Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro seemed to make a plea for peace back in October 2025, repeating a slogan that has since gone viral. During a state television broadcast, after U.S.-led missile strikes on small boats in international waters near Venezuela killed at least 87 people, he addressed Donald Trump directly.
“Not war, not war, not war,” Maduro said at the time. “Yes peace, yes peace, yes peace, forever, forever, forever. Peace forever. No crazy war.”
Later that month, the Dominican YouTuber Hey Santana decided to splice out that Maduro soundbite, which was already floating around social media, and remix it into a dembow track. It quickly took over the internet — and now, some political sources say it may have played a role in the U.S. operation that led to Maduro’s capture and arrest on Jan. 3.
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Hey Santana made the remix by setting Maduro’s speech to a thumping beat and pairing the song with clips of funny dance moves in a video titled “Not War Yes Peace.” It has since amassed more than hundreds of thousands of views, with an extended edition that takes it from a minute and a half to three minutes in length.
By November, the “No War, Yes Peace” remix had reached Maduro, who danced along to the song while welcoming Venezuelan university students at Miraflores Palace. “I was like this,” Santana tells Rolling Stone over Zoom, dropping his jaw. “I didn’t know how to react!”
At first, Santana thought someone had a video to make it look like Maduro was dancing to the song, but then he saw a CNN headline about the politician actually grooving to it. A few weeks later, the dictator danced to it again during a political rally, this time with cheers from the crowd layered in. Maduro played the song at so many events that Chavistas (or Maduro supporters) began to claim it as pro-Maduro, even though Santana made it as a parody of the president.
“At one point, I was like, fuck. The people on the Chavistas’ side were turning the song from a meme into a political moment in favor of Chavismo. It lost its humor. I would never support a dictator like that,” says Santana, who joined the Zoom call with Rolling Stone wearing a t-shirt printed with the image of Maduro’s capture. “The song is super absurd if you really listen.”
The track — and Maduro’s dance to it — reportedly struck a nerve with Trump. Speaking to a gathering of congressional Republicans on Tuesday, Trump seemed to reference Maduro’s dance moves, telling the group, per The Guardian, “He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit.” (Trump has gone viral time and again for moving his short arms to the beat of Village People’s “YMCA.”)
@heysantanayt
“Mr. Maduro’s regular public dancing and other displays of nonchalance in recent weeks helped persuade some on the Trump team that the Venezuelan president was mocking them,” a New York Times piece reported over the weekend, referencing two anonymous sources within the administration. According to that report, the White House decided to follow through on the military operation that occurred on Jan. 3. Trump announced that morning that U.S. forces had captured Maduro after a military operation in Caracas. By that afternoon, Trump stated from Mar-a-Lago that the U.S. would run the country until a “safe, proper and judicious transition.”
The news has shocked Santana, whose song got 10,000 Shazams the day of Maduro’s capture. “People have been thanking me online,” he says. “People are joking that I’m like a libertador.”
Maduro pleaded guilty to the four charges against him, including narco-terrorism conspiracy and possession of and conspiracy to possess machine guns, during a court appearance Monday. He’ll face a lengthy legal process that could come to a jury trial that could last well over a year.
From Rolling Stone US
