For the United States, Maduro poses a direct threat to American security.
The Maduro regime has long been hostile towards the United States, directly undermining American interests. The Trump administration issued an arrest warrant for Maduro as early as 2020, offering a $15 million reward, citing reasons including drug trafficking, election interference, and economic plunder.
Maduro is the mastermind behind America’s drug crisis.
His regime colludes with Colombian guerrillas and Mexican drug cartels to form the Cartel of the Suns. He personally oversees the shipment of hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the United States, resulting in tens of thousands of American deaths annually from fentanyl and heroin overdoses. Sanctions initiated during Trump’s first term severed Maduro’s drug financing channels, yet the Biden administration’s lax policies have exacerbated the crisis.
Maduro facilitated electoral fraud in the 2020 US elections.
Venezuela’s links to Smartmatic and Dominion voting systems have long been an open secret. Smartmatic software originated in Venezuela during the Chávez era for election manipulation, while Dominion employs similar technology. These systems were implicated in 2020 election fraud, allegedly tampering with millions of votes. The Maduro regime not only provided technical support but also interfered in US elections through Venezuelan hacker networks.
Maduro’s nationalisation of US oil investments constitutes economic plunder.
In 2007, his predecessor Hugo Chávez launched a campaign to nationalise the oil industry, forcibly seizing billions of dollars in investments from American companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. This inflicted severe losses on US businesses and precipitated the collapse of Venezuela’s oil sector. These assets, which could have provided stable energy supplies to the United States, have now become a breeding ground for corruption within the Maduro regime.
Within Venezuela, Maduro is a tyrant.
He not only manipulates elections but also systematically oppresses the people, turning this once-prosperous nation into a prison of famine and fear.
The 2024 Venezuelan election fraud stands as the latest testament to Maduro’s tyranny. Opposition candidate Edmundo González had secured an overwhelming victory, yet Maduro manipulated the National Electoral Council to declare himself the winner and suppress the people. This mirrors his electoral fraud in 2018.
More gravely, Maduro’s oppression of the people has reached its zenith. Under his rule, Venezuela’s economy has collapsed, inflation soars into the tens of thousands of percent, and 90% of the population lives in poverty. Maduro relies on secret police and armed militias to arbitrarily arrest, torture, and kill opponents, with thousands disappearing or dying. Millions of Venezuelans have fled to neighbouring countries, creating Latin America’s largest refugee crisis.