NEW YORK – As María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday, a new American indictment laid out how prosecutors say Nicolás Maduro subverted democracy: torture, bribery and coercion at home, and a transnational narcoterrorism conspiracy that bound Mexican cartels and Colombian guerrillas to Venezuela’s corrupted military, courts and police
The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted for alleged conspiracy to commit torture, according to Manhattan federal court papers unsealed on Thursday.
The superseding indictment was unsealed shortly before Flores appeared at court in her ongoing push for pretrial release – which was denied by Judge Alvin Hellerstein. Maduro and Flores have been jailed in New York City since early January.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history” with Venezuela on Aug. 28. Two days later, on Truth Social, he posted that “Trump’s historic oil deal with Venezuela realigns global energy and puts OPEC, Canada on notice.”
What does Venezuelan oil have to do with Canada, and should we be worried? The short answer is maybe; a little bit. The long answer is below.
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s highly controversial energy deal with Donald Trump, insisting the South American country will maintain ownership and sovereignty over its massive oil reserves.
Rodríguez, who assumed power in January after Trump ordered the abduction of the president, Nicolás Maduro, took to the airwaves on Saturday to push back against criticism of what the US president has called “the biggest oil deal in world history”.
“The benefits are endless,” claimed Rodríguez, a former vice-president whom Trump backed after ordering Maduro’s capture during a special forces raid on the capital, Caracas.
President Trump spent months declaring his ouster of Venezuela’s leader had secured the country’s oil for America. When U.S. energy companies resisted investing at the speed and scale he wanted, his administration devised an extraordinary solution to turn his vision into reality: make the U.S. government itself an investor.
The agreement announced Friday evening would transform the U.S. government from a broker of American oil investments in Venezuela to an investor itself.
It would give Washington a direct financial stake in a private company that would be granted centurylong rights to some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves—and tie the U.S. more closely to the unelected government that is granting those rights.
CANADA BEWARE – Trump’s Massive Venezuela Oil Gambit is Also Another Massive Wake-Up Call for Canadian Energy
If Washington secures access to 90 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, Canadian producers could face a powerful new competitor in their most important market. Ottawa can no longer afford to delay pipelines, regulatory reform or the investment conditions needed to diversify Canadian energy exports.
As my PJ Media colleague Sarah Anderson reported Friday night, President Donald Trump dropped one of the biggest energy announcements of his second term on Friday evening, revealing that the United States and Venezuela had signed what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history.” The agreement hands America majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, and Trump wasted no time celebrating.
The US has reached a deal with Venezuela to control more than 65 billion barrels of its proven oil reserves, President Donald Trump announced.
“This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans,” Trump posted on social media.
Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, hailed the agreement as one that would help her nation’s economic revival.
Now you know why President Trump was so quiet last weekend as Carney and crew were pushing their story.
Take the Canadian oil out of the equation and how does that trade conflict end? https://t.co/FVc63kKoOJ
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) August 29, 2026
Venezuelan opposition up in arms over reports US wants big stake in oil and gas
Reports that the US is preparing to claim a big stake in Venezuela’s massive energy reserves have sparked an outcry, with critics describing the move as “predatory” and a “rapacious” land grab.
Several media outlets this week reported that the Trump administration – which abducted Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, in January and has steered the South American country ever since – hopes to secure long-term access to its oil and gasfields.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves with an estimated 303bn barrels, compared with Saudi Arabia’s 268bn and Iran’s 208bn.
Hmmm.
The CIA has declassified its files on the Venezuelan electronic voting machine company, Smartmatic, appearing to confirm widely held suspicions that the company used complex algorithms to fix election results that helped keep Venezuela’s leftist regime in power for two decades. The firm that’s been newly based in the UK now provides election machines for California’s populous Orange County.
Public anger at what many perceive as the Venezuelan government’s botched response to twin earthquakes that killed nearly 4,500 people is growing, with one grieving mother caught on camera berating the son of former president Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro’s politician son received a hostile reception while visiting a semi-destroyed social housing project named after his father’s late mentor Hugo Chávez.
“I didn’t lose a kitchen! I lost a daughter!” the woman, named as Damely Yaneth Díaz, can be seen shouting at congressman Nicolás Maduro Guerra in scenes captured by the Norwegian broadcaster TV2 last week.
New footage shows the terrifying moment a building collapsed during 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit Venezuela pic.twitter.com/XNbn4ZgfYz
— Surajit (@surajit_ghosh2) July 14, 2026
Even before two powerful earthquakes reduced the OPPE 25 government housing project to an anarchy of shattered concrete and broken lives, the foundations of Hugo Chávez’s populist “Bolivarian” revolution were shaking in what was once a hotbed of support.
Gabriel González remembers his elation when, in 2013, he received the keys to his freshly completed apartment in one of the 12-floor tower blocks El Comandante had ordered to be built in an affluent corner of the resort town of Caraballeda.
The moment a building collapses as the ground shakes violently during the powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Venezuela pic.twitter.com/Pnfy7v15pm
— Surajit (@surajit_ghosh2) July 10, 2026
When the ground shook in Venezuela, Alejandro Palombizio was home in Los Palos Grandes, a wealthy Caracas neighborhood. He heard a jarring noise, looked out, and watched the twin towers of an apartment complex fold into a cloud of dust.
The 29-year-old carried an elderly neighbor down the stairs, ran back up to get medicine for another and loaned his phone to people trying to reach family. He stayed at it for most of the next 72 hours. “These were my neighbors,” he said. “People I saw every day. I have to be here.”
️The earthquake in Venezuela has already killed over 1,000 people.
Thousands of people are also missing. pic.twitter.com/Wf3BNRPDYJ
— RussiaNews 🇷🇺 (@mog_russEN) June 27, 2026
Terremoto/ Junquito
Venezuela 😫😫😩👇😱 pic.twitter.com/o4vD0mbqsa— Me dicen la Negra 🥰 🇻🇪 (@yeligamboa) June 25, 2026
Venezuela looks like it was BOMBED after two MASSIVE 7.1 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes.
Pray for the people, this is really bad pic.twitter.com/pIw8ywXzYe
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) June 25, 2026
The US military has killed a leader in the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, with the help of Venezuela, Donald Trump announced on Friday.
“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Inmates at Venezuela’s western Barinas prison staged a protest on its roof on Sunday, piling flaming mattresses and calling for the removal of the facility’s director, whom they accused of overseeing guards as they shot unarmed prisoners.
“We want justice. They are shooting us, the guards and the wardens,” a prisoner said in a video shared by the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons, a local NGO, on X, in which a man is seen with a bullet wound in his chest.
Inmates said they were peacefully protesting when prison staff opened fire and left some wounded.
Prisoners in Venezuela’s western Barinas prison staged a protest on the roof of the detention center, piling flaming mattresses and calling for the removal of the prison’s director, who they said had overseen guards as they shot unarmed prisoners https://t.co/ppPYwrAVCN pic.twitter.com/14fHembgYs
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 25, 2026
🇻🇪 Inmates at the Barinas Judicial Internment Center in Venezuela are demanding the removal of new director Elvis Macuare Guerrero, accusing him of violent raids, isolation, and torture.
Outside the prison, families fear what could happen next.pic.twitter.com/uux4zUPr29
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 25, 2026
A billionaire tycoon accused of being a “bag man” for Nicolás Maduro, the deposed Venezuelan dictator, has been deported in the United States.
Alex Saab faces trial and another spell in a United States prison less than three years after he was pardoned and freed by Joe Biden as part of a prisoner swap.
His deportation continues Delcy Rodríguez’s ongoing purge of senior apparatchiks in the Maduro regime.
