For Venezuelans, Maduro's capture is about far more than oil
When commentators rush to characterise Trump’s action as a grab for Venezuela’s oil, they miss the real story, writes Alexandra Panzarelli
Beyond the immediate outrage, celebration, and debate over Donald Trump’s decision to seize Nicolás Maduro and the predictable accusations of imperialism and resource-grabbing, there is a deeper reality that much of the international discourse is missing.
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For Venezuelans, this moment is not only about sovereignty or oil. It is about the collapse of our country into a criminalised authoritarian system that has destroyed lives and hollowed out an entire nation. Now that Maduro has been forcefully removed from power, we anxiously await a statement of intention to honour the outcome of the 2024 election and return Venezuela to a democratic and lawful land.
To understand what is at stake, simply read the latest United Nations reports.
Venezuelan political detainees have been subjected to torture, enforced disappearances, and degrading treatment that exceeds anything documented in our modern political history. Journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition activists have been abducted and left to rot in prisons that survivors describe as ‘hell on earth.’
We have known repression before - under colonial rule, under strongmen like Juan Vicente Gomez or Marcos Perez Jimenez, and during military regimes - but never with this level of institutionalised cruelty.
When commentators rush to characterise Trump’s action as a grab for Venezuela’s oil, they miss the real story. Of course, Venezuela has vast oil reserves, rare minerals, and a strategically advantageous location. Russia, China, and the United States all have interests in maintaining a presence.
Oil alone cannot explain why this happened now or why it took such an extraordinary and risky form. What truly transformed Venezuela into a global concern is the way Maduro rebuilt the state into a hybrid of dictatorship and narco-trafficking, as well as its geopolitical outpost.
Following the Cuban model, Havana took control of Venezuela’s intelligence and internal security. At the same time, the regime imported methods of repression from Russia and Belarus: kidnappings, judicial terror, and permanent surveillance.
To secure loyalty, the military was not only bribed but also allowed to embed itself in drug trafficking, gold smuggling, and other illicit economies. Venezuela stopped being simply an authoritarian state, it became a highly criminalised one.
The human cost of that transformation has been devastating. Close to 8 million Venezuelans were forced to flee. Some left on aeroplanes; many more crossed the hell of the Darién Gap, where they became prey to extortion, sexual trafficking, and death.
Venezuelans abroad have faced xenophobia and exploitation. At home, young people who protested peacefully in 2016 and 2017, the best of a generation, were killed, imprisoned, or driven into exile.
In 2024, against all odds, Venezuelans voted. Our opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, a brave woman later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was barred from running.
Still, people turned out in massive numbers. Electoral tallies showed a clear opposition victory, only for it to be stolen and suppressed through blatant fraud. Within weeks, the regime claimed more than one thousand political prisoners.
By December 2025, Maduro appeared untouchable. Sanctions, statements, and international pressure had failed to deliver results. Trump’s actions were brutal and destabilising but hardly random. Venezuela had become not just an oil-rich dictatorship, but a hub for drugs, foreign authoritarian influence, and regional insecurity.
For Venezuelans, the key issue isn't the value of oil but whether this moment will finally enable our legitimate leaders, María Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez-Urrutia, to take power, or if a new form of control will replace the old. Our lives, political prisoners, families in exile, and the memory of those who lost their lives in this fight should matter more than any underground resource.
Donald Trump, whose democratic integrity has been questioned repeatedly, is at a crossroads. He can either implement superficial regime changes, confirming the scepticism of many, or support Venezuelans in building a true democracy.
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Alexandra Panzarelli is a Venezuelan professor of Political Science at Marymount Manhattan College and at Yeshiva University. She is a PhD candidate at The New School for Social Research.
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