On January 3rd 2026, U.S. forces conducted a lightning military operation in Caracas that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The United States subsequently transported Maduro to New York, where he has appeared in federal court on charges that include narcotics trafficking and conspiracy. The Trump administration framed the operation as part of a broader “war on drugs” and a “law-enforcement action”, noting that Maduro carried a $50 million reward for his capture.
The U.S. Department of State accused Maduro of “participation in a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.” The U.S. action has provoked strong denunciations from governments across the globe, questioning the legality of forcibly removing a sitting head of state, and the broader implications for international norms of sovereignty and non-interference.
The U.S. action must be contextualized within a revived vision of Western Hemisphere security. Historically, the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 asserted that European powers should not intervene in the Americas. Contemporary U.S. strategic rhetoric under the Trump administration has extended this principle into what the U.S. National Security Strategy 2025 term a “Trump Corollary,” asserting the right of the United States to deny “non-Hemispheric competitors” the ability to control strategic assets in the region.
Obviously, the “non-Hemispheric competitors” are not Europeans, but America’s adversaries, especially China that has been gaining economic and political influence in Latin America. Therefore, it could be described as a resurfacing of great-power competition and spheres-of-influence thinking, a significant departure from the earlier diplomacy of regional cooperation.
China has been one of Venezuela’s primary international partners, exchanging billions of dollars in loans for Venezuelan oil under state-led arrangements. These deals have provided Beijing with a reliable share of its global crude imports, approximately 7% in 2023, according to China’s General Administration of Customs data. In 2024, this figure declined to 4.125% when all imports are included, including volumes blended in Malaysia under alternative “identities.”
Nearly 90% of Venezuela’s oil exports have flown to Asia, with China accounting for the lion’s share, more than 600,000 barrels per day, representing the bulk of Venezuela’s production. This dependence is driven in part by China’s Nanhai Petrochemical Complex in Jieyang, Guangdong Province, which has a capacity of 800,000 barrels per day and was designed specifically to desulfurize heavy crude from Venezuela.
No wonder China was furious and “deeply shocked” and strongly condemned the “U.S.’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president.” A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said that such “hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region.”
On January 7, when a Bloomberg reporter asked the spokesperson that Trump administration has informed Venezuela’s acting president Rodríguez that Venezuela must cut off economic ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba, and may cooperate only with the United States in oil production, Mao Ning responded by saying that Venezuela has “full and permanent sovereignty over its natural resources” and termed American action as “a typical act of bullying.” The U.S. action is likely to have multi-layered implications for China’s interests, both in Venezuela and across the rest of the Global South.
One, the Venezuelan episode starkly brings spheres-of-influence competition to the surface albeit Mao Ning has said on January 7 that “creating geopolitical confrontation will not make any country safer,” she reiterated Xi’s security paradigm through the “common and cooperative security.” The U.S. has perhaps taken a leaf from China’s playbook in the South China Sea, but strategies are diametrically opposite. For the United States, the operation signals a willingness to employ hard power beyond conventional theatres, directly challenging the influence of rival powers in their perceived geopolitical backyards. China has refrained from using hard power so far, but may be induced to do the same.
Two, China’s stakes in the Latin American countries is huge. The crisis in Venezuela and legal uncertainty surrounding contracts increase the risks faced by Chinese banks and state lenders. China’s trade with Latin America exceeded $515 billion in 2024, and China remains a major source of infrastructure financing, and increasingly influential in sectors such as telecommunications, rare minerals, and energy.
Under the Chavez-Maduro era, economic ties with China expanded quickly, rising to a strategic partnership in the early 2000s and, in 2023, to an “all-weather strategic partnership”, the kind China has with Pakistan. According to Hong Kong 01 analysis, China became Venezuela’s main lender, providing more than $62 billion. Venezuela now accounts for about 45% of all Chinese financing in Latin America. Although China stopped extending new credit in 2015, an estimated $20 billion in debt remains as of 2025, much of it secured by oil. An article in Guancha has stated it approximately $10-15 billion. Since Venezuela occupies a key position on trade routes between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic, it will impact negatively on Chinese interests in the region.
Three, the U.S. action may result in a potential pivot to China by the Latin American countries as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Chile have criticized the U.S. action as interference and a violation of sovereignty: Left-leaning governments, particularly those historically sceptical of U.S. policy in the hemisphere, may interpret the U.S. operation as evidence of Washington’s readiness to assert control over regional political outcomes. This perception may reinforce existing economic ties with China or prompt further engagement under the rubric of alternative development partnerships. However, the fear of U.S. use of force, domestic political considerations and economic pragmatism, including dependency on U.S. trade, which is more than the double of China’s trade, will temper these trends.
Four, for China, the crisis exposes limits to dependence on economic diplomacy alone. Beijing’s traditional strategy in Latin America has emphasized infrastructure investment, resource acquisition, and financial credits without formal military alliances. Huawei and ZTE face increased challenges in Venezuela, where Huawei has been active for over two decades, aiding in network transformation and collaborating with state-owned CANTV. The new government may shift to U.S. or European suppliers, cancel contracts, or impose local sanctions. The Venezuelan turn raises questions about whether economic leverage alone can protect Chinese interests against military force. Therefore, China may revisit this strategy and create more alternate “iron clad” alliances or proxies.
Five, whichever way China strategizes, the pillar of its foreign policy in new era—building community of a shared future, of which building relations with the Belt and Road countries or the Global South has been challenged by the U.S. and may create further disruptions. The U.S. operation questions China’s stature and its military capability when its “all-weather” iron clad friend is militarily subdued. The operation may accelerate strategic recalibrations. Chinese media and analysts are debating whether the U.S. precedent creates rhetorical or doctrinal templates for great powers to justify strong actions elsewhere, including in the Taiwan Strait or maritime disputes, a development fraught with risk for global stability. China is signalling that, whoever governs Venezuela, they must not damage China’s legitimate interests and that Beijing has the tools and resources to retaliate against anyone who does.
In conclusion, the U.S. capture of Maduro is a watershed moment that crystallizes underlying trends in global geopolitics: great-power competition, contested interpretations of the Monroe Doctrine, and the limits of economic diplomacy. For China, the operation has immediate economic and strategic costs, diplomatic repercussions, and long-term implications for its global engagement strategy where perceptions of its hard-power limits become clearer. For Latin America, the crisis revives deep-seated debates on sovereignty and hemispheric autonomy and may reshape regional alignments in an era of intensified competition between Washington and Beijing.
* B.R. Deepak is Professor, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
