Why Venezuela? Trump Takes a “Rook” Off the Table

What are the two jobs in Venezuela voted the least likely to succeed?  1) Narco-terrorist boat driver, and 2) El Presidente, supported by communist Cubans and illegal elections.  What goes put-put-put-boom in the night?  Answer: a Venezuelan narco-terrorist boat trying to deliver enough illegal drugs to poison 25,000 Americans, that the U.S. military has stopped.  This is no joke.

Why go in and capture the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro?  Because in the world of global strategic chess moves, Trump just brilliantly took, at least a “rook,” that was on our side of the board threatening U.S. ability to stay in the game. 

Why might Maduro at least be a “rook”?  It is because in the game of world domination, one of the things you do is to destabilize other countries and one of the means to do that is through illegal addictive drugs that can either enslave the people or kill them.  This is exactly what Britain and France did against China’s Qing dynasty trafficking opium trade into China, largely through Britain’s East India Company.  This illegal exportation of opium into China caused China to try to suppress opium trade, sparking the first and second Opium Wars of the 1800s, which China lost.

Apparently, China remembers these wars, as the chemicals and equipment to make the synthetic opioid fentanyl are largely coming from China. 

Fentanyl is responsible for 70% of U.S. drug overdoses and is the leading cause of death for Americans 18-45, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).  It is 50X stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine with just 2 mg, the size of a few grains of sand, causing lethal overdose.  In the 12-month period from January 2024 to January 2025 the CDC says that roughly 82,138 deaths were attributed to fentanyl, which is a lot of people unnecessarily dying, but still less than the peak year, so far, of the 114,664 overdoses reported in August of 2023.

Using the 82,138 number, that is 6,844 people per month, or about 228 per day, or 9.5 people per hour — dead from fentanyl overdose.

Since being back in office, President Trump has reshaped U.S. drug policy.  During the signing ceremony of the Halt Fentanyl Act in July 2025, Trump stated, “From day one of the Trump administration we declared an all-out war on the dealers, smugglers, traffickers and cartels.”

Due to the toxicity of fentanyl, President Trump classified it as a “weapon of mass destruction” on December 15, 2025.

So why arrest Maduro?  It should be remembered that U.S. courts accused Maduro of being the leading figure, if not the leader, of the Cartel of the Suns, an international illegal drug trafficking operation, led by top members of the Venezuelan regime, seeking to “flood” the United States with illegal drugs to harm its people. This resulted in charges against Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials of narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other criminal charges, including a $50 million bounty on information leading to Maduro’s arrest and/or conviction.

So, it was the U.S. military and law enforcement that went into Caracas, Venezuela and plucked Maduro out, arrested him, and took him to New York to stand trial for his crimes.  This was an amazing flawless military action, where no American lives or equipment were lost, yet the mission infiltrated the largest military installation in Venezuela surrounded by Chinese and Russian made military equipment and air defenses, where Maduro’s house was located.  Thirty-two communist Cuban military personnel were killed during the capture.  Maduro’s son stated, “No country is safe,” after he observed the U.S. capabilities during the arrest.

It should be noted that since 2004, the U.S. Department of State estimated that 250 or more tons of cocaine per year were trafficked from Venezuela into the United States.

So, is taking out Maduro, the leader/manager of the “Cartel of the Suns,” the only reason Trump decided to “capture” the “rook” from the global chessboard?  This would be reason enough, but then there is the Iran weapons proliferation problem.  December 30, 2025, the United States sanctioned ten entities and individuals based in Iran and Venezuela.  Venezuelan companies contributed to the sale of millions of dollars worth of Iranian designed combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) contributing to Iran’s UAV and ballistic missile programs.  “Iran’s ongoing provision of conventional weapons to Caracas constitutes a threat to U.S. interest in the Western Hemisphere, including the Homeland, and the United States will use all available measures to prevent this trade,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department.  So, Iran just lost a foothold in the Americas.

Then there is Russia. The Soviet Union established relationship with Venezuela in 1945.  Then it was interrupted in 1952 during the dictatorship of Jimenez, but only to be re-established in 1970.  After the internationally denounced fraudulent election of Maduro to a second term as president in 2018, it was China and Russia who vetoed the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for new elections in Venezuela.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is strongly supported by Maduro, who condemned sanctions by Western nations imposed on Russia.  Then, of course, Russia supported Maduro’s claim of victory in the contested 2024 Venezuelan presidential election.  CNBC has stated that Russia’s “most prominent” Latin American ally is Venezuela.

Well, no longer.  The “rook” has been captured.

Then there is China.  It is almost laughable that China is “deeply shocked and strongly condemns” the arrest of Maduro, but at the same time has surrounded Taiwan and is conducting their largest live-fire military training exercise that they have done so far, consisting of 130 Chinese warplanes and over 24 warships.  In November 2025 analysts were saying that China’s plan was to totally “take over the Venezuelan economy.”

Well, the “rook” is off the table.

While the Obama administration gave the cartels military weapons, and the cartels have taken control of tribal lands in California, growing drugs and imposing narco-slavery, could you imagine what could happen with arms coming in from Iran being funneled up the coast to the “alarming number” of unvetted military age men who crossed the U.S. boarder under the Biden administration, as reported by Border Patrol News?  It should be noted that the “alarming number” of these military age men — were Communist Chinese.

So, what is Trump doing?  He is invoking the Monroe Doctrine, which “opposes any foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere” and “it holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act against the United States.”  Trump’s administration calls it, the “Don-roe” doctrine.

Spending time in a U.S. prison, Maduro will be, unfortunately, much better off than his political enemies whom he imprisoned, tortured and killed.  Maybe we should send Maduro to an El Salvadorian prison.

When this is all over and done, we will all be putting our Trump hats on again that say, “Trump was Right About Everything.”  I’ve been wearing mine all the time.