The Trump administration’s seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela is one of the most dramatic twists yet in a military pressure campaign against Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

An American special forces veteran led the operation to get María Corina Machado out of Venezuela: "The first Nobel Prize winner that we've ever rescued."

Now, President Donald Trump wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of power. Maduro’s “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico in an interview released on Dec. 9. His Administration considers Maduro the head of a government-sponsored cocaine smuggling syndicate.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado says she doesn’t believe the Venezuelan government knew where she was hiding for most of this year.