Venezuela: 58 years in 58 news stories, 2012-2026

Feb 9, 2026, 11:18 AM

This is the final entry in a 4 part series uncovering U.S. national news coverage of Venezuela from 1968 to 2025.

Maduro replaces Chávez

As U.S.-Venezuelan relations cooled under the Obama administration, American news media lost interest in Hugo Chávez’s continued dominance over Venezuela. The news offered periodic bulletins from Venezuela, including accidents, natural disasters, and updates on Chávez’s health as he battled cancer in 2012 and a re-election victory [40]. His death in December of that year made U.S. headlines, with a host of reports on how Venezuela will replace him; however, coverage was significantly less than in prior years [41].

Nicolás Maduro’s election win in April 2013 received three news reports, but his first year in office received very minimal coverage until February 2014, when Venezuelan protests rose in intensity [43]. As political unrest subsided, so did news coverage from the region [44]. Once again, accidents and natural disasters became the prominent stories from Venezuela.

Under President Trump’s first term, the U.S. government raised concerns of drugs from Venezuela. On February 14, 2017, ABC reported on the economic conditions within Venezuela [45]. That year, the Trump administration added sanctions to Maduro’s government in response to the Venezuelan president’s authoritarian and anti-democratic actions [46]. In 2019, U.S. news coverage of Venezuela spiked with stories of the political and economic crises in the country. President Trump declared Maduro’s leadership illegitimate, amid more street protests and the expulsion of American diplomats in Caracas [47]. As the crisis unfolded, President Trump delivered an anti-socialism speech in Miami, calling Maduro a Cuban puppet and calling on the Venezuelan people to reject Maduro and accept freedom [48].

Coverage continued in the first half of 2019, as Venezuelans protested in favor of U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guido as the rightful president [49, 50, 51]. In May, the U.S. suggested military action may be possible to oust Maduro [52]. A story about a Venezuelan fighter jet flying “aggressively close” to a U.S. plane was one of the few clips from the second half of 2019 [53]. A year later, Maduro claimed to have foiled a plot by Trump to overthrow him and imprisoned two Americans, but President Trump denied involvement [54].

Under the Biden Administration, much like the Obama administration, Venezuelan relations were not prioritized, though a prisoner exchange in 2022 made headlines on multiple outlets. Meanwhile, as other news networks rarely reported from Venezuela, Fox News Channel aired significantly more reports from the country, related to Maduro’s tie to drug trafficking, and a rise in U.S. illegal immigration [55]. In Biden’s final year in office, all news networks covered several punitive actions against Maduro in response to accusations of a rigged election [56]. The U.S. sanctioned Venezuela and in September 2024 the Justice Department seized Maduro’s plane [57].

On January 10, 2025, Fox News reported that President Biden increased the reward for information leading to “Maduro’s capture on drug and corruption allegations" [58]. Almost exactly one year later, President Trump announced Maduro’s capture by the United States.