It's not clear what this is really about. Trump doesn't care about the people of the US, much less Venezuela, but there seems to be a widespread consensus that Maduro was a nogoodnik who won't be missed. I have no idea what the mood on the ground really is.

As for drugs, if Trump cared about drugs, he wouldn't pardon so many drug kingpins.

Some say this has to do with asserting control over China's oil imports, but according to https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/fi... and other sources, Venezuela barely makes it into the list of China's top 10 suppliers. So while China is indeed Venezuela's best customer, this argument doesn't seem persuasive unless I'm missing something. Venezuela's next-highest volume customer is the US itself.