Across the world and our nation, on January 3rd, 2026, the United States took military action against the country of Venezuela through the use of coordinated air strikes, raids, and an eventual capture and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on narco-terrorism charges against the United States. In the last few months, President Donald Trump has offered multiple opportunities to the country and to Maduro to reach a deal that could have led to a process to prevent what happened. Instead, Maduro and his communist cartel amigos dug their boots in the mud, pretended to stand tall, and wanted to contest any attempt to concede to the nation's most powerful military and Department of War.
Now, many are wondering how this benefits the United States. The obvious, most explained answer, even by that of Vice President JD Vance, is the effect Venezuela and its corrupt, cartel leader President has had on the United States and the rest of the world, as well as Venezuela's oil industry and China's connection to it. With oil, Venezuela has stolen American property to fund Maduro's cartel operations.
It uses the prosperous land to operate more drug trafficking in promoting the cartels of Cartel de los Soles and Tren de Aragua. Through Maduro's narco-regime, he has corrupted the government to subvert his power, starve his people, and create a drug-trafficking operation using the funds he has obtained from American oil properties that brings drugs over our southern border, crime into our streets, and across the globe. He has contributed directly to the drug crisis that is running rampant across our nation through cocaine, opioids, and especially fentanyl.
These horrendous operations have contributed to the opioid epidemic that has ravaged my home region of the Appalachian Mountains here in East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. More than any other part of the country, overdoses run absolutely rampant throughout Appalachia, which includes my home state of Tennessee, by more than 52% than the rest of the United States, and this is in part due to the cartels, such as Cartel de los Soles and Tren de Aragua, having the power that they do in South American drug trafficking, thanks to Nicolás Maduro.
Many critics will point to the fact that Venezuela is not contributing directly to the fentanyl overdoses and crisis like a country, such as Mexico, has over the last few years, and this is just a war over oil. First, that is not true at all. While now that the border has been secured and we are seeing less overflow of fentanyl from Venezuela coming over our border, it does not mean that there has not been in the past.
While fentanyl may not be produced in the country, the cartel operations within the nation have undoubtedly brought drugs into the United States for profit. Second, yes, this operation was about oil, but not for the reasons you might think. See, the profits that the cartels of Cartel de los Soles and Tren de Aragua, both of which Maduro put as his priorities as the President of Venezuela, have made from American oil properties have contributed directly to drug and human trafficking. Whether it be through the smuggling of cocaine, fentanyl, or other criminal operations by the cartel, the power that these organizations had over the Venezuelan government was only increasing their influence, the longer the regime had a stranglehold on its people and over the Western Hemisphere.
Appalachia will directly benefit from the reduced influence the cartel will have over drug trafficking. The cartel has brought an unbelievable amount of pain, suffering, death, and crime to our region for far too long. By decreasing the amount of power the cartel has in South America by retaking American oil reserves and properties, essentially eliminating their takeover of the country of Venezuela, and capturing the man in Nicolás Maduro that has given the cartel power to inflict misery on the people of Appalachia through the opioid epidemic, it is hard to imagine a greater foreign policy victory for our homeland than what we just witnessed over the last few days.
This is not an end-all, be-all for the Appalachian opioid epidemic. In fact, this is only the first step in solving that crisis. However, President Trump has proven that he is prioritizing Americans first by taking out a harm that was directly harming his people, and that is as big a win for the Appalachian Mountains and their residents as we could ever ask for. To that, we say thank you to President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and all the great men and women of our military.
