Caracas Chronicles

For years, domestic and foreign analysts treated as fact the notion that a U.S. intervention in Venezuela was impossible: a new conflict in the Western Hemisphere would be too politically costly for Washington. While Maduro had undeniably become a threat to Venezuelans, he was not perceived as one to the American public.

Over the past two months, however, that perspective has shifted. The largest U.S. naval deployment in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama now sits a few hundred miles off the Venezuelan coast, and the world’s largest aircraft carrier is expected to join it within days. Publicly presented as an anti-narcotics operation, the mission increasingly resembles a regime-change effort despite President Donald Trump’s repeated denials. Maduro is now portrayed as a drug lord “trying to poison the American people,” and he is the target of a $50 million bounty — a narrative seemingly designed to justify action against him.

Some interpret this as a new episode of the Trump administration’s ambition to reassert U.S. dominance in a region it sees as its backyard. They invoke Iraq and Libya as cautionary tales, warning of the horrors of military conflict: civilian deaths, economic collapse, the breakdown of state functions, resource plunder, famine, and mass migration. Yet these arguments overlook key differences—both cultural and historical—and ignore the fact that Venezuelans have already endured a version of the somber future these warnings describe.

Beyond the patronizing and colonialist undertones of assuming Venezuelans have no idea what’s best for their country, many of these voices share a damaging obsession in forcing our crisis into the polarized frame of U.S. domestic politics.

Selective outrage is not new. The Trump administration’s lethal targeting of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean without any congressional oversight is certainly worrying. But so were the drone strike campaigns under Barack Obama, which killed thousands while drawing minimal criticism from voices in the Democratic party now decrying extrajudicial killings at sea. Or Brazil’s deadliest recorded police raid, which left over 120 people dead less than two weeks ago, without attracting much criticism to Lula da Silva’s administration.

More importantly, her reliance on Trump reflects the international left’s abdication of responsibility towards Venezuela

When it comes to Venezuela, journalists and politicians appear driven more by a need to antagonize Trump—and by an inability to admit the failure of their own strategies to achieve a transition—than by genuine concern for human rights or international law.

One may not share María Corina Machado’s embrace of Trumpism and its talking points, but that does not change the facts. After winning the 2023 opposition primary with over 90 percent of the vote—and running what was likely the most effective electoral campaign led by a woman in Latin America—Machado remains the most legitimate leader of the Venezuelan opposition. Her campaign exposed Maduro’s fraudulent manipulation of the 2024 presidential election results, forced her into hiding, led to the imprisonment or exile of much of her team, and earned her the Nobel Peace Prize last month. This campaign stands as testimony both to her commitment to democratic values and to how far the Maduro regime will go to prevent a peaceful transition in Venezuela.

Machado’s alignment with the Trump administration is no more scandalous than Nelson Mandela’s strategic ties with the Soviet Union during apartheid. If her approach helps remove chavismo from power, few could question its effectiveness. More importantly, her reliance on Trump reflects the international left’s abdication of responsibility towards Venezuela, with many powerful actors looking the other way while the country collapsed and Maduro stole the election.

Major U.S. media outlets—including The New York Times, The Daily, 60 Minutes, and The Wall Street Journal—often omit crucial context of this narrative, and rarely outright spread misinformation to maintain politically palatable narratives. Some even take a harsher stance on Trump and Machado than on Maduro himself.

In a recent piece, The New York Times offered Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez an opportunity to criticize the renaming of the U.S. Department of War, and the illegality of American strikes in the Caribbean, while happily posing for a photoshoot. No questions were asked about arbitrary detentions of human-rights activists or the sexual abuses reported among some of the more than 800 political prisoners held by the state—abuses summarized in a UN fact-finding mission report published just days before the interview. It is unlikely that the NYT or any other outlet would be granted visas to visit Venezuela, let alone access the upper levels of the chavista hierarchy, were uncomfortable questions like these allowed.

All these voices seem to miss an obvious truth: if there is one person to blame for the U.S. fleet off Venezuela’s shores, it is Nicolás Maduro.

He is directly responsible for the hemisphere’s worst economic and social collapse and for the mass exodus of Venezuelans across Latin America. His security forces have killed more than 220 protesters between 2014 and 2024 and have engaged in systematic extrajudicial killings, disappearances, sexual violence, torture, and other abuses affecting thousands of people. He has turned large sections of Venezuela’s borders into sanctuaries for guerrillas while threatening war with Guyana over the Essequibo region. Maduro is not just a dictator, he is a destabilizing force for the entire continent. By closing every path to an orderly, peaceful transition, he alone has dragged Venezuela and the region to this critical juncture.

International outlets have been instrumental in exposing these crimes before, and they must continue to strive for nuance and balance. They are right to question the legal basis for U.S. strikes in the Caribbean. Yet, the reality is that Venezuelans have lived under an occupying force long before the U.S. Southern Command arrived. The possibility that Washington may now consider decisive action against Maduro is, for many, a welcome development — even if the situation remains volatile and the outcome uncertain.

This view is shared by much of the region. A recent Bloomberg poll across Latin America, the United States, and Canada found that roughly 53 percent of Latin Americans support a U.S. intervention in Venezuela—including about 34 percent of respondents inside Venezuela, where expressing such views can lead to imprisonment or loss of citizenship.

It is undeniably troubling that Venezuela’s fate may now hinge on a foreign power with a grim history in the region—and on a volatile and erratic leader like Donald Trump. Yet there is a logic behind the idea that U.S. military pressure might open the narrowest path to a transition.

Ordinary Venezuelans are simply trying to survive, not preparing for war. The country’s military, while large, is ill-equipped and lacks the readiness to repel or sustain combat with the United States. More crucially, it is not an ideologically fanatical force: its members act rationally, calculating that the personal benefits of supporting Maduro still outweigh the risks of defying him. A credible military threat could invert that calculus for the first time in 25 years.

The argument that Venezuela would become an ungovernable, Haiti-like failed state after Maduro falls is equally lazy. Armed para-state groups do operate inside the country, but mostly in rural border regions and the south — far from cities or seats of government power. It is unlikely they could challenge a post-Maduro administration backed by functioning state institutions and strong international partners.

These realities are often lost in a narrative where criticizing Trump comes first and understanding Venezuela comes second. No one knows whether the controversial U.S. tactics in the Caribbean will succeed. But one could argue that the only way they might be is if Washington is willing to go all in, to cross the Rubicon and actively support a democratic transition in Venezuela, even if it is Donald Trump who leads the way.

Failing to do so would not only embolden Maduro but also inflict lasting damage on American credibility, deepen Venezuelans’ suffering, and prolong instability across the region.