Maduro dancing to 'No War, Yes Peace' may have triggered Trump into kidnapping him and bombing Venezuela: Report

An innocent dance to a remix called “No War, Yes Peace” may have been the final straw that pushed US President Donald Trump to order the capture of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and bomb the Latin American country.

The MAGA chief was frustrated by Maduro’s casual response to rising tensions with the US. However, it was a televised moment last month, when the Venezuelan president stood up and danced to a remix of his own speech, that pushed Trump's temper off the edge, according to sources cited by the New York Times.


In the now viral video, Maduro can be seen grooving and bouncing to the music as his own recorded voice is repeated in English, “No crazy war.” For Trump and his advisers, the dance felt like open mockery, coming just days after US carried out a strike on a Venezuelan dock it said was linked to drug trafficking.


Maduro’s dancing was not unusual. He had appeared moving to the same song at other public events, including one a month earlier featuring lyrics such as: “Victory! Forever, forever, forever. Not crazy war! Peace! Forever, forever, forever!” But officials said the repeated performances helped convince the White House that he was trying to call the American bluff.

Within days, the administration decided to act. On Saturday, an elite US military team carried out a midnight raid in Caracas, destroying several military installations and detaining Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The pair were flown to New York to face charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, weapons offences and cocaine-importation conspiracy.

In custody, Maduro wished drug enforcement agents a “Happy New Year” and posed with his thumbs up while awaiting transfer to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he and his wife are now being held.

After the operation, Trump said that Washington intended to take charge of Venezuela in Maduro’s absence. Speaking at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, he said: “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

He made no mention of the dance but focused a little too much on Venezuela’s oil sector. “We’re going to have our very large United States put up companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, to go in, spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.

US officials said they had already identified an interim replacement who could work with the Venezuelan government. Vice president Delcy Rodríguez, who had overseen Venezuela’s oil policy, was the preferred candidate.