by Jacob G. Hornberger

February 10, 2026

President Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment had no business invading Venezuela, kidnapping the country’s president, and forcibly carrying him back to the United States to stand trial for supposedly violating U.S. drug laws and U.S. gun-control laws. They also had no business killing Venezuelan citizens and others on the high seas near Venezuela.

But what’s done is done. The question is what should Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA do now?

They should leave Venezuela alone. They have done enough damage already to the country, especially when we add their longtime brutal system of sanctions and their killing spree on the high seas to their recent invasion.

Unfortunately, that’s not what Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment are doing. But oddly, they have chosen not to use their military power to bring about regime change in the country, as many interventionists, including some Venezuelan dissidents, expected and hoped they would do.

Instead, they have, rather shockingly, chosen to maintain the unelected socialist-communist, narco-terrorist dictatorship in power, notwithstanding the fact that it receives the support of only a small percentage of the Venezuelan population.

This arrangement, to say the least, is quite bizarre. Did you ever think you’d see the day when the U.S. government was actively maintaining and supporting an avowed socialist-communist regime — and a narco-terrorist one at that? Sure, we’re all accustomed to their supporting brutal dictatorial right-wing military regimes (e.g., Gen. Pinochet’s regime in Chile), but a fierce leftist socialist-communist regime — and one that is also a narco-terrorist regime? Who could have ever predicted that would happen?

Look at the moral predicament into which Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA have placed the American right-wing. As we all know, the right-wingers blindly support whatever Trump says and does.  But he has now placed his MAGA supporters in the uncomfortable position of supporting a socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime — or at least staying silently supportive. Surely, deep down, those MAGA people know that that is a repugnant position to be taking. But what can they do? They cannot dare to question this because they know that if they do, they will be cast outside the MAGA group, which absolutely terrifies them.

Moreover, look at how Trump is treating the Venezuelan dissidents — including those who oppose socialism and communism and instead stand for democracy, free markets, and private property. He’s treating them with disdain.

For example, even though he willingly accepted her obsequious gift of her Nobel Prize, Trump dissed the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado, by saying that she lacked the respect of the Venezuelan people. Are you kidding me? In a fair election, which Trump and the socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime he is maintaining refuse to hold, she would win in a 80-90 percent landslide. Everybody in Venezuela, including the U.S.-supported communists in power, knows this.

Dissing Machado and dismissing the opposition to the Chavista regime has got to be one of the most shocking, amazing, and morally repugnant acts in the history of the U.S. national-security state and its policy of foreign interventionism.

Moreover, Trump and the national-security establishment have now placed Machado and the Venezuelan opposition in the unenviable position of having to oppose not only the unelected brutal and corrupt socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime that has helped to destroy the freedom and well-being of the country but also the U.S. government itself, which has now chosen to use its vast military power to maintain and fortify this horrific regime’s hold on power.

But we actually shouldn’t be too surprised. For many years, the U.S. government, led by the national-security establishment, has knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately inflicted one of the most severe systems of economic sanctions in history on the Venezuelan people. Combined with Venezuelan socialism, the sanctions have succeeded in squeezing the economic life out of the Venezuelan people, causing some 8 million of them to flee the country in a desperate attempt to survive.

When many of those refugees came to the United States, they were treated like bad people — like garbage. They were condemned, rounded up, incarcerated, and forcibly deported — either back to Venezuela, where they would likely die, or to El Salvador, where they could be jailed, abused, and tortured for life.

Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised that Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA don’t care about the Venezuelan people having to continue suffering through a U.S.-supported socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime. Given their past disdain for Venezuelan refugees, why would we expect them to suddenly have a change of heart toward the Venezuelan people? So what if they have to continue suffering under a brutal U.S.-supported dictatorial unelected socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime? What difference does it make?

No, I’m not saying that Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA should have used their military power to effect regime change. I’m saying that they should never have intervened in Venezuelan affairs in the first place.

But I’m also saying that given the situation now, what the U.S. government is doing in partnering with a brutal unelected socialist-communist, narco-terrorist regime is so morally repugnant that it defies credulity.

And for what? So that the country will be sufficiently “stable” that Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA can steal Venezuelan oil? Yes, steal! That oil belongs to Venezuela, not to Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment. Sure, we all know that the Pentagon needs vast amounts of oil daily to fund its vast worldwide war machine. But it can go out into the open market and buy it, like everyone else. Stealing it is quite unbecoming.

And no, Venezuela did not steal that oil from U.S. oil companies. It nationalized its oil industry. In the process, it breached oil leases with those oil companies. But the oil has always belonged to Venezuela, not the U.S. government and not U.S. oil companies, which, it should be pointed out, ended up securing monetary judgments from the courts for breach of contract.

At this point, it is Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment who are doing the stealing, including through their shocking seizures of ships on the high seas carrying Venezuelan oil. Every time I read about one of the seizures, I think about those Somali pirates who were attacking private vessels not so long ago. Private piracy or state-sponsored piracy. What’s the difference?

Having inflicted so much harm on the Venezuelan people, the U.S. government should now do the right thing, including: (1) no longer supporting and partnering with the brutal unelected socialist-communist, narco-terrorist Chavista regime; (2) lifting all U.S. sanctions; (3) ceasing the state-sponsored piracy against ships carrying Venezuelan oil; and (4) stopping the stealing of Venezuelan oil. Stop making life more difficult for the Venezuelan dissidents who oppose the Chavista regime, including those who favor democracy, free markets, and a private-property system. Leave the Venezuelans free to figure out the solution to their problems. The U.S. government has done enough damage already. Just leave Venezuela alone.