CARACAS, Venezuela — Defiant Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday called escalating U.S. sanctions an attempt to force him from power and open talk of a military intervention in his country as evidence that Venezuela is under threat of foreign attack, stitched together an apocalyptic narrative in which the threat has been manufactured by his American adversaries so they can wage war against a legitimate government while the world watches. His reaction to Washington’s latest moves — orchestrated “peace” marches, new economic restraints — demonstrates how a beleaguered president makes foreign hostility part of his domestic game plan, Dec. 7, 2025.
Nicolás Maduro uses U.S. sanctions as political fuel.
Maduro is even now rallying supporters behind English-language slogans and music at marches where he repeats “No war, yes peace,” along with state television threading images of U.S. warships off the Venezuelan coastline. “This goes beyond politics,” it said in a recent report. The message is calibrated: depict Washington as the aggressor, portray him as a guardian of sovereignty, and signal to wavering allies that the revolution has yet to lose its wartime commander.
The rhetoric comes after additional punitive actions. In January, when Maduro was inaugurated for a third term in the face of a disputed 2024 election, the United States sanctioned eight senior Venezuelan officials and raised its reward for information on his whereabouts to $25 million, two measures described in a Reuters dispatch and a subsequent U.S. Treasury notice. In Washington, they are accused of aiding repression and election manipulation; according to Maduro, they represent “economic warfare” and a demonstration that his opponents cannot win at the ballot box.
A decade to perfect the survival script
For a decade, Nicolás Maduro has regarded pressure as a trial he could turn into an asset. In a report the same year, Human Rights Watch documented systemic abuses — including torture and politically motivated detentions — during mass antigovernment protests and called for foreign governments to escalate targeted sanctions on top officials well before today’s standoff in that country. The next year, Freedom House assigned Venezuela the lowest possible rating for political rights, citing the weakening of judicial independence, violent repression of protests and the blurring of civilian and military power structures in a country study in 2018.
That trajectory hardened as sanctions widened. In 2020, United States prosecutors unveiled sweeping narco-terrorism and corruption accusations against Nicolás Maduro Moros and 14 of the country’s current and former leaders, claiming a conspiracy to “flood” the United States with cocaine via state-connected networks in an indictment by the Justice Department. Instead of simply confining him at home, the accusations provided grist for hours of televised speeches that cast him as a victim of “imperial” justice while restricting his freedom of movement and driving the regime ever deeper into reliance on loyal security commanders.
From sanctions relief to greater control
Washington temporarily lifted sanctions on oil and gold in 2023 and 2024 in return for undertakings about a more democratic election from Maduro, whose government responded by barring opposition frontrunner María Corina Machado from the vote and jailing other key organisers, moves examined in a 2024 RealClearWorld analysis. The playbook was a familiar one: pocket economic relief, fracture the opposition, and then nudge the political system further toward one-party rule.
Today’s military threats and renewed sanctions add up to the same script. Every U.S. announcement gives Nicolás Maduro an excuse to demand more discipline from his ruling-party cadres, justify closer “coordination” with the security forces and colectivos, and portray any dissent as treasonous in a time of “national emergency.” Years of recording closed media space, harassing civil society organisations, and a judiciary whose benches have been stacked with cronies have long led outside monitors to warn that institutional checks on his power had all but evaporated, leaving Venezuelans few peaceful ways to influence the course of this confrontation. For Mr Maduro, the risk is that a new confrontation with Washington will once more bolster his base, turn would-be rivals away from challenging him at home, and strengthen bonds with anti-U.S. partners abroad. The United States, ratcheting up pressure with no clear diplomatic off-ramp, risks bolstering the very narrative that has kept him in the presidential palace this long.
