Stay out of it.

That, apparently, is Donald Trump’s message to Beijing as it relates to the US pressure campaign aimed at forcing Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela. Hold that thought.

Trump’s efforts to squeeze Maduro come at China’s expense in more ways than one.

It’d be a stretch to call Beijing and Caracas staunch allies, but Maduro’s government, like Kim Jong-Un’s in North Korea, Vladimir Putin’s in Russia and the theocracy in Tehran, is a pariah and China’s in the habit of embracing pariahs as a show of defiance.

There’s also a calculable economic cost. China isn’t just Venezuela’s largest oil buyer, it’s more or less Maduro’s only buyer, accounting for more than three quarters of crude exports, which in turn comprise more than nine out of every $10 of Venezuela’s overall revenue.

The problem for Maduro — and I’ve mentioned this previously — is that as a share of overall Chinese oil imports, Venezuelan crude’s almost immaterial. In addition, Xi Jinping’s sympathetic (he wouldn’t use that word) to the idea that major powers are entitled to dominion over their respective spheres of influence. His foreign ministry’s admonishments of US “bullying” aside, Xi gets it and, on some level, respects it.

So, with allowances for what’ll surely be a harshly-worded Chinese critique deriding the denial of Venezuela’s sovereign right to contract and transact economically with other sovereign countries, don’t expect a lot of real pushback from China on the latest OFAC sanctions, which target shipping companies in Hong Kong linked to Venezuela’s oil industry.

“President Trump has been clear: We will not allow the illegitimate Maduro regime to profit from exporting oil while it floods the United States with deadly drugs,” Scott Bessent said, in a press release accompanying the new measures, which single out four entities and four vessels. “The Treasury Department will continue to implement President Trump’s campaign of pressure on Maduro’s regime,” Bessent added.

To reiterate: Maduro isn’t “flooding the United States with drugs,” certainly not compared to entities like the Sinaloas and the Jalisco New Generation cartel. And America doesn’t have a cocaine crisis, it has a fentanyl crisis which, by the way, isn’t traceable to Mexican cartels, nor to China, but rather to the 1996 introduction of OxyContin.

The drug red herring’s just that: An excuse to perpetuate the pressure campaign and, ultimately, to force Maduro from power in the interest of freeing up Venezuela’s vast oil reserves for joint-development with US super-majors.

Although it’s not common for Treasury to publicly single out Chinese entities for facilitating the transport and sale of Venezuela’s crude, it’s not unprecedented, and besides, there’s no mystery here: Everyone knows China buys the vast majority of what Maduro’s able to sell. It’s just a matter of whether a given US president thinks enforcing sanctions is worth rankling Beijing. Trump thinks it’s worth it.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans locked up in Maduro’s jails is slowing growing. “Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the months since the Trump administration began a military and economic pressure campaign against the government,” The New York Times reported, adding that although “some of the detainees face legitimate criminal charges,” the US is “considering designating at least two prisoners as wrongfully detained.”

That’s hardly unusual. As the Times went on to note, Maduro “has long used detained Americans, whether guilty or innocent of serious crimes, as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington.” I’d suggest that’s a riskier strategy than it used to be. Unlike Kim in Pyongyang, Maduro’s not a psychopath. Sure, he’ll kill people if he has to, but he won’t be able to use American prisoners as human shields. Trump will call his bluff.

In a New Year’s message posted to Telegram, Maduro said 2026 “will be a year of blessings and miracles.” “Every battle is testimony to the vitality of a people who become men and women to defend their destiny” he declared, imploring Venezuelans to “toast to an independent future.”