentinel low-observable reconnaissance drone to monitor Maduro’s movements, strike aircraft to neutralise Venezuelan air defence assets and command-and-control nodes, EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft to jam radars and communications, and MH-60M Black Hawk helicopters to carry elite Delta Force special operations forces – the raid was able to successfully apprehend Maduro and his wife at his fortress-like compound at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas and spirit them away to the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima off the Venezuelan coast. Only a handful of US service personnel were injured in the operation, with no fatalities, and, while a US helicopter sustained hits from ground fire, it was able to continue flying.
On the Venezuelan side, meanwhile, around 80 were killed, including 32 military and intelligence personnel from Venezuelan ally Cuba, which provided a substantial part of Maduro’s security detail.
Ironically, it was Cuban soil on which Maduro was initially to set foot, as he and his wife were first taken to the US military’s Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on the southeastern coast of Cuba before being transferred to a US federal detention centre in New York.
After Trump announced from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on 3 January that the raid had successfully taken place earlier that day, there was pushback from Democrats and even some Republicans over the operation taking place without Congress being notified. Trump Administration officials countered this by stating that the operation could not be compromised with the potential for any of the plans to be leaked, but in any case, as a specific joint military and law enforcement mission rather than a full-blown military intervention, Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ did not require Congressional approval.
However, greater concern is coming from US politicians and allies over what will come next in Venezuela, while some politicians in US-allied countries, such as Dame Emily Thornberry in the UK, who is chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, have claimed the US raid to seize Maduro breached international law.
Some politicians beyond the US have claimed that actions such as Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ could embolden other countries to mount similar adventures, yet it is worth remembering that Russian President Vladimir Putin needed no such excuse to annex Crimea in 2014 and launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Trump initially claimed during his press conference at Mar-a-Lago, “We have a group of people running [Venezuela] until such a time it can be put back on track, make a lot of money for [Venezuelans] … give people a great way of life, and also [reimburse the] people in our country who were forced out of Venezuela.”
However, it is unclear how the US government could exert any direct control in Caracas.
Trump added that, while it was his understanding that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez was “just sworn in” to the Venezuelan presidency following Maduro’s rendition to the US (she has been made acting president), he believed Rodriguez seemed willing to work with the US.
“[Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] is working on that directly,” he said. “He just had a conversation with [Rodriguez], and she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
However, Rodriguez has held several positions in Venezuela’s socialist governments, both throughout the Maduro presidency and even during the regime of his predecessor Hugo Chávez, whose presidency made Venezuela a prominent US adversary in Latin America. It is therefore perhaps a little surprising to see the Trump Administration endorse her potential as an ally so readily.
In Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election the opposition leader Edmundo González was widely seen as the legitimate winner of a contest stolen by Maduro. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was barred from running in that election and recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for her struggles against the Maduro regime, has called for González to be recognised as the rightful leader of Venezuela. However, despite the success of Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ – or maybe even because of it, given the danger of tarnishing such an obvious ‘win’ – the Trump Administration appears to have no immediate appetite for facilitating a Venezuelan government that truly represents the will of its people, which is perhaps not surprising; nation building – as the US found out in Iraq and Afghanistan – is hard and requires boots on the ground for longer than the duration of a special forces raid. If Acting President Rodriguez remains compliant enough and the Venezuelan opposition not sufficiently galvanised, that could be as far as ‘regime change’ in Venezuela will go.
Meanwhile, one potential positive result for the US from Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ that might require very little effort could be economic pressure being heaped on the communist government in Cuba, which lies just 90 miles (145 km) south of Key West in Florida. While Cuba has ties with both Russia and China, Venezuela and its oil riches became a major benefactor of the government in Havana from the Chávez presidency onward. Given that Cuba’s struggling controlled economy already suffers from frequent national power outages, the loss of free Venezuelan oil could have significant economic or even political consequences unless Beijing or Moscow are prepared to step in.
As an exercise in wielding US influence and flexing US military muscle in Latin America, Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ can be seen as a clear indicator that the Trump Administration’s ‘Monroe Doctrine 2.0’ to exert US hegemony in the Western hemisphere – or Donroe Doctrine, as Trump is now calling it – is more than just talk.
Indeed, as Trump asserted at his post-raid press conference, “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
It will then have come with some ongoing consternation for Denmark when Trump told reporters on Air Force One on 4 January, “We need Greenland. … We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
“You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland? They added one more dog sled. It’s true. They thought that was a great move,” Trump added.
That remark, inevitably, was a falsehood. In October 2025, for example, the Danish government committed DKK 27.4 billion (EUR 3.67 billion) to boosting its military presence in the High North, following initiatives announced in January 2025 valued at around DKK 14.6 billion (EUR 1.96 billion).
