Venezuela: What if President Trump simply wanted Maduro?

In a “special military operation” carried out by US special forces (Delta Force), the President of the United States captured —and took as a trophy— the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, together with his wife, transporting him triumphantly to the United States.

The officially cited “justification” —the “arrest” of Maduro under the banner of the war on drugs— convinces no one. The fact that the official justification convinces no one is obvious, well known and, in reality, of little concern to President Trump. After all, the rationale for such operations is something familiar and, to a certain extent, necessary in planning—though not the essential part of the operation itself. Over time, many such justifications have been invoked: the spread of democracy, the removal of a dictator, human rights, international law, weapons of mass destruction, the fight against terrorism, a pre-emptive strike, the protection of minorities, and so on. There are always plenty of willing voices: academics (who debase the very notion of science, though that hardly concerns them), analysts, politicians and journalists ready to explain the “immense” significance of the official —and, for them, the sole— justification for a military intervention, regime change and the like, all while duly glorifying the powerful “architect” behind it. Almost universally—and with a sense of “revelation”—the real cause of the intervention was put forward as Venezuela’s oil and, more broadly, the country’s vast mineral wealth. But this “revelatory” justification is also flawed, because: A few days earlier, the White House published the new US National Security Strategy, bearing a strong “Trump imprint.” The 33-page document, beyond the personal references to President Trump, has been widely—explicitly or implicitly—acknowledged as an excellent text, identifying and outlining US foreign policy (general directions and principles, as well as policy specification and regional prioritisation), finally taking into account—at least for realists in international relations—the real shifts in global power. It places US foreign policy within the framework of realist international relations theory, through a “return” to the balance of power and the nation-state, replacing the “liberal, rules-based international order.” This assessment stands regardless of objections related to President Trump’s domestic policies, which are not examined here. The main points of the new US National Security Strategy are: a) the prioritisation, as a foremost US security objective, of control over the Western Hemisphere (an update of the Monroe Doctrine, namely the doctrine of US regional hegemony in the American continent). b) the relative isolationism of the United States, with a partial/selective return to the traditional American policy of isolationism (facilitated by the geographical advantage of the two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific). c) the use of the balance of power among regional actors within regional complexes, through the activation of rivalries between them by the United States, with the dual aim of containing competitors deemed dangerous to US security while ensuring that the United States itself does not “pay the price” (which is instead borne by its allies in the respective regions). d) the recognition of the nation-state as a constitutive element of the international order (and of the corresponding state/national sovereignty). e) respect for regimes of states with principles different from those of the American model. At the same time, there is a clear—at least so far—departure of US foreign policy from the strategy of “regime change.” “Regime change” constituted a hallmark tool of the previous globalist, interventionist policy, based on the “liberal, rules-based global order,” which the Trump policy overturns both explicitly and in practice. Beyond the fact that regime change no longer constitutes a strategic tool of the United States, according to the country’s new National Security Strategy, President Trump (paradoxically for those who remain attached to more “traditional” US policies): A) he appears to have no issue with a constitutional change of leadership in Venezuela that transfers presidential powers to the country’s vice president at the time, Delcy Rodríguez, whose commitment to the Bolivarian tradition of independence of Latin America and Venezuela few have dared to question (after all, her father was murdered under horrific torture by the henchmen of “regime change” in the country). B) he did not even meet with the figure “recognised” by the Norwegian Academy/Committee — conspicuously unaware of the new direction of US policy — as the “supreme pacifist (!) of 2025,” Nobel laureate Ms. Machado. The same Nobel laureate is aggressively promoting her “pacifist” agenda of a “revolution through… military intervention” in her own country, seeking to persuade President Trump and US energy giants of the windfall profits they could reap there (as if President Trump and American energy conglomerates were in need of her “pacifist” advice). C) ExxonMobil has stated emphatically that Venezuela is not a country in which it can or wishes to invest, as such a large-scale modernisation investment (after decades of absence of comparable investments) is politically unviable. Historically, there have already been two nationalisations of the domestic oil industry, making a third one… highly likely. D) the outdated extraction technology, the quality of Venezuelan oil (despite the country holding the world’s largest reserves) and the security problems that would arise do not make attractive even the in concreto predatory extraction of oil from wells held “as occupied oil fields” — MAD MAX–style fortresses that would be exposed to attacks from the… hinterland. The United States needs a new El Dorado. The dominance and overexploitation of the “wild” (internally) West, the American vision of enrichment even through El Dorado, the replacement—after the two World Wars—of the over-saturated “Wild West” with the planet as a whole (hence the shift away from traditional isolationism), and the China of the moderniser Deng Xiaoping, which has exhausted its exploitable potential or is no longer politically viable, all create the need for a new object of developmental desire (Greenland? Antarctica? Canada? All of them?). But this new El Dorado does not appear to be Venezuela and its oil. Then why the intervention in Venezuela and the capture of Maduro? What if President Trump simply wanted Maduro? President Trump managed, despite unprecedented resistance directed against him (a matter not examined here), to be elected to a second term as President of the United States. Despite the fact that—given the conditions and resistance he faced—his election to a second term constitutes in itself a major personal achievement, he continues to repeat at every opportunity, and sometimes even irrelevantly—clearly demonstrating the depth of his conviction—that his victory in the previous US presidential election was “stolen.” That election resulted in the inauguration of former President Biden, whereas—according to Trump’s claims—he should have been declared President of the United States at that time as well. The alleged “theft” of Trump’s electoral victory is, self-evidently, an issue of the highest importance (even irrespective of the truth or otherwise of the claim), given that it concerns elections in the United States, the world’s strongest democracy and, at the same time, the most powerful state globally. At the core of this claim of an electoral “theft” lies the allegation of fraud involving voting machines and technological interference, with a central role attributed to Dominion systems. According to claims advanced by President Donald Trump’s camp and his allies, these systems, through “massive fraud and irregularities,” allegedly “switched votes cast for Trump into votes for Biden,” via algorithms and/or supercomputers. According to this theory, the companies that promoted these technologies in key swing states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and… Arizona) also have international involvement, with the first and most prominent case being Venezuela under Hugo Chávez (and later Nicolás Maduro), as well as the involvement of individuals of Venezuelan origin or with ties to Venezuela. Of course, an “operation” of this nature and scale could not have originated solely from Venezuela, but would logically (if the accusations hold) have had to involve powerful centres within the United States (such as claims concerning the Clinton Foundation or George Soros) or outside the United States (primarily Cuba and China). Russia’s involvement in this specific operation to influence the outcome of the US elections can be ruled out, as the election of Biden clearly and logically did not serve Russia’s interests. On the contrary, Biden’s election “secured” a predictable and powerful adversary of Russia at the helm of the world’s most powerful country, the United States—an outcome that harmed Russian interests, as later demonstrated by the Russo-Ukrainian war. This also explains the informal, tacit “green light” from Russia regarding Maduro’s abduction, since Russia itself would want—just like President Trump—to know who was “behind” the efforts to influence the US elections beyond Venezuela. And, of course, it explains why President Trump brought Maduro to the United States in such a spectacular manner, for what would come next… The political expediency for President Trump and for his legacy is evident. Dionysis Pantis, Public and International Law Lawyer – Geopolitical Analyst