Venezuela—When the Threat Became Force

On 3 January 2026, the United States carried out a military intervention in Venezuela, struck sites in Venezuelan territory, captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, and transferred them to the United States. This is not a hypothetical invasion or a prediction. It is a documented use of force whose unlawfulness was set out in unusually direct terms by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

The event followed months of US maritime killings and military escalation in the Caribbean. That order matters. The preceding case showed how suspected criminals were converted into military targets through executive designation and secret evidence. This case examines the next change of scale: from lethal force against small vessels to direct force against Venezuelan territory, followed by continuing pressure over the decisions of the Venezuelan state.

In Miedo, written before the intervention, I described the fear produced by watching powerful governments select which crimes to punish and which to tolerate. In Dolor, written afterward, the danger was no longer prospective. These texts establish my standpoint and the chronology of my concern. They do not substitute for evidence. The legal claims below rest on official documents, most importantly Switzerland’s own assessment.

I do not return to those articles to say “I told you so.” I began Dolor by rejecting precisely that phrase. I return to them because they distinguish a warning made before the event from a reconstruction written afterward. Miedo shows that the concern existed before the attack; it does not by itself prove why the attack occurred. That proof must come from documents independent of my memory and emotion.

The Venezuelan case requires three questions to be kept separate. Was Maduro’s government democratically legitimate? Was the US intervention lawful? Are subsequent acts of the Venezuelan state strategically autonomous? The answer to one does not determine the others.

This separation is the core of the method. It prevents opposition to Maduro from being used as a legal justification for foreign force, and it prevents opposition to foreign force from becoming an excuse to ignore repression by Maduro’s government. A universal standard must survive both tests.

What Switzerland’s legal assessment establishes

The Swiss memorandum of 13 January 2026 concluded that the US action violated the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, Venezuelan sovereignty and territorial integrity, the principle of non-intervention and Maduro’s personal immunity as the effective head of state. It found no armed attack capable of supporting self-defence, no Security Council mandate and no Venezuelan consent.

The memorandum classified the intervention as aggression in the general international-law sense. It also found that continuing credible threats of renewed force, used to compel the acting Venezuelan authorities to meet US demands, themselves violated the prohibition on force and the principle of non-intervention.

The document did not find that Venezuela was under belligerent occupation. Occupation is a factual legal status requiring non-consensual effective control of territory. According to the memorandum, US influence over a Venezuelan government did not at that time equal effective territorial control. The accurate vocabulary is therefore unlawful intervention, aggression and coercion, unless later evidence establishes the separate occupation threshold.

Switzerland’s own conduct also reveals a tension. Its lawyers described the intervention clearly, while the Federal Council froze possible Maduro-associated assets after the loss of power under Swiss asset-recovery legislation. The memorandum explained that such a freeze turns on the fact of loss of power, not on whether that loss was lawfully produced. This is a practical example of two institutional logics operating at once: one branch records the violation; another administers the consequences of the new fact created by it.

The memorandum is an official legal assessment, not a judgment of the International Court of Justice. Its value lies in the precision with which a government normally aligned with the broader Western order described the conduct of the United States. The classification should be attributed accurately and not inflated beyond the document.

Legitimacy does not cancel sovereignty

Maduro’s democratic record and allegations of repression remain legitimate subjects of accountability. But the UN Charter does not grant a foreign state a general right to invade whenever it disputes another government’s legitimacy. If it did, the prohibition on force would become permission for the strongest state to decide which governments deserve protection.

The distinction is not a defence of Maduro. It is a defence of Venezuelans’ right not to have their political order selected through foreign military force. A leader may be repressive, electorally illegitimate or criminally accused while still benefiting from the immunities and sovereign rules that prevent interstate relations from becoming organised abduction.

From participation in the ICC to withdrawal

Venezuela ratified the Rome Statute in 2000. The ICC Prosecutor opened a preliminary examination concerning Venezuela in February 2018 and formally opened an investigation in November 2021 into alleged crimes against humanity.

The relationship was already adversarial before the 2026 intervention. Venezuela’s legislature approved a move to repeal the ratifying law in December 2025. On 24 July 2026, the Venezuelan government delivered formal notice of withdrawal to the UN Secretary-General. The depositary notice records Venezuela’s stated reasons: selectivity, politicisation, bias toward developing countries and the use of the Court as “lawfare.” The withdrawal takes effect on 24 July 2027.

The chronology also includes the US position. On 13 July 2026, the US State Department announced a campaign to dismantle what it described as the ICC’s threat to American sovereignty and to press states to withdraw. After Venezuela’s notification, the Department publicly welcomed the withdrawal.

This sequence raises an unavoidable question: whose policy did the withdrawal serve? It served the Venezuelan authorities’ pre-existing effort to escape an investigation into alleged crimes. It also served the Trump administration’s announced campaign against the Court. The January intervention and threats of renewed force deprived the surrounding political environment of normal autonomy.

None of that proves that Marco Rubio or another US official directly ordered the Venezuelan withdrawal. The sources establish public pressure and aligned interests, not a private command. The responsible conclusion is that the withdrawal was an official Venezuelan act taken under conditions of severely constrained strategic autonomy.

That conclusion is an inference with defined limits. Evidence that the Venezuelan authorities had pursued withdrawal before January weakens any claim that Washington originated the policy. Evidence of the intervention, continuing threats and the US anti-ICC campaign strengthens the conclusion that the final decision occurred in a coercive environment advantageous to both governments. The correct model allows more than one actor to benefit from the same act.

The subsequent US conduct sharpens the inference without proving a private command. On 9 October, OFAC designated the ICC itself, not merely individual judges or prosecutors, and issued narrow licences preserving specified transactions. Rubio said the measure would ban transactions with the Court, cut off its resources and cripple its operation. Washington's declared objective is therefore not simply to correct one case; it is to prevent the institution from acting against US personnel and to induce allies to restrain or leave it.

What withdrawal does not erase

Article 127 of the Rome Statute makes withdrawal prospective. It takes effect one year after notification unless a later date is specified. Withdrawal does not discharge obligations that arose while the state was a party, does not affect cooperation connected to investigations or proceedings begun before the effective date, and does not prejudice the Court’s continued consideration of matters already under examination before withdrawal became effective.

Venezuela’s notice therefore does not abolish the existing ICC situation or retroactively remove the Court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while the Statute applied. Nor does the Court’s investigation give the United States legal authority to attack Venezuela. International criminal accountability and the prohibition on inter-state force are separate parts of law; one cannot be cancelled in order to defend the other.

The forward-looking risk is real but narrower than immunity. Until 24 July 2027, Venezuela remains a State Party. After the withdrawal becomes effective, the ordinary territorial basis for new alleged crimes committed solely on Venezuelan territory would no longer arise from Venezuela's membership, unless another jurisdictional basis or a Security Council referral existed. The United States is also not a State Party and can veto a referral. Withdrawal therefore creates a prospective accountability gap for some future conduct by US personnel in Venezuela; it does not erase earlier jurisdiction, terminate the Venezuela I investigation or guarantee that no forum could ever act.

The distinction matters when interpreting the DW News discussion of Washington's attempt to disable the Court. Michael Lynk's explanation—that nationals of a non-party state can fall within territorial jurisdiction when alleged crimes occur in a State Party—is legally relevant to US military activity abroad. It supports the conclusion that Washington has an institutional interest in shrinking the Court's territorial reach. It does not prove an intention to commit atrocities in Venezuela. The defensible claim is that US pressure and Venezuelan withdrawal reduce one prospective avenue of accountability at the same time that the intervening power seeks protection for its personnel.

The aggression jurisdiction presents another limitation. The Swiss memorandum explained that the ICC did not have jurisdiction over the alleged US crime of aggression in these circumstances: the United States is not a Rome Statute party, Venezuela had not ratified the Kampala aggression amendments, and a Security Council referral was politically implausible. The result is not that the intervention was lawful. It is that a violation may exist without an available court able to prosecute it.

A later troop deployment—and the limits of what it proves

The January intervention must be distinguished from the US military deployment after the earthquakes of 24 June. SOUTHCOM stated that the interim Venezuelan authorities requested the later assistance. Its public record places US forces at Simón Bolívar International Airport and the Port of La Guaira, and documents Marines, sailors, aircraft and the USS Fort Lauderdale. On 2 July, SOUTHCOM reported nearly 2,000 US troops supporting the operation across Venezuela and logistics hubs in Puerto Rico and Curaçao. Reuters separately reported, quoting the SOUTHCOM commander, that more than 900 were inside Venezuela and roughly 800 were at the two Caribbean hubs.

These facts establish a substantial foreign military presence on Venezuelan territory during the relief operation. They do not establish 2,000 occupation troops inside Venezuela, permanent US bases or a non-consensual deployment. Consent to earthquake assistance also cannot retroactively legalise the January attack: consent is specific to the act, purpose and period for which it was given.

The public record also requires caution about duration. On 22 July, the US Air Force said that the 621st Contingency Response Wing had concluded its Venezuela deployment after moving nearly three million pounds of aid. That proves the end of that unit's mission, not the withdrawal of every US military or intelligence element. No comprehensive public order of battle, final withdrawal list or agreement authorising permanent bases has been found. The correct current conclusion is therefore a documented, requested and apparently temporary relief deployment whose peak footprint was large, not a documented permanent occupation force.

The civilian status map

The Venezuelan state now has at least three simultaneous characteristics:

• legal personality: Venezuela remains a sovereign state and its official acts remain attributable to its authorities;
• contested legitimacy: questions of electoral validity, repression and domestic accountability remain unresolved by the foreign intervention;
• constrained autonomy: the demonstrated capacity and threatened willingness of the United States to use force narrow the decisions Venezuelan officials can make freely.

These layers explain why “the government decided” is factually incomplete. A signature can be valid as an official act while the range of available decisions has been shaped by illegal coercion. Conversely, coercion does not automatically make every government act legally void or prove that every official is an American proxy. Each decision requires evidence about authorship, pressure, benefit and alternatives.

This is the point at which objectivity and neutrality must be distinguished. Objectivity requires that I state what the evidence cannot prove, even when a stronger accusation would be rhetorically satisfying. Neutrality would require me to behave as if unlawful force and the people subjected to it occupied equivalent positions. They do not.

From constrained autonomy to de facto tutelage

Evidence published after the Swiss memorandum makes the mechanism more precise. Executive Order 14373, signed by Donald Trump on 9 January 2026, defines a category it calls “Foreign Government Deposit Funds”: revenues derived from Venezuelan natural resources that are paid to the US government or held by it in designated Treasury accounts. The order prohibits their transfer, withdrawal or disposition except as authorised by the United States, and directs that the secretary of state determine the instructions governing disbursement. The order states that the money remains the property of Venezuela. That is precisely why its administration from Washington is direct evidence of a material transfer of decision-making capacity, even without a formal transfer of ownership.

A BBC News Mundo investigation published on 10 August 2026 assembled further indicators: US influence over oil marketing, sectoral reforms, sanctions relief, dialogue between government and opposition, and distance from Venezuela’s traditional allies. The article attributed the phrase “suspended sovereignty” to Benigno Alarcón and the description “a form of tutelage” to Colette Capriles. These are characterisations by interviewed specialists, not legal categories established by a court and not facts that must be accepted merely because the BBC reported them.

The characterisations nevertheless have independent support in the executive order, the US plan for stabilisation, recovery and transition, and the military capacity demonstrated on 3 January. The observable relationship is asymmetric: Washington controls levers affecting the survival of the interim government and, at the same time, the opposition’s operating space. This makes the United States a veto actor for rival Venezuelan political projects. The simultaneous dependence of both camps does not make the original intervention consensual or turn resignation into freely given consent.

The timeline also requires precision. Later management may operate without daily new attacks, but it should not therefore be described simply as an “unarmed” or “bloodless” intervention. The present structure was preceded and enabled by a military operation that struck Venezuelan territory, captured its authorities and left a credible threat of repetition in place. The correct language distinguishes the armed origin of the coercion from its later administration through economic, diplomatic and institutional controls.

This evidence strengthens the conclusion of severely constrained autonomy. It does not prove belligerent occupation, US control of every Venezuelan decision or the absence of agency by Delcy Rodríguez, the governing movement or the opposition. “De facto tutelage” can describe the political relationship created by the combined dependencies; the safer legal classifications remain those used in the Swiss memorandum: unlawful intervention, aggression, threat of force and violation of the principle of non-intervention.

From revenue custody to a named operator and unpublished contracts

The evidentiary position changed after the 28 August announcement. On 31 August, the White House named North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) and published the US government's description of the structure. It says Venezuelan interim authorities granted NABEP 100-year concessions over 17 fields with about 65 billion barrels of proved reserves; that the Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital received 35 per cent of NABEP's corporate parent; that the State Department may buy 20 per cent of all current and future output at production cost and has a right of first refusal over the remaining 80 per cent; and that the United States holds board-appointment veto power, a US-citizen board majority and US law and jurisdiction for its agreement with NABEP. These are now published official claims, not terms attributed only to anonymous sources.

They are still not published contractual clauses. The fact sheet does not reproduce the US–NABEP agreement, the PDVSA–NABEP contract, the individual field instruments or the list of fields. Its claim of “100-year concessions” also sits beside a materially different Venezuelan account. On 7 September, PDVSA president Héctor Obregón told EFE that the Venezuelan instrument is a PDVSA–NABEP contract for an initial 25 years, renewable by mutual agreement for similar periods, and that US participation occurs through its 35 per cent stake in NABEP. This is an attributed statement by a named official, not a transcript or an examinable renewal clause. A possible sequence of 25-year renewals is not the same as an immediately vested 100-year right.

The National Assembly did act, but the object of its action must be stated exactly. Its “Agreement in Support of the Binational Energy Convention” was published in Official Gazette No. 43,449 of 1 September. The resolution politically supports the convention, reaffirms state ownership of resources and asks competent bodies to report on implementation. It neither incorporates nor appends the convention; it does not name NABEP, identify the 17 fields, state the 35 per cent interest or purchasing rights, or select between 25 and 100 years. Publication cured the absence of a public parliamentary resolution. It did not create informed legislative approval of clauses the legislators and public still cannot inspect.

Implementation has nevertheless advanced. OFAC General License 52C, issued on 14 September, authorises blocked PDVSA officials to execute and sign contracts in their official capacities for authorised transactions. It requires specified monetary payments to blocked persons to pass through Foreign Government Deposit Funds or another Treasury-instructed account and requires covered contracts to place dispute resolution in the United States, United Kingdom, France or Singapore. It does not authorise settlement of Venezuelan or PDVSA debt, transfer of Venezuelan equity in PDVSA or alteration of CITGO governance. The licence is an implementing US sanctions instrument; it is not the oil contract.

Separate projects also show commercial execution outrunning disclosure. The Energy Department announced Chevron investments exceeding US$7 billion over five years, a 25-year Eni–PDVSA contract for Junín 5 with Eni as exclusive operator, and a GE Vernova grid agreement. On 16 September, it reported a PDVSA–Continental Resources memorandum for the 126,000-acre Ayacucho 2 block, which Continental estimates contains 30 billion barrels in place. None of the underlying instruments was published, and no public document establishes that Ayacucho 2 belongs to NABEP's 17-field package. “Oil in place” is not proved recoverable reserves, and an announced working interest is not ownership of the resource under the ground.

US congressional oversight confirms rather than closes the disclosure gap. On 15 September, a House subcommittee motion to subpoena agencies and companies for NABEP records failed 6–6. On 2 October, committee Democrats said the State Department had supplied one document concerning the US agreement to acquire a NABEP stake but withheld the Rodríguez–Betancourt agreement and KPMG audits of the revenue fund. The released document itself was not made public. A congressional letter states that about US$3 billion had moved through the fund by 16 April—before the NABEP announcement—and that promised audit reports had not reached Congress. That amount must not be misdescribed as income from the August agreement.

The legal authority for the announced US structure is also now formally disputed inside Congress. In a 30 September letter, the ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations, Armed Services, Banking and Energy committees argued that the statute creating the Office of Strategic Capital does not expressly authorise equity stakes in private oil companies and that the State Department's authority for a long-term purchase arrangement for military and other sensitive uses is unclear. They requested the complete agreements and the legal authority for each operation “before they are finalized.” This is an official legislative challenge and document demand, not a judicial ruling that the arrangement is unlawful. Its wording also creates a further institutional inconsistency over whether the announced structure was complete, but does not prove that no agreement had been signed.

The same custody pattern may extend to gold, but no completed transfer has been documented. On 18 September, the Financial Times reported, citing four people familiar with negotiations, that Venezuela's government and opposition were nearing a deal to move about US$4 billion of central-bank gold from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with access supervised and restricted. The Bank of England said it could not act without a further UK court order. This is credible attributed reporting about a proposed structure, not a signed agreement, official transfer or proof that the gold is now in New York.

The constitutional baseline remains clearer than the contracts. Article 12 of the Venezuelan Constitution makes hydrocarbon deposits property of the Republic, in the public domain and inalienable. Article 150 requires National Assembly approval for national public-interest contracts with foreign states, official foreign entities or companies not domiciled in Venezuela. A state can retain title to oil in the ground while another actor receives extensive operating, purchasing, governance and payment rights. The correct conclusion is therefore not that the United States owns all Venezuelan oil. It is that Washington has publicly claimed an unusually broad control structure while the instruments needed to audit its duration, legality, value and enforceability remain withheld.

Canelón and Pulido: transfers without a published route

The transfer of Aníbal Alexander Canelón Aguirre tests what these abstractions mean for an ordinary person. US officials accuse him of leading an ATM-malware conspiracy and supporting Tren de Aragua. Those are criminal charges, not convictions. The Justice Department records that he appeared in the District of Nebraska on 2 October, pleaded not guilty and was detained pending trial in case 8:25-cr-00242. OFAC identifies him as a Venezuelan national with Venezuelan identity number V-13,126,628.

The location was initially unclear in the public record. The later and more specific FBI Omaha transcript says the US Coast Guard apprehended him “at sea,” that an FBI Omaha agent was present, and that the Coast Guard and FBI Critical Incident Response Group transported him by water and air to Nebraska. That official account changes the legal map but leaves decisive facts unanswered: no coordinates, distance from shore, vessel, flag, boarding authority, Venezuelan consent, intermediate port, extradition request, deportation or expulsion order, Venezuelan warrant or Venezuelan judicial hearing has been published.

If Venezuelan authorities detained and delivered a Venezuelan national, Article 69 of the Constitution and Article 6 of the Penal Code—which state that a Venezuelan may not be extradited—would be directly engaged, together with the liberty and due-process guarantees in Articles 44 and 49. The 1922 US–Venezuela treaty establishes a formal requisition process; it does not erase the later constitutional nationality bar. Relabelling an extradition as expulsion or informal surrender would not answer the substance if state custody and delivery were proved. If instead the United States independently arrested him beyond Venezuelan territory, Article 69 would not itself bind US officers; the analysis would turn on the vessel's flag, maritime zone, consent and the legal authority for boarding. If the apprehension occurred inside Venezuela's territorial sea without consent, Article 1 sovereignty would be implicated.

The present record proves neither a constitutional Venezuelan surrender nor a lawful high-seas operation. It proves an opaque maritime arrest and rapid transfer whose public legal basis is incomplete.

The Canelón operation no longer stands alone. On 13 October, the US Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed that Álvaro Pulido Vargas was in the Southern District of Florida after coordination among US agencies and “international partners.” The official release does not identify where or by whom he was arrested, how he left Venezuela, or any extradition, expulsion, hearing or surrender order. Its criminal allegations remain allegations, and Pulido remains entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Bloomberg Línea reported, citing a person familiar with the matter, that Pulido held Venezuelan citizenship and remained in a prison outside Caracas until his transfer; it described him as at least the second person moved from Venezuela to the United States that month and reported that Caracas made no announcement. El País attributed his delivery to the Rodríguez government and named senior Venezuelan political actors as participants. Those are high-credibility attributed reports, not a Venezuelan official admission or a published judicial act.

Pulido’s case does not prove that he and Canelón followed the same route, and it does not establish who placed Canelón at sea. It does change the weight of the inference. Another person reportedly held in Venezuelan custody reached a US court while both governments withheld the legal procedure. The combined record now supports investigating an organised intergovernmental transfer channel rather than treating the maritime arrest as an isolated encounter. If Pulido’s Venezuelan citizenship and state delivery are confirmed, Article 69 would be directly engaged despite any additional nationality. For an ordinary person, the constitutional danger is therefore no longer limited to one unexplained operation: repeated transfers may create a de facto way to evade the nationality bar while avoiding the name and safeguards of extradition. That conclusion remains an analytical inference, not a documented description of a common mechanism. The gravity of the accusations cannot substitute for the missing acts or for due process.

What Venezuelan civilians should monitor

The practical indicators are not diplomatic adjectives. They are control points:

• appointments in security, energy, justice and foreign-policy institutions;
• the complete text, approvals, duration, operator and beneficial owners of every oil agreement;
• the division of production, purchasing rights, prices, costs, taxes, royalties and revenue;
• presence or command authority of foreign military or intelligence personnel;
• conditions attached to sanctions relief, financial access and recognition;
• arrests, transfers or prosecutions requested by foreign authorities;
• changes to treaty participation and judicial cooperation;
• credible threats of renewed force tied to specific Venezuelan decisions;
• whether official texts and negotiations are public and subject to domestic review.

For Venezuelans abroad, criticism of documented state conduct is not extremism. It should nevertheless be organised with evidentiary discipline: preserve primary documents, distinguish legal findings from political judgments, avoid asserting secret control without proof and do not confuse hostility to a government with hostility to a people.

Case Study VI examines a different and now better-supported connection: Washington is presenting claimed control over Venezuelan oil as a promise of lower US fuel prices and strategic supply while the Iran war keeps energy costs elevated before the November elections. There is still no transaction evidence that Venezuelan revenue is paying US federal debt. That limit remains true, but it is no longer the principal meaning of the oil record.

Conclusion

The central fact is not that the United States might invade Venezuela. It did use military force in Venezuela on 3 January 2026. The central legal conclusion is not a partisan Venezuelan claim. Switzerland’s foreign ministry found multiple violations of international law and no valid justification.

The central political question is what sovereignty means after that act. Venezuela remains formally sovereign, but its government operates beneath a demonstrated threat of renewed force. Its ICC withdrawal is attributable to Venezuela and aligned with its own pre-existing interest in escaping scrutiny. It is also aligned with the Trump administration’s campaign against the Court and was completed under coercive conditions created by that administration.

The proper classification is neither normal sovereign choice nor proven foreign command. It is formal decision under constrained autonomy.

The oil announcement gives that abstraction a measurable structure. Washington claims majority control, at-cost access and strategic supply; Caracas claims continuing ownership and a 25-year development bargain; neither has published the document capable of resolving their conflicting descriptions. Sovereignty cannot be audited through slogans from either capital. It must be tested against the contract, the approvals, the cash flows and who can say no.

I write this as a Venezuelan who has opposed the abuses of Venezuelan rulers and who also rejects the proposition that a foreign military may decide our political future. Those positions are not contradictory. They are the minimum conditions of a universal rule: no government acquires immunity through anti-imperial rhetoric, and no great power acquires a right of intervention by correctly identifying another government’s crimes.