General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, touched down in Caracas this week on his first official visit to post-Maduro Venezuela.
The trip comes five months after Operation Absolute Resolve, the daring U.S. military mission that ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro and his regime from power once and for all.
According to War Department spokesman Joe Holstead, Caine met with senior leaders of Venezuela’s interim government and U.S. embassy personnel.
His message was clear: Venezuelan stability is essential to hemispheric security, and Trump’s three-phase plan remains firmly in motion.
Caine reportedly emphasized that the mission is far from over. The General reminded officials that the Trump administration’s top priorities include preventing chaos, rebuilding Venezuela’s devastated economy, and guiding the country toward a genuine, pro-democracy transition after decades of socialist corruption.
The heart of this plan centers on Venezuela’s oil industry, once the richest in Latin America but left in shambles by Maduro’s socialist mismanagement.
Trump famously called it a “total bust,” a blunt assessment that proved accurate as production collapsed under communist-style state control.
Since U.S. forces brought down the Maduro regime earlier this year, energy infrastructure repairs have formed a cornerstone of recovery efforts.
American engineers, in coordination with local workers, have begun restoring key refineries along the northern coast to get fuel back in production and revenue flowing again.
Operation Absolute Resolve marked a historic chapter in modern military strategy.
The operation deployed more than 150 aircraft and saw elite Delta Force operators descend on Maduro’s heavily fortified compound deep in Caracas. Within hours, the notorious dictator and his inner circle were neutralized and extracted without the loss of a single U.S. life.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, now face justice in the United States. Both were flown to New York, where they await trial on charges related to drug trafficking, human rights abuses, and systemic theft from the Venezuelan people. It was the clean break Venezuela needed after years of failed sanctions and empty diplomatic threats from the global elite.
Even after Maduro’s fall, the U.S. military has kept a potent presence in the region to ensure the peace is preserved.
The USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group entered the Caribbean in May, a tangible reminder that American power still dictates the balance of the Western Hemisphere.
Since September, the War Department has authorized at least 62 precision strikes targeting narco-trafficking operations operating in South American waters.
The Trump administration credits these actions with eliminating nearly 200 cartel-linked fighters and disrupting drug smuggling routes that pour poison into American communities.
Predictably, “international legal experts” have tried to spin these operations as “controversial.” But the reality is simple: lawlessness in the Caribbean and South America has real consequences for U.S. national security. When America retreats, chaos fills the vacuum—and this administration refuses to let that happen.
Caine’s visit also sent a clear signal to regional allies, from Colombia to Brazil, that America remains the indispensable defender of order and stability in the hemisphere.
