Trump captures a presidential drug suspect after pardoning another
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President Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The shocking overnight strike on Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro amplifies President Trump's inconsistent — and often personalized — approach to halting drug smuggling into the U.S.
Split screen: Trump ordered the operation to capture Maduro just a few weeks after pardoning former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had already been convicted in a U.S. court on similar drug trafficking charges.
The big picture: Trump's drug war has been splashy, but it hasn't always prioritized the routes drugs actually enter into the United States.
- The U.S. captured Maduro overnight after weeks of diplomatic and military pressure, sending an enormous armada off the coast of Venezuela and repeatedly sinking alleged drug boats near its waters.
- Venezuela is a transit point for cocaine bound for the U.S., though the DEA has said most enters through Mexico. Most of the cocaine that reaches the U.S. is cultivated in neighboring Colombia.
- Venezuela is not a significant source of fentanyl, though Trump has also claimed to be targeting fentanyl shipments. The supply chain for fentanyl typically flows from China, through Mexico, to the U.S.
- The indictment for Maduro did not mention fentanyl, despite Trump's public pronouncements.
Between the lines: The drug war isn't strictly about drugs, but also about ideology.
- Maduro has clashed with the U.S. and Trump personally for a decade.
- Meanwhile Hernández, who was serving 45 years in prison for trafficking drugs to the U.S., wrote Trump a flattering letter seeking clemency, comparing his own case to the "persecution and prosecution you faced."
- Trump dismissed the conviction as "a Biden setup."
- The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment for this story.
What to watch: Trump has said his drug war won't stop at Venezuela.
- He previously threatened China and Canada with new tariffs if they didn't slow the amount of fentanyl entering the U.S.
- And he has threatened strikes in Mexico and Colombia unless those nations take steps to curb the flow of drugs into the U.S.
- Both countries also have left-leaning leaders who swiftly condemned the operation to capture Maduro.
