Trump’s Maduro Raid Isn’t Just About Oil – It’s About China (Opinion)

Late on January the 3rd 2026, the world as we knew it was forever changed, when a US Delta Force raid successfully captured the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Venezuela had long been under international sanctions and had recently become the target of Washington DC’s ire, resulting in the blowing up of alleged drug-smuggling boats in the region. Maduro had been labelled a “narco-terrorist” by the Trump administration, accused of untold harm that resulted from his narcotics reaching the United States, but nobody expected Washington to kick the door in and capture the man himself. He was quickly moved offshore to the USS Iwo Jima, and has since been placed in custody in New York, where he is soon to stand trial.

And people have a lot of opinions about this, trying to work out what this was all really for. Some believe it was a genuine effort to get drugs off American streets, others believe it was to cause regime change in Venezuela ushering in a golden age of democracy. Some believe it was about the US ousting an illegitimate leader who stayed in power despite losing his last election, others argue it was about the US desperately trying to hold on to a faltering global empire.

But the most common reason that people assume that Washington took the actions it did was because of oil. Venezuela has the largest reserves of the stuff in the world, and much like Iraq 20 years ago, the present administration has indicated it will take control of the oil infrastructure in the country. Trump has even spoken about the oil several times already, so it seems an easy parallel to make. This is the United States brazenly invading a sovereign nation to steal its resources for itself, right?

Well, maybe not.

Because behind every overt action that happens on the world stage, there are countless covert ones that we don’t see. The global shadow war, the new Cold War, or just war – whatever you want to call it, it’s going on all around us all the time. If you step back from Trump and Maduro and night raids and drugs and oil for a minute to look at the big picture, you can start to see what might be going on behind the scenes.

And there’s reason to believe that this raid wasn’t about Venezuela at all. It was about China.

The Beast in the East

What do we mean by saying “it was about China”? Well, a war between the United States and the People’s Republic of China over Taiwan being on the horizon is the worst kept secret in global geopolitics. The trade disputes, the economic warfare, AI infrastructure, and chip manufacturing are just a few of the many factors that have Washington and Beijing careening towards a clash. China is set to have a fully integrated and modernised military by 2027, which makes next year the earliest that China could make a play for Taiwan. But a war with China isn’t going to be confined to the South and East China Seas, it’s almost certainly going to touch every continent, as both sides seek to deprive the other of strategic resources and logistical paths. It will also certainly involve the US and its allies fighting the so-called “Axis of Disorder” – of whom the main players are China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and – until a few days ago – Venezuela.

Venezuela in particular held a specific strategic advantage, being one of the closest outwardly hostile nations to the United States. The country also subsidised much of the Cuban economy for a long time, with Cuba even closer to Uncle Sam’s shores. Trump himself, in a speech where he talked about needing Venezuelan oil after Maduro’s capture, stated:

“We wanna surround ourselves with good neighbours, we wanna surround ourselves with stability…”

And that line is crucial. It says that this isn’t necessarily just about oil, it’s about preparing the battlefield for what is coming next. Venezuela’s proximity to the US means that even medium-range hypersonic missiles (say from China perhaps) could reach the US mainland, and that is a huge red line for Washington DC.

But even in general, having an enemy that close to vital regions the US would need to use during wartime would be seen as a huge problem. Lest we forget, Venezuela is close to the Panama Canal, which is key for some US naval forces to be able to reach Asia promptly without going all the way around South America. These kinds of logistical and strategic chokepoints are worth their weight in gold to a country like China, who would undoubtedly try to destabilise the canal in the event of war. Venezuela simply provided a potential staging ground to do that from. In this way, fighting in the seas around China, and fighting off the coast of Latin and Central America, are two sides of the same coin.

Maduro and his regime were heavily involved with the Axis of Disorder. China has provided loans to keep the country financially afloat over the years, and they built infrastructure in the country in return for masses of cheap oil and influence in Uncle Sam’s backyard. A Chinese delegation just so happened to visit Maduro on the 2nd of January to discuss strategic ties mere hours before the raid that took him down. Russia has likewise been sending military equipment to Venezuela for a long time (although the Kremlin must be wondering where their expensive air defense systems they gave to Caracas went as US bombers and special forces just flew straight in under cover of darkness).

Iran and Venezuela have shared energy and sanctions-busting techniques, trading valuable resources through shadow-trade networks. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps reportedly have trained and allegedly even hold active personnel in Venezuela, meanwhile drone and missile tech may well have been shared between them at some point as well, and even Hezbollah are reported as using Venezuela as a criminal hub.

The point here is that all of these actors are interconnected, and a war between the US and China will likely involve them all, even if not militarily, because they represent a way to strike at the United States where it hurts if war does break out – just in the same way that US allies will seek to undermine China and its partner nations as well in such a scenario.

Now obviously this whole thing isn’t just about China in the same way it isn’t just about oil, but greater geopolitical forces are at play here than just holding massive oil reserves. Just look at the way Trump has been talking about other parts of the world since the raid on Maduro.

When being interviewed on his position on regime change changing since 2016, Trump said that:

“Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man.”

He also alleged that Colombia was another nation smuggling drugs into the US, and when asked whether his comments meant that there would also be a military operation within Colombia, he said:

“It sounds good to me.”

So, there’s clearly more at play here than just oil, Trump’s so-called “Don-roe Doctrine” also seemed to reference Mexico needing to get itself sorted out too or face consequences – although any military operation there would be far more difficult and long-lasting. Cuba was mentioned by Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the raid as well. But it’s not just solely about drugs either. Trump has talked candidly about Canada becoming the 51st state (with some mention to the fentanyl coming over the border from the North, but far less than comes from the South). He’s also referenced taking back the Panama Canal multiple times, meanwhile his crusade for Greenland is ongoing – with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen again rebuffing his most recent comments on taking it over. And when you look at all of these places together: Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Canada, and Greenland – the one thing they all have in common is proximity to the United States.

When you look at in this way, in the frame of a war on the horizon with China and its allies, it seems likely that the Trump administration wants two distinct things. The first is overlapping layers of security in its backyard to stop China and its allies even getting close. The second is loyalty from its allies and the countries in its sphere of influence. The clearest thing of all that the Maduro raid tells the world is that the United States will no longer tolerate hostile or even merely unfriendly regimes on its doorstep. And when you see the war with China coming sooner rather than later, it’s easy to see why.

Now perhaps this is giving the Trump administration too much credit. After all there are a lot of questions that are still unanswered from the raid. We still don’t know what will happen to Venezuela. Trump has stated that the US will be running things until a peaceful transition of power can be made, but for now Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is still in charge. As a loyalist to the regime though, it remains to be seen how long she might last, especially in light of recent threats from Secretary Rubio.

The raid also leaves the rest of the international community reeling, what do allies of the US make of the so-called “rules-based order” being shredded right in front of them? How will that affect other conflicts on the world stage like the current fighting in Russia and Ukraine? And why, if this is all to do with a future war with China, did the US choose to depose Maduro now? Why not three months ago? Or in six months’ time? Does Trump really care about the strategic logistical aspects of a future war with China… or was he looking more for regional victories and sabre-rattling to bolster his ego, which just so happened to have some upside in the event of a conflict with Beijing?

We’ll be the first to admit that perhaps we’re reading too deeply into it. Maybe it always was just about drugs and oil and a desire for the American empire to be seen on the world stage as strong again. But despite the questions we still don’t have the answers to, what we do know is that the Maduro raid is likely to spell a new direction for geopolitics as we know it. One that is more chaotic, more violent, and less restrained by the old assumptions that once kept escalation in check. Only time will tell if these escalations really are shaping actions for an eventual war… or something else altogether.