Venezuela After Maduro

Sanctions, Shipping, and Supply Chain Security

Client Alert

January 7, 2026

Event Overview

In early January 2026, the United States conducted a large-scale military operation in Caracas, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the imposition of a U.S.-enforced “oil quarantine.” U.S. officials have indicated the action is intended to constrain Venezuela’s access to revenue and shape the country’s political transition.

While the operation has not caused immediate, broad-based supply chain disruption, it has significantly reshaped the risk environment for organizations exposed to energy markets, maritime logistics, defense sustainment, and critical infrastructure across the Western Hemisphere. The primary impacts are systemic rather than physical—including tighter sanctions enforcement, constrained vessel movement, and a clear demonstration of how energy, cyber, and logistics infrastructure can be used as tools of modern conflict. For companies operating in or adjacent to high-risk jurisdictions, this reinforces why static, list-based compliance models are no longer sufficient.

Network View of Sanctions Related to PDVSA, Venezuela’s State-owned Oil and Gas Company.
Source: Exiger

Why Network Risk Matters

Any long-term reopening or engagement with Venezuelan markets will require a deep understanding of upstream and downstream supply chains, evolving ownership structures, and shifting sanctions regimes. Today’s sanctions do not target Venezuela as a country; they target specific people, state-owned enterprises such as PDVSA, individual ships, and the intermediaries that move Venezuelan oil and goods.

This distinction matters. Some companies operate under narrow, revocable licenses that can change with little notice. As a result, risk is determined less by geography and more by who you work with and how goods move through the network.

Recent U.S. actions underscore this approach. Washington has sanctioned a Venezuelan aerospace company and its leadership for assembling Iranian-designed combat drones, along with additional Iran-linked firms tied to missile procurement. Separately, U.S. authorities have named oil traders and specific tankers involved in moving Venezuelan crude. These designations freeze assets and immediately expand exposure for global partners, suppliers, insurers, and logistics providers that may touch these networks—often unknowingly.

U.S. Sanctions on Venezuelan Entities
Source: Exiger

A clear non-oil example reinforces the point. In 2024, OFAC fined Houston-based freight forwarder Fracht more than $1.6 million for using a Venezuela-linked carrier to transport ordinary auto parts. The cargo itself was not restricted. The violation stemmed from the carrier network. This case illustrates how sanctions risk can surface in routine logistics operations, far removed from oil exports or headline geopolitical events.

In practice, PDVSA accounts for most the Venezuelan government’s revenue, underscoring the country’s continued dependence on crude oil and petroleum exports. Export destinations are similarly concentrated, with China absorbing the majority of Venezuelan oil shipments, followed by limited volumes to the United States under narrow OFAC licenses and smaller flows to Cuba and Europe. While gold has historically been used to generate hard currency under sanctions pressure, formal gold exports to Switzerland, the world’s gold processing hub, appear to have largely stalled in recent years, particularly through traceable channels.

This combination of resource concentration, limited buyers, and sanctions-sensitive logistics increases counterparty, shipping, and enforcement risk, as disruptions affecting a small number of vessels or intermediaries can quickly cascade across global energy, industrial, and financial supply chains.

Weapons Sustainment

Public attention often focuses on highly visible U.S. military activity across the Caribbean, while the far less visible reality is that modern operations depend on tens of thousands of parts, materials, and systems to build, maintain, and sustain special operations capabilities.

Aircraft, drones, and advanced platforms rely on:

Highly specialized components
Aerospace-grade electronics and materials
Precision manufacturing and maintenance
Secure logistics and trusted sub-tier suppliers

Exiger’s work across the global defense industrial base consistently shows that sub-tier fragility, not platform availability, is the most common constraint during periods of heightened operational tempo. Battles are not won by platforms alone—they are won by logistics, sustainment, and supply chain resilience.

Cyber and Critical Infrastructure

U.S. forces shut off electricity across Caracas ahead of the operation, highlighting a critical reality: supply chains and critical infrastructure are now exploitable vulnerabilities in modern warfare. More importantly, influencing nations such as China and Russia are watching closely, and the lesson they will draw is not limited to Venezuela.

This reinforces the need to treat critical infrastructure and software supply chain security as core risk domains, not peripheral IT issues. Power grids, ports, telecom networks, industrial control systems, and third-party software are deeply interconnected—and disruption rarely begins at Tier 1.

What Organizations Should Do Now

Reassess sanctions screening to include vessels, intermediaries, and ownership structures
Review logistics and carrier relationships for indirect Venezuela exposure
Stress-test supply chains for port, shipping, and infrastructure disruption
Expand continuous monitoring for sanctions and geopolitical escalation
Ensure compliance, procurement, and logistics teams are aligned on evolving risk

Bottom Line

Venezuela is not an immediate supply chain shock. It is a warning signal.

The event demonstrates how sanctions, shipping, infrastructure, and cyber risk now converge — and how quickly exposure can spread through global supply chains. Organizations that invest in network-level visibility and continuous monitoring will be better positioned to operate confidently in this environment. Those that rely on static, list-based approaches will face growing risk.