Latin American Left Calls for U.S. to Release Maduro After Assault on Caracas

MIAMI - The principal leaders of the Latin American political Left, and Washington’s most outspoken critics in the region, have all come out to condemn the recent U.S. assault on Caracas on Saturday, which resulted in the capture of the now deposed leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 3.

The operation by U.S. forces, which lasted approximately 30 minutes; involved 150 air assets; and left no U.S. service members killed or injured during the operation, struck targets at La Carlota airbase and Fort Tiuna military installation in the capital city of Caracas, limiting any armed response by Venezuelan forces as the United States’ elite Delta Force penetrated Maduro’s private residence and extricating the former leader out of the country.

The events shocked the region, including prominent members of Latin America’s socialist bloc, igniting a flurry of condemnations by several governments in Colombia and Brazil, including Maduro allies in Nicaragua and Cuba.

Cuba

Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who spoke to Cuban supporters who gathered before the U.S. embassy in Havana, condemned the “imperialist attack” on Cuba’s “sister nation” [of Venezuela], announcing: “We are ready to give blood for Venezuela.”

Díaz-Canel also demanded that U.S. authorities release the Venezuelan president and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also taken by U.S. special operators during the operation, calling the actions by the U.S. military a “kidnapping”, while speaking to thousands of Habaneros.

Venezuela has long been the benefactor of the Cuban government in Havana, supplying the regime with tens of thousands of barrels of subsidized oil per day, effectively keeping the regime afloat amid worsening economic conditions and hyperinflation.

Brazil

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also rejected the U.S. attack on Venezuela by issuing an official statement to the public, calling the U.S. actions an “extremely dangerous precedent for the entire international community.”

Lula had a previous dispute with U.S. President Trump in early 2025, after the administration in Washington slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods, accusing the administration in Brasília of targeting conservative political opposition, Jair Bolsonaro, and alleging that the Brazilian government has engaged in free speech censorship by restricting Brazilians access to U.S. social media companies like X, formerly known as Twitter.

Lula, arguably one of the most popular of the Left-wing leaders in the region, stated:

“The bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president have crossed an unacceptable line”, warning that “attacking countries in flagrant violation of international law”... will be “the first step towards a world of violence, chaos and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism.”

Colombia

During an interview with popular Venezuelan news channel, Venezolana de Televisión, or VTV, s state-run news agency based out of Caracas–only a couple of days before the U.S. strikes on the capital–Maduro shifted blame for the region’s drug trafficking scourge on Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

During the interview, Maduro stated:

“All the cocaine that moves in this region is produced in Colombia, but there is no collaboration on their side and the United States knows it...”

The comments were all the more strange considering Petro was his South American neighbor’s most vocal supporter in the face of mounting U.S. military pressure in the South Caribbean in recent months.

Maduro even requested that Petro order Colombia to combine its military forces with the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela in an effort to combat any U.S. intervention in the region.

Petro has also been Washington’s most fervent critic since President Trump regained the White House in January of 2025, accusing the United States of attempting to seize Venezuela’s natural resources in gold and oil, condemning U.S. strikes on suspected drug boats in the region, and claiming that President Trump has committed “war crimes.”

“The Colombian government condemns the attack on the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America,” wrote the president in an X post, warning of far-reaching consequences in the region, and the risk of possible spillover effects of violence spreading into Colombia’s eastern border regions with Venezuela.

In a separate post, President Petro said that Colombia “rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.”

On Dec. 10, during a roundtable meeting at the White House, President Trump was asked by reporters, regarding recent U.S. military strikes in the region, whether he had considered speaking with President Gustavo Petro. As was previously reported by Sociedad Media, President Trump responded by saying:

"I haven't... He's going to have himself some big problems if he doesn't wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs... They make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States, so he'd better wise up, or he'll be next."

In previous weeks, President Trump issued an additional warning for the Colombian president, saying that he [Petro] needs to “watch his ass” over accusations of large cocaine distribution sites throughout rural Colombian territory.

Such sites are known be be run by armed guerrilla groups that control large portions of the national territory in the northern highlands and lower Amazon regions, and invest heavily in organized drug trafficking operations in the region.

On notable group, the ELN, was the subject of a recent claim by President Petro, who alleged that a Christmas Eve strike by the U.S. on a suspected drug depot in Venezuela was targeting the ELN.

However, this is the first time that a U.S. president has ever insinuated that a sitting Colombian president is complicit in the criminal production of illicit narcotics in the country.

Petro is also Colombia’s first Left-wing president in the nation’s history.

Nicaragua

For months, Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega and co-President and wife, Rosario Murillo, have reiterated their support for the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, as the U.S. Pentagon deployed a vast array of military assets to essentially squeeze the Maduro regime.

Ortega, while speaking to supporters in Managua on Dec. 23, stated that a [U.S.] attack on Venezuela will be “an attack on all of Latin America.”

The Ortega-Murillo regime also released a press statement urging U.S. authorities to release Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, while calling on the U.S. government to “respect Venezuelan sovereignty.”