Venezuela's Anti-US Alliances
by Lawrence A. Franklin • December 3, 2025 at 5:00 am
Perhaps more significant to US strategic interests [than Venezuela's trafficking illegal drugs] is Maduro's cooperation with an anti-American alliance of autocracies, including Russia, Cuba, China and Iran.
Iran's regime, both before and after a number of visits to Venezuela, delivered military drones to Venezuela and has been strengthening Venezuela's military, thereby enabling Venezuela to threaten its neighbors, including Guyana, Trinidad and Colombia, as well as the US.
Cuba's role in Venezuela is even more invasive than that of Iran.
Russia's role in helping to buttress Maduro's regime includes arms sales, joint army and air force exercises, Russian naval warship visits, and the stationing of Russian defense advisors in Venezuela. In turn, Russia receives Venezuelan oil at below-market prices.
China has extended an estimated $60 billion in loans to Venezuela.
The main reason for the charge of Maduro's illegitimacy stems from the view that Venezuela's presidential elections have been fraudulent. Opposition protests have failed to dislodge the socialist regime, which has so far been sustained by Chinese loans, Russian weapons and Cuban troops. The Venezuelan people, disenfranchised and disarmed, have, in addition, been bullied into submission by regime-sponsored neighborhood revolutionary leftist gangs called "colectivos."
The Trump administration appears to be hoping that its current sanctions on Venezuela will be harsh enough for Maduro's supporters to oust him without the US having to become militarily involved. Trump recently suggested the possibility of a land invasion, about which he did not sound overly enthusiastic. If nothing is done, however, Maduro will simply continue to wreck the formerly wealthy country while its people carry on in squalor.
US President Donald J. Trump's condemnation of Venezuela's illegal leader Nicolás Maduro includes his regime's facilitation of trafficking illegal drugs into the United States. The leader of Venezuela's democratic opposition, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corrina Machado, has accused Maduro of being chief of a criminal narcotics organization, Cartel de los Soles ("Cartel of the Suns"). US military forces have destroyed several speedboats laden with cocaine and other illegal drugs leaving Venezuelan ports.
Perhaps more significant to US strategic interests is Maduro's cooperation with an anti-American alliance of autocracies, including Russia, Cuba, China and Iran. The US has deployed military aircraft and a fleet of 22 warships to the area, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by "signal[ing] its willingness to supply Venezuela with advanced hypersonic missiles, including the nuclear-capable Oreshnik."
