In a perpetually altering Latin America, there was just one certainty within the final 25 years: a socialist and oil-rich Venezuela and its constant confrontation with the United States.
This yr, tensions reached unprecedented ranges following a US army buildup within the Caribbean, assaults on boats allegedly carrying medicine that Washington linked to Caracas, and President Donald Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign on his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, and on oil, the nation’s lifeline.
How did we get right here?
The following is a deep take a look at up to date Venezuela, its historical past, its riches, its alliances and its delicate inside steadiness of energy amid rising tensions with the US.
Official title: Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Geography: Venezuela has a land space of 912,050 sq. kilometers (352,144 sq. miles), in line with the World Bank. It is bordered to the north by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, to the west by Colombia, to the south by Brazil and to the east by Guyana.
Population: At the top of 2023, the nation had a inhabitants of 33,800,393, in line with Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics, which projected a rise to 34.4 million by the top of 2025.
Migration: At least 7.9 million Venezuelans have migrated from the nation in the hunt for security or higher residing circumstances, in line with UN figures. Most of those migrants have settled in South American international locations reminiscent of Colombia, Peru and Chile.
Maduro was sworn in on January 10, 2025, for a new time period that’s anticipated to final till 2031. His inauguration adopted a declaration of victory in a July 2024 presidential election, which was disputed by the opposition and several other governments within the area. He has been in energy for nearly 13 years for the reason that loss of life of his “political father,” Hugo Chávez, who dominated for practically 14 years.
These are the presidents who’ve ruled the nation since 1958, when the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez fell:
Resources and wealth
Venezuela’s primary financial driver is oil, in a manufacturing mannequin that isn’t very diversified. The nation has the world’s largest reserves of extra-heavy crude, a selection that requires a extra complicated and costly refining course of however which can also be suitable with US refineries.
Despite sanctions, crude oil exports rose in 2025 to a mean of greater than 900,000 barrels per day, in line with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), exceeding manufacturing ranges of the earlier three years. However, this determine is lower than half of what Venezuela pumped in 2013, and fewer than a third of the three.5 million barrels per day produced earlier than Chávez got here to energy in 1999.
Associated with this trade (and in addition characterised by low funding and exploration) are pure fuel exports. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Venezuela has reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic meters of pure fuel, representing 73% of the reserves in South America.
In the final decade, confronted with the autumn in oil income, the federal government tried to offer extra impetus to mining and established the Orinoco Mining Arc as a “strategic development zone” to spice up the exploitation of the realm, with giant deposits of gold, coltan, iron and bauxite.
However, it’s an space with extra artisanal than industrial exercise and with a giant presence of prison teams and smugglers.
Until 2023, the United States was the primary vacation spot for Venezuelan exports, which earned $3.81 billion yearly (primarily from oil gross sales), in line with the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Venezuela’s next-largest consumers have been China ($739 million) and Spain ($670 million).
However, the state of affairs shifted in mid-2024 when Washington tightened commerce sanctions on Caracas, aside from some oil licenses. Since then, Venezuela has relied extra closely on different companions reminiscent of China, Russia, India and Turkey, though the federal government has not revealed latest official figures reflecting this shift. Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged in May that commerce with Venezuela grew by 64% in 2024.
For its half, China’s General Administration of Customs reported that in 2024, imports from Venezuela grew year-on-year by 119%, adopted by a reasonable decline within the first half of 2025.
Main political allies
Since the start of the twenty first century, Venezuela has established alliances and shut ties with international locations that oppose the regional and world management of the United States.
In Latin America, its closest allies are Cuba and Nicaragua, forming a group of three of the area’s most authoritarian and politically remoted international locations.
“They perceive each other as necessary,” Venezuelan political scientist Ángel Álvarez informed NCS.
Caracas as soon as had stronger ties with different leftist governments, reminiscent of these of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, however these nations distanced themselves after the 2024 presidential elections. However, some bridges have been rebuilt with reveals of assist from Brasília and Bogotá within the face of the US army deployment off Venezuela’s coast.
Caracas additionally has different, smaller allies within the Caribbean, solid throughout the oil growth, though in November the Maduro authorities suffered two setbacks with the defeat of the ruling get together in Honduras and within the archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A couple of months earlier, it additionally lamented the electoral defeat of Bolivia’s ruling Movement for Socialism, with which it had shut ties.
Outside the area, Maduro has strengthened relations with two main powers: China and Russia. In November, he asserted that the connection with Beijing is one in every of “deep, broad, and stable trust,” including that he’s working to deepen cooperation with Moscow. Venezuela additionally has bolstered its diplomatic ties with Iran, one other US adversary. However, analysts consulted by NCS say the prospect that these international locations would get entangled in a US-Venezuelan army battle is distant.
The primary positions of energy inside Venezuela’s ruling get together are held by people who’ve performed a main function within the South American nation’s politics for years. Some of them, reminiscent of Diosdado Cabello and Jorge Rodríguez, have held key positions for the reason that time of Chávez, who died in workplace in 2013.
Tensions between Venezuela and the United States have risen all through 2025. Trump started his second presidential time period a few days after Maduro’s inauguration and has since exerted numerous types of stress.
After returning to the White House, Trump mentioned he didn’t take into account Maduro to be a democratically elected ruler. He additionally introduced a coverage of mass deportations, arguing that many migrants arriving within the US — together with Venezuelans — convey crime and different ills with them, and he designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a international terrorist group.
Maduro argued that his authorities is authentic, rejected the notion that Venezuelan migrants are criminals and asserted that Venezuelan authorities are combating the Tren de Aragua gang. The president even claimed that this prison group has already been dismantled, though he has not introduced any proof of that.
In March, tensions between the 2 governments escalated when the US deported greater than 200 Venezuelan migrants, labeling them criminals, to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador. Venezuela criticized the transfer, calling it a “kidnapping,” and launched a marketing campaign to demand their return. In July, following negotiations, Washington and Caracas reached an settlement that resulted within the return to Venezuela of the boys despatched to Cecot and the discharge of 10 Americans detained in Venezuela.
That similar month, nevertheless, the US once more elevated stress on Venezuela. The Treasury Department accused Maduro of main the Cartel de los Soles, an alleged prison group that, in line with Washington, engages in drug trafficking and cash laundering. In August, the US additionally raised to $50 million a reward for “information leading to the arrest and/or conviction” of Maduro for violating US narcotics legal guidelines. The Venezuelan president has denied any wrongdoing.
By September, regardless of some makes an attempt at rapprochement and requires dialogue, tensions had escalated once more. The US deployed army ships and plane to the Caribbean, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking, and started a collection of assaults on boats it claimed have been trying to smuggle medicine into its territory. By mid-December, at the least 30 vessels had been destroyed within the Caribbean and the jap Pacific, ensuing within the deaths of greater than 100 individuals.
Venezuela says these actions are unlawful and meant to destabilize the Maduro authorities, a place shared by Colombia, which has been alarmed by US operations off its coast. However, the US says it can proceed assaults geared toward curbing the inflow of narcotics.
In December, Trump ordered a “total blockade” of US-sanctioned oil tankers, and the Coast Guard started intercepting vessels leaving from or arriving on the Venezuelan coast.
Trump, who had already licensed CIA operations inside Venezuela, mentioned on December 12 that army floor actions in Venezuela would begin quickly as a result of, he asserted, Washington is not going to enable drug traffickers to destroy American youth.
In this context, the CIA carried out a drone strike in December in opposition to a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, in line with sources aware of the matter who spoke to NCS, marking the primary recognized US assault on a goal inside that nation. The website is believed to have been utilized by the Tren de Aragua gang to retailer medicine, the sources added.
The Venezuelan authorities has not commented on the matter
The founding occasion of Chavismo, the motion that has ruled Venezuela for over a quarter-century, was a failed coup try on February 4, 1992, led by Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel within the Venezuelan military, in opposition to President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Chávez was arrested, pardoned in 1994 and elected president in late 1998.
On his first day in workplace, Chávez promoted a new structure that was subsequently authorized by referendum on the finish of 1999. Under the brand new structure, he was elected in July 2000 to a six-year time period.
In 2002, the president was briefly overthrown in a coup d’état following a large march demanding his resignation, however he returned to energy after 48 hours with the assist of loyal army officers. In 2004, he confronted a recall referendum promoted by the opposition, however 59% of Venezuelans voted to maintain him within the presidency.
At the regional degree, Chávez was one of many leaders of the motion “No to FTAA,” referring to the Free Trade Area of the Americas settlement proposed by the United States that was rejected in 2005. The following yr, he gave one in every of his most well-known speeches on the United Nations, when he referred to US President George W. Bush as “the devil.”
Chávez was reelected by a extensive margin on the finish of 2006, and the National Assembly handed a legislation authorizing the president to rule by decree for 18 months (a related invoice was handed in 2010). This marked the start of the socialist period often known as the Bolivarian Revolution. In 2007, he withdrew Venezuela from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and nationalized the Orinoco Oil Belt, which accommodates the nation’s largest oil reserves.
But that yr he additionally suffered his first defeat on the polls, when Venezuelans rejected a referendum that might have granted broad powers to the presidency and established indefinite reelection. That provision was in the end authorized in a 2009 vote and allowed him to run once more in 2012. In that presidential election, he defeated Henrique Capriles and appointed Maduro, then international minister, as his vice chairman.
Before assuming his third time period, he introduced that he needed to journey to Cuba for most cancers remedy and anointed Maduro as his successor. Chávez died on March 5, 2013.
Maduro assumed the presidency on an interim foundation and narrowly defeated Capriles. The following yr, he confronted the primary main wave of opposition protests, which left greater than 40 useless, in line with Foro Penal, a Venezuelan human rights group. In 2015, the United States started imposing sanctions in opposition to Venezuelan officers.
The opposition managed to win a majority of seats within the National Assembly on the finish of 2015, the primary main change within the legislature since 1999. But the Supreme Court declared the physique in contempt and stripped it of its powers.
In 2018, with rampant hyperinflation and a migratory exodus underway, Maduro was reelected president in a vote boycotted by the opposition on account of a lack of ensures that the election could be free and truthful.
He started his second time period amid an vitality disaster, protests and quite a few worldwide accusations of repression. He additionally confronted stress from international locations that acknowledged the top of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as interim president.
By 2022, Venezuela had emerged from hyperinflation by way of de facto alignment of its forex with the US greenback and a gap to international funding. More than 7 million individuals had already left the nation, and a UN report documented crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated by the safety forces.
The Maduro authorities participated in a number of negotiations with the opposition, with out reaching any lasting agreements.
Ahead of the 2024 elections, the courts upheld the disqualification of María Corina Machado, who had gained the opposition primaries by a extensive margin. Later that yr, the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election over Edmundo González however didn’t launch detailed outcomes.
In 2025, following the beginning of Trump’s second time period, Maduro confronted unprecedented stress. In addition to sanctions and bounties, Washington deployed a army presence within the Caribbean, threating to hold out assaults on Venezuelan territory.
Under the federal government of Chávez, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces of Venezuela (FANB) rose to develop into a regional army energy, largely by way of the sustained buy of Russian tools. However, the situation of the tools and the coaching of the personnel stay a thriller in a nation that has endured a decade of financial hardship.
Venezuela ranks fiftieth out of 145 international locations within the 2025 rankings by the Global Fire Power web site, primarily based on official statistics and estimates. The United States ranks 1st, first, and a few of Venezuela’s neighbors, reminiscent of Colombia (forty sixth) and Brazil (eleventh), rank larger.
FANB has roughly 123,000 energetic troopers, together with 63,000 within the military; 25,500 within the navy; 11,500 within the air drive and 23,000 within the nationwide guard, along with 8,000 reservists, in line with knowledge from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
After years of stagnation, Venezuela “recently resumed modest maintenance and modernization efforts,” in line with an IISS report in 2024. The unknown issue is the dimensions and capability of its militias, mobilized in latest months following the US naval deployment. Maduro mentioned he anticipated militia members, beforehand estimated at a few hundred thousand, to achieve greater than 8 million.
The military has bought 92 T-72B1 tanks and 123 BMP-3 armored personnel carriers from Russia, which equip the armored brigades alongside 81 AMX-30 tanks beforehand acquired from France. Russian artillery programs such because the Msta-S self-propelled gun and the Smerch rocket launcher are additionally distinguished.
In phrases of army aviation, Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30MK2 twin-engine fighter-bombers are the pleasure of the Venezuelan protection system and are among the many strongest plane on the continent. But between accidents and logistical issues, it’s unclear how lots of the 25 plane bought are nonetheless flying, in line with a report by the Venezuelan impartial monitoring group Control Ciudadano.
On the opposite hand, amongst its many antiaircraft missile programs, Venezuela’s 12 S-300 batteries (with a most vary of 200 kilometers, or 124 miles), 9 Buk programs, and 44 Pechora programs (medium-range) stand out. All are Russian-manufactured — a system that the FANB calls “Multi-Layer Aerospace Defense.” These three weapon programs are cellular: They are mounted on automobiles for speedy deployment and surpass any others deployed in Latin America in functionality and know-how.
Additionally, Venezuela says it has 5,000 Igla-S man-portable missiles — additionally Russian — which might be operated by a single particular person and able to capturing down targets at low altitude and brief vary.
For its half, the navy has lagged in arms purchases. It operates one Mariscal Sucre-class frigate (in-built Italy) and one Type 209 submarine (in-built Germany) in its fleet, in line with the IISS, and has 9 ocean and coastal patrol vessels, 4 of which have been bought from Spain.