Early Saturday morning, Donald Trump launched an illegal attack on Venezuela, bombing numerous sites and capturing the country’s autocratic ruler Nicholas Maduro.

It’s an unprecedented act of war against a nation’s sovereignty—and yet another war of regime change launched by a Republican president on behalf of America’s oil companies and defense contractors.

Venezuela formally condemned the strikes as “imperialist aggression” and an “armed attack,” declared a state of emergency, and called on “all social and political forces” to mobilize against this act of war.

WHAT HAPPENED: At around 2 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), multiple outlets reported explosions and low flying aircraft around the country’s capital Caracas (a city about the size of Seattle).

At 4:20 a.m. ET, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country.”

It’s unclear how this attack was carried out or if there were casualties on either side.

Venezuela’s government claims the U.S. attacked civilian areas—a war crime—although no major news organization has confirmed that yet.

WHAT TRUMP CLAIMS: For months, as disgusting new revelations from the Epstein files have trickled out, Trump has ramped up his war of words against Maduro. Now, with the release of Jack Smith’s testimony to Congress about Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Trump may be even more in need of a distraction.

For several years the U.S. government has claimed Maduro and his government protects and enables large scale shipments of cocaine out of the country and into ours.

In 2020, the Trump administration secured a federal grand jury indictment of Maduro that accused him of running a drug cartel operation.

The Biden Administration continued the case, actually raising the reward on Maduro’s head.

Typically, these sort of charges against unfriendly governments are not uncommon—but they are almost never the justification to start a war.

As of right now, the Trump administration has given no excuse as to why this action was taken at this moment.

BUT BUT BUT: Aside from Trump’s growing problem of protecting rich pedophiles, America’s ruling class has lusted for revenge against Venezuela—and for its untapped oil and natural gas resources—for decades.

In 2009-10, Venezuela’s dictatorship, led by Hugo Chavez, tightened its control over oil companies working there—seizing some oil fields outright.

That cost transitional oil companies like ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and BP tens of billions of dollars. They’ve fought for years to reclaim lost profits and their “property.”

Since then, the country’s oil fields have languished—thanks in no small part to American sanctions that were slapped on the country because of those seizures.

Those idle oil fields are an untapped gold mine: Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The regime change Donald Trump wants will open up a bonanza for his oligarch puppet masters.

You get what you pay for: the fossil fuel industry spent nearly $100 million to get Trump elected in 2024.

WHY IT’S A BIG DEAL: The United States deciding unilaterally to depose the head of another government—capturing him and taking him prisoner—without any backing from “the international rules based order” (think the U.N., NATO, etc.) is unprecedented in modern history. It is an act of war.

It sends a message to countries around the world that the U.S. will act as it wants, when it wants, without regard to international law, national sovereignty, or the global economy.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Trump will hold a press conference today at 11 a.m. ET from Mar-a-Lago. It’s unclear exactly what happens next.

As of this writing, nobody knows who’s in power in Venezuela. It’s unlikely the country launches a direct military strike in retaliation. Its military is old and technologically outmatched by the U.S.

It’s also unclear if Trump will invade the country with ground forces to force a regime change. Such a move would be deeply unpopular in the U.S., and almost certainly cost him both houses of Congress in this year’s midterms.

Long term, experts say this act of aggression will further erode trust in American leadership, destabilize the U.S. dollar, and push even friendly countries towards China.

Small and midsized countries may see Beijing as the only protection they have against American aggression (i.e., the U.S. wouldn’t capture the leader of a country closely aligned with China).