US President Donald Trump’s removal of Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela on 3 January has provided the opportunity to show that his national security approach is superior to his predecessors’.
Venezuela has been a festering sore for nearly three decades. Authoritarian, socialist rule under Hugo Chavez and Maduro turned what should have been one of the world’s most prosperous nations into a corrupt, poverty-ridden, refugee-producing, drug-trafficking epicentre for Chinese, Russian and terrorist influence in Latin America.
The real challenges in Venezuela are just beginning for Trump... the potential for failure is high.
Maduro’s lightning-fast removal from office was a credit to the capabilities of the US military. The behaviour of other national leaders, particularly those in the western hemisphere who are adversarial to the United States, will likely change immediately. Chinese and Russian efforts to win influence in that region have taken a severe blow. Communist leaders in Cuba are likely making emergency exit plans for their families.
Still, the real challenges in Venezuela are just beginning for Trump. The transition in Caracas to a democratically run, responsible member of the community of nations will be enormously difficult. The potential for failure is high.
One need only look to Iraq and Afghanistan for the tough lessons in US regime-change operations. Despite enormous US and allied military and financial effort, Afghanistan is governed by the Taliban today. Iraq is an imperfect democracy riddled with Iranian influence and corruption.
These failures loom large over US politics and policymaking. Indeed, Trump specifically campaigned against nation-building and democracy-promotion policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the first initiatives of his second term was to dismantle the US Agency for International Development and expunge the traditional tools of nation-building from the US foreign policy toolkit. His approach to Venezuela must be different.
One difference is immediately obvious. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no US occupation in Venezuela. Aside from Maduro and his wife, the rest of his regime remains in place. Trump said directly that credible opposition figures—notably opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and 2024 election winner Edmundo Gonzalez—would not be put in power, because they lacked support and respect in Venezuela.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the George W Bush administration purged the previous regimes, chased their allies out of power or out of the country and implemented new rule through old regime opponents with little practical political and governance experience. This required continued US military presence in both countries and trillions of dollars in assistance programs.
Delcy Rodriguez, the new leader of Venezuela and Maduro’s former vice president, is a long-time fixture of Chavista politics and is accused of leading the Maduro regime’s internal repression efforts. There is great scepticism around whether she can lead a dramatically new orientation for the country.
At his press conference after Maduro’s removal, Trump said that the US would run Venezuela, which many took to mean it would assume direct control. But the actual policy appears to be very indirect.
The US priority should be an election that gives Venezuela legitimate and popular governance, and an international community that can help manage the difficult economic transition.
Trump will keep the US military poised off Venezuelan shores, acting as a barrier against drug trafficking to the US and oil shipments to China and Russia. As Venezuela’s acting president, Rodriquez gets to choose how Caracas will respond. If she continues Maduro’s policies of embracing Cuba, China, Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah, she faces the prospect of humiliating removal and trial in the US. If she implements a new approach, then she lives in freedom for another day.
Many believe that Venezuela won’t change until Machado and rightfully elected president Gonzalez are in power, and that may be true. Trump’s stated immediate priorities for Venezuela are an end to drug trafficking and restoration of US-led oil production—both very pragmatic goals designed to appeal to his sceptical MAGA base.
But in the medium to long term, the US priority should be an election that gives Venezuela legitimate and popular governance, and an international community that can help manage the difficult economic transition. Machado, an experienced and wise political operator, understands this and is playing the long game.
Can Trump’s approach work? It has a lot going for it. It is relatively inexpensive, meaning there is no massive nation-building program for US taxpayers to fund. It moves at a quick tempo—Maduro found this out, and Rodriguez might, too. It appeals to the current US political mood that shuns massive overseas commitments. It gives Trump maximum flexibility and leverage. If the Venezuelans disappoint, he can credibly lay the blame on their doorstep.
There is one other overall question on Venezuela: did Trump have proper authorisation to intervene militarily? Many Democrats have criticised him for acting without congressional approval.
Trump says he needed no congressional authorisation because Maduro had been under indictment for drug trafficking in New York since 2020. This is identical to George HW Bush’s rationale for removing dictator Manuel Noriega from power in Panama in 1990. Noriega was also under indictment for drug trafficking and eventually served 17 years in US prisons after his conviction.
Barack Obama bombed Libyan military targets in 2011 without congressional authorisation. Ronald Reagan invaded the Caribbean nation of Grenada militarily in 1983 and changed its government with the rationale of rescuing US medical students. There are plenty of precedents for Trump’s action in Venezuela.