President Donald Trump is wasting no time in putting pressure on Venezuela’s trade partners to stop doing business with the Nicolas Maduro regime, on March 24 placing an additional 25 percent tariff on all goods from countries that import oil from Venezuela, including China, which constitutes 68 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports, according to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).
Other importers of Venezuelan oil include Cuba, which constitutes 4 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports, and Spain, constituting another 4 percent. Singapore constitutes 1 percent, Malaysia 0.3 percent, Russia 0.2 percent, Vietnam 0.01 percent and Bahamas 0.03 percent. Separate data showed that in 2024, India took in about 63,000 barrels per day, which would be about 8 percent of Venezuela’s exports.
Another almost quarter was imported by the U.S. but with the new sanctions Trump is quickly putting into place, that will drop dramatically. The real exports from Venezuela the U.S. is concerned about are gangs, drugs and sex traffickers including Tren de Aragua, which President Trump has declared a terrorist organization and enemy alien invaders.
Last year, Pew Research estimated that there could be as many as 270,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela in the U.S. as of 2022, but given the growth from 130,000 in 2017, it could be as high as 440,000 by now. Given the country’s rampant inflation and failing socialist economy, plus a contested election in 2024, more than 8 million have fled Venezuela in the past decade, fueling the migration crisis in the Americas.
Journalist Ronna Rísquez in 2023 estimated the Tren de Aragua gang’s total membership might be 5,000, although it is unclear how many of the terrorist gangs’ members have made their way to the U.S. — and how many more they recruited once they got here.
According to President Trump’s executive order, justifying the new actions, President Trump stated, “the actions and policies of the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. The activities of the Tren de Aragua gang, a transnational criminal organization originating in Venezuela and designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization, have intensified this threat, as highlighted in Proclamation 10903 of March 14, 2025 (Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua). Furthermore, Venezuela’s ongoing destabilizing actions, including its support for illicit activities, necessitate further economic measures to protect United States interests.”
Trump added, “The Tren de Aragua gang, a transnational criminal organization with origins in Venezuela, has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States due to its extensive involvement in terrorist activities such as kidnapping and violent attacks, including the assassination of a Venezuelan opposition figure, that destabilize communities across the Western Hemisphere. The prior administration’s open-borders policies facilitated the infiltration of the United States by members of Tren de Aragua, allowing these dangerous criminals to establish a foothold within United States cities and prey upon American citizens. The Maduro regime aided and facilitated the influx of Tren de Aragua members into the United States during the prior administration by failing to control its borders, permitting the gang’s operations to flourish within Venezuela, and refusing to take action against its members, thereby exacerbating the illegal immigration crisis.”
As a result, the tariffs on Venezuela’s trade partners will go into effect on or about April 2: “On or after April 2, 2025, a tariff of 25 percent may be imposed on all goods imported into the United States from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, whether directly from Venezuela or indirectly through third parties.”
That is very little notice, by design, and will hit Venezuela’s economy very hard as Trump tightens the noose around the Maduro regime. Here, Trump is cutting off Venezuela’s most valuable and significant export: oil. In 2024, Venezuela exported 772,000 barrels a day, generating more than $20 billion annually for the country. The regime is entirely dependent on oil revenues, constituting almost two-thirds of its annual budget.
Now, China and other Venezuelan oil importers will have a serious choice to make, either immediately shift to other sources of oil in order to avoid the U.S. tariff or get hit again with another tariff from Trump, who has already increased the tariffs on Chinese goods by 10 percent to stop the illegal fentanyl trade, coming atop 25 percent on $250 billion of goods and 17.5 percent on the remaining $300 billion of goods that were established by Trump in 2019 that former President Joe Biden never rescinded.
The Venezuelan oil, perhaps only 4 percent of China’s 11 million barrels a day imported, might not be worth the increased tariffs to Beijing, which imports far more oil from Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, according to EIA data. Either way, it appears to be no skin off the President’s nose as he quickly attempts to bring the threats to American security posed by Venezuela to heel.
Is Trump looking to topple the Maduro regime in Caracas? It wouldn’t be the first time it’s been tried, and with the oil sanctions and tariffs, Trump is escalating the pressure rapidly. Also, given the ties to China and Russia, the President could be viewing it the same way James Monroe and Theodore Roosevelt viewed foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere as Trump reasserts the Monroe Doctrine, not just in Venezuela, but on the Panama Canal, Greenland and other strategic locations near the U.S. plus moves to immediately secure the U.S. border with Mexico. This could be coming to a head quickly.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
