What specific actions did Donald Trump take in Venezuela in 2019?

1. What the available reporting actually documents: 2026 strikes, capture and U.S. control claims

Multiple outlets describe that President Trump ordered large-scale U.S. military strikes inside Venezuela in early January 2026 that culminated, according to U.S. officials and the White House, in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and their removal from Caracas ^{[3] [4] [5]}, and that Trump subsequently declared the United States would “run” Venezuela and said the country would turn over millions of barrels of oil to the U.S. ^{[2] [6] [7]}.

2. What reporters and analysts connect to the longer U.S.–Venezuela relationship since 2019

Reporting repeatedly situates the 2026 operation in the context of an extended U.S. pressure campaign against Maduro that included sanctions, targeting of tankers alleged to be moving sanctioned oil, and the closure of the U.S. embassy in Caracas in 2019 — signaling a sustained estrangement and the absence of an official U.S. presence since that year ^{[8] [1] [7]}. Analysts cited by Chatham House and BBC framed the strikes as the culmination of “maximum pressure” tactics that had been used for years and warned of the geopolitical and legal dangers of unilateral military action ^{[9] [10]}.

3. What the sources say about legal, congressional and diplomatic fallout — relevant to 2019-era norms

Even where the reporting does not list 2019 actions, it shows that in 2026 lawmakers criticized the administration for not notifying Congress about the military operation, and legal questions were raised about the use of force without authorization — concerns that echo debates about U.S. policy toward Venezuela dating back to the embassy withdrawal and sanctions regime begun earlier in the Trump era ^{[11] [12]}. PBS and CNN coverage emphasize that some of Trump’s public claims after the raid were fact-checked as false or misleading, and senators pressed for explanations about legal justification and notification ^{[11] [12]}.

4. Trump’s stated motivations and policy aims as reported — oil, drugs and regime change

Across outlets, Trump and some allies framed the campaign as targeting narcotics trafficking and criminal networks, while critics and commentators argued that control of Venezuela’s oil was an explicit or implicit motive — a point Trump himself seemed to confirm when he said the U.S. would “keep the oil” and later claimed Venezuela would turn over tens of millions of barrels to the U.S. ^{[6] [7] [13]}. International actors including China and Russia condemned the action as a violation of sovereignty, and regional governments voiced alarm ^{[7] [2]}.

5. Crucial limitation: the reporting does not list “specific actions” in 2019

None of the provided sources gives a granular, source-backed list of policies, covert operations or executive acts that Donald Trump personally took in Venezuela during calendar year 2019; they note the embassy closure and characterize a longer period of sanctions and pressure but do not itemize 2019-era orders or operations attributable to Trump in that specific year ^{[1] [8]}. Consequently, firm claims about concrete actions in 2019 cannot be supported from this collection of reporting and would require separate contemporaneous documentation.

6. Bottom line for readers following the trail

Based on the supplied reporting, the clearest, well-documented actions by President Trump relating to Venezuela are the 2026 military strikes, public claims of custody of Maduro, threats to run the country and to appropriate oil, and long-standing pressure tactics that included embassy closure in 2019 and sanctions — but the sources do not provide a specific list of Trump’s actions during the calendar year 2019 itself ^{[3] [4] [2] [1]}.