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The current US military buildup in the Caribbean has raised expectations that Maduro’s regime will collapse under pressure, reviving hopes for a democratic transition in Venezuela. However, it is uncertain whether the US will pursue a strategy of regime change, and whether such a strategy would lead to a democratic transition. A change of guard within the regime remains the more likely scenario.
US policy towards Venezuela over the past year has oscillated between dealmaking and confrontation depending on which faction (Marco Rubio’s hawks vs. Richard Grenell’s dealmakers) is influencing the White House.
Maduro could survive this pressure campaign through internal crackdowns and surveillance via his security apparatus, as long as the rest of the political and intelligence elite remain loyal. US strikes inside Venezuela could weaken his grip on the apparatus, but it will depend on where those strikes take place.
Current US policy focuses on “ousting Maduro” without much foresight or political will regarding promoting a specific new government in Venezuela. This strategy does not benefit Maduro, but it does favour an “intra-elite” transition. A democratic breakthrough is not a given in the short term, but a window of opportunity would be opened for democratic forces.
A democratic breakthrough would require not only mass mobilisation inside the country in support of the opposition, most likely led by María Corina Machado, but also international support to ensure recognition and stability for the nascent government. These two conditions being met seems unlikely.
Venezuela’s democratic forces will need to secure both internal and external support to prevent regime entrenchment. In an uncertain scenario of leadership transition, political instability is certain to bring economic hardship. The EU should engage in a dual strategy of support for democratisation and proactive preparation for a possible migration crisis on the Colombian and Brazilian borders.
Maduro’s regime has been cautious in its approach to the US administration since Trump took office in January 2025. Expectations in both the US and Latin America that Trump would pursue a policy of “maximum pressure” against Venezuela did not materialise during the first eight months of the year. Instead, Washington and Caracas have alternated between cooperation on issues such as deportations and oil extraction, and confrontations over ideology, US actions in Latin America (e.g. sanctions on Colombia, ambitions vis-à-vis the Panama Canal, tariffs against Brazil), and, notably, drug trafficking.
The sudden buildup of US military forces along Venezuela’s Caribbean coast marked a significant departure from these ambiguous interactions. On 8 August, Trump made the first move towards direct confrontation by doubling the bounty for Maduro’s arrest to USD 50 million and directly linking Maduro to drug-trafficking cartels smuggling cocaine from the Caribbean to the United States. This was followed by a suspicious buildup of US military personnel and vessels in the Caribbean throughout August, with no official explanation.
On 2 September, Trump confirmed on social media that the US Navy had struck the first of what would be several boats off the coast of Venezuela allegedly transporting narcotics to the United States.
Since then, the US administration has significantly increased its military buildup in the region, cut diplomatic channels with Maduro’s administration, authorised the CIA to initiate covert operations inside Venezuela, and strongly hinted at engaging in targeted strikes within Venezuelan territory. The goals of the US administration have shifted rapidly in recent months, as Trump apparently is now paying more attention to advisors who see no possibility of any dealmaking with Maduro and view Caracas as a strategic and ideological enemy of the United States – a view prominently identified with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. Meanwhile, in Caracas, Maduro has shifted from his typical brinkmanship and escalation diplomacy to a strong “dealmaking” approach aimed at ensuring regime survival.
The ascendence of Donald J. Trump to the White House marked a departure from US foreign policy towards Latin America as it had evolved since the end of the Cold War. From the outset, Trump signalled that Latin America represents the historical and natural “sphere of influence” of the United States. This openly echoes the so-called “Monroe Doctrine” of two centuries ago: boiling down to the phrase “America for the Americans,” in 1823 President James Monroe proclaimed that European forces should keep out of the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s words also call to mind the “Roosevelt Corollary,” President Theodore Roosevelt’s addition to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904 that proclaimed the United States’ right to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries if they committed wrongdoings that “loosened the ties of civilized society.”
Some have dubbed Trump’s policy the “Donroe Doctrine,” as he has revived these historical claims of US hegemony. In his approach, due to the asymmetric power relationship between Latin American countries and the United States, it is the right of the United States to demand special treatment. This was demonstrated by the constant US threats to impose tariffs on Mexico if the Mexican government did not curb narcotrafficking into the US and reduce its ties with China; the US reclaiming the Panama Canal; the pressure exerted on Brazil to release former president Jair Bolsonaro and the imposition of 50 per cent tariffs on Brazil after its refusal; and the conditional economic support granted to Argentina as long as current president Javier Milei, a staunch ideological ally of Trump, performs well electorally.
Historically, the United States has alternated between a “big stick” and a “good neighbour” foreign policy towards Latin America. Periods of geopolitical tension – for example, during the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, or Cold War presidents such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan – tend to reinforce US interventionist diplomacy, from Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” to Woodrow Wilson’s “missionary diplomacy.” By contrast, periods of geopolitical relaxation tend to shift the US towards a “good neighbour” approach, as occurred under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt before the start of WWII. These periods emphasised the “soft power” aspect of US influence, focusing on promoting democracy, free market practices, and American-style development policy.
The end of the Cold War in the 1990s and the emergence of the United States as the hegemonic superpower led to the collapse of communist parties in the region and the weakening of the two main communist strongholds in Latin America at the time: Nicaragua and Cuba. Furthermore, within the region, the end of the military dictatorships in the late 1980s brought not only a “spring of democracies” but also a rise in free-market populist governments in Latin America under the “Washington Consensus” economic policies. Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Argentina’s Carlos Menem, and Venezuela’s Carlos Andrés Pérez exemplify the strong soft power influence the United States exerted on Latin American political and economic elites at the time. This allowed the United States to refocus its efforts on other regions (e.g. the Middle East and later East Asia), establishing relations with Latin America based on soft power influence rather than direct coercion.
The Trump administration marked a return to the “big stick” policy, openly relying on coercion. Most of the United States’ soft power tools – development aid, liberal-democratic values, and international order relations – were abandoned. Trump encountered a Latin America that had experienced two waves of erosion of American influence: (1) the “pink wave” of left-wing governments in the early 2000s, led by former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and (2) the rapid expansion of Chinese economic influence in the region.
Hugo Chávez’s rise to the Venezuelan presidency, combined with the windfall of oil revenues from the commodities boom in the early 2000s, gave Caracas both the political will and economic power to challenge US influence. Venezuela created parallel multilateral institutions (such as ALBA, PETROCARIBE, and CAF) and promoted an alternative regional ideology (“socialism of the 21st century”). This diplomatic push, along with regional disillusionment with the poor economic and social results of the Washington Consensus, led many Latin American governments to turn to the left (Lula da Silva in Brazil, the Kirchners in Argentina, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Pepe Mujica in Uruguay). Some of these governments became entrenched as authoritarian left-wing regimes (Venezuela, Nicaragua).
The second, related development was China’s emergence as a key trading and investment partner in the region. Between 2004 and 2023, the United States lost its position as the main trading and investment partner of several Latin American countries, with China taking its place in almost all of South America (except for Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana).
In many cases, China has become a major loan provider, surpassing the United States, and the China Development Bank has significantly increased its operations in Latin America. By 2023 the amount of debt of Latin American countries to China was more than USD 130 billion, with Venezuela (USD 60 billion), Brazil (USD 31 billion), and Ecuador (USD 18 billion) heading the list.
Washington had already recognised these two trends in the early 2000s but kept its attention focused on the Middle East and, later, East Asia. The United States prioritised maintaining its role as guarantor of the international order, and although Latin America was “rebellious,” it was not fully opposed to the US-led order. However, under the Trump administration, the United States adopted a realist mentality of natural spheres of influence, shifting its focus back to the “backyard.”
This turn in US policy stands in sharp contrast to Maduro’s initial diplomatic approach, established shortly after he took power. Maduro’s doctrine was consolidated following the 2019 isolation process, when his government was challenged by the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó. In his day, Hugo Chávez had relied on oil revenues, internal popular support, and charisma to act as a regional and international leader. By contrast, Nicolás Maduro found himself facing a region characterised by a gradual shift to the right, the end of Venezuela’s oil windfall revenues, and persistent and growing internal opposition. The transformation of Venezuela into a starkly authoritarian state with a collapsing economy and the resulting mass emigration forced Maduro to abandon Chávez’s “people’s diplomacy” in favour of strengthening ties with authoritarian allies in Latin America (Nicaragua, Cuba) and beyond (Turkey, North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran).
Maduro’s diplomacy can be summarised in three strategies described by Mijares (2025): (1) decoupling, (2) hedging, and (3) brinkmanship. Decoupling refers to reducing dependency on a specific actor. The increasing pressure from the United States on Venezuela through targeted and then financial sanctions led Venezuela to gradually cut off the United States as a trade and investment partner. Similarly, Caracas also reduced its ties with the European Union.
At the same time, Maduro does not rely on any single autocracy for economic or diplomatic support. While Russia and China were Venezuela’s key allies during Hugo Chávez’s tenure, Maduro expanded ties with Turkey, Iran, and even North Korea. Furthermore, despite this preference for autocratic regimes, Maduro never fully severed dialogue and negotiation channels with Western countries, making deals with them when beneficial without fully committing. This was evident in the multiple negotiation tables Maduro’s regime held with the opposition under the auspices of the European Union or the United States (Oslo, Dominican Republic, Barbados) to reduce sanctions pressure and even allow Western oil companies to operate in Venezuela (Chevron, BP). This is the second cornerstone of Maduro’s diplomacy: hedging.
The final aspect of Caracas’s diplomacy is brinkmanship – a term originally coined by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1950s which refers to irrationally escalating conflicts to achieve an advantageous outcome. In most diplomatic clashes between Venezuela and other countries, Venezuela is known for over-escalating situations, causing the counterpart to retreat to avoid political and economic costs that outweigh the reasons for the conflict. A good example is Venezuela’s continued threats to neighbouring Guyana to try to force it to stop drilling oil fields in the Esequibo region, on which Caracas holds historic claims. For years, Guyana delayed or cancelled operations to avoid further escalation with Caracas.
Maduro, unlike Chávez, does not align his foreign policy with ideological objectives, but with strategic survival. This aligns closely with Donald Trump’s diplomacy. Trump is also not ideologically driven (he does not care that Maduro’s regime is communist) and has shown little interest in democratic institutions or world-order diplomacy, instead favouring “dealmaking” diplomacy that ensures US supremacy and deferential treatment. Maduro is fully willing to offer such deals to Trump on migration, oil, and minerals, as long as his regime is not directly challenged.
This is the main reason why the first eight months of the Trump administration’s policy towards Caracas were so ambiguous. Washington was divided between advisors who viewed Venezuela as an ideological enemy (led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio) and those who saw Maduro’s regime as transactional in nature and open to negotiation in key areas important to the Trump administration, such as migration, resource extraction, and deportations (led by Special Envoy Richard Grenell).
Initially, despite diplomatic clashes between the two administrations, relations appeared relatively stable: oil licences to Chevron were briefly suspended but reinstated a month later, Venezuela released Americans imprisoned in the country and began accepting deportations of Venezuelan citizens from the United States. Furthermore, the Trump administration’s support for Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was minimal and lukewarm, signalling to Caracas that the United States was not attempting to recreate the crisis of 2019 when opposition leader Juan Guaidó was treated as Venezuela’s legitimate president-in-exile.
Washington’s sudden shift towards confrontation did not begin until August 2025, with the military buildup in the Caribbean and the announcement that it would increase the reward for Maduro’s capture, measures that were initially met by Caracas with brinkmanship diplomacy. In mid-August, Maduro ordered the mobilisation of Venezuelan militias across the country and launched a conscription campaign to expand their ranks. Independent reports indicated little to no conscription, but Caracas claimed the ranks increased to eight million through this effort.
In September, as strikes in the Caribbean began, Maduro started to shift strategy. On 4 September, the Venezuelan Air Force deployed F-16 fighter planes to fly over American ships in the Caribbean as a show of strength; there has since been no further escalation from Caracas. Meanwhile, the United States deployed F-35s to Puerto Rico on 13 September, and a second boat was bombed on 15 September; strikes continued through September, October, and November, reaching 12 strikes and more than 80 declared deaths by mid-November.
In September, the Miami Herald reported that Caracas’s political elite proposed to Washington – via Qatar – a new government without Maduro, led by the Rodríguez brothers with a military figurehead in the top job. In October, Maduro also allegedly offered the United States preferential oil and mineral deals to defuse tensions, which Washington rejected.
These “de-escalation” measures from Caracas were met with increasing pressure from Washington. On 6 October, Trump instructed Grenell to cut contacts with Caracas, and on 15 October, the CIA was authorised to begin covert operations in Venezuela while B-1 bombers scanned Venezuelan territory.
The escalation reached its peak on 24 October, with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting the deployment of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean. The carrier arrived in the Caribbean on 16 November. That same day, Secretary of State Rubio announced that the State Department would designate the “Cartel de los Soles” as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), providing stronger legal justification for land strikes in Venezuela. Five days earlier, Venezuelan Defence Minister Padrino López raised the military alert level nationwide.
The United States has been relatively unclear about the goal of its military buildup in the Caribbean. The US government has described it as an anti-narcotics operation, while the Venezuelan government and some analysts have called it an attempted invasion. Trump and his team have not explicitly stated that their goal is to topple Maduro, but putting a bounty out for his arrest is clearly expressing support for his removal.
In terms of assets, the operation is clearly too large to be termed merely an “anti-narcotics” mission, but too small to be called a full-scale invasion. Currently, the United States has, including assets stationed and ready in neighbouring countries, around 15,000 troops, plus a number of destroyers, nuclear submarines, and its largest aircraft carrier, as well as F-35 planes stationed in Puerto Rico. In the words of Dr. Albert Marckwardt, co-lead for the Americas at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-founder of the Latin American Studies Initiative (LASI), the United States has only four to five carriers active at any given time: this is a huge commitment of resources, so the goal cannot be simply countering drug-trafficking operations (Smolanski and Marckwardt 2025). Nevertheless, a full invasion of Venezuela similar to that of Panama in 1989 would require around 50,000 troops – according to experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – and would likely be unable to stabilise the country following the regime collapse. Despite its crisis, Venezuela is in possession of advanced Russian aircraft and anti-aircraft systems, as well as Iranian naval and drone assets, not to mention a vast territory.
It is also important to note that Trump does not want a protracted war in the Caribbean, as his isolationist foreign policy remains unchanged. The goal, rather, is to trigger an implosion within the Venezuelan political elite that leads to Maduro’s removal without requiring direct US involvement.
Maduro, in turn, is trying to ensure his survival by appealing to Trump’s “dealmaking” instincts, offering deals on minerals, oil, deportations, and migration in exchange for regime survival. Maduro understands that the fear of direct conflict with US forces could fracture his political and intelligence elite, potentially leading to regime collapse.
The United States does not appear to have a strategy for regime change. This would require a nation-building strategy after Maduro’s departure, which the Trump administration lacks both the tools (having defunded USAID) and the political will to pursue. By contrast, a leadership change within the regime involves only pressuring and nudging the political elite in Caracas enough for Maduro to be sacrificed and ousted to appease Washington.
Washington’s unwillingness to engage in nation-building implies that even if Maduro is ousted, this would not immediately lead to a democratic transition. Washington wants Maduro out but also fears the instability that could result from promoting the rise of an opposition-led government under María Corina Machado. The opposition has not governed the country in the past 26 years and is largely unaware of the shadow machinery Maduro’s regime uses to maintain various para-security systems (Corrales 2020) and financial channels (Fergusson 2024; Bull and Rosales 2020). The military, political, and intelligence elite in Caracas also fear that a government led by María Corina Machado could become vindictive against them.
Therefore, the most likely scenario following Maduro’s ousting would be an intra-clique transition, in which Maduro is replaced by a “more palatable” leader for Washington, such as the Rodríguez brothers, who serve as the diplomatic arm of Maduro’s government and have not (yet) been accused by the United States of narcotrafficking. This would satisfy Trump’s immediate demand to “get Maduro out” while more or less maintaining the status quo in Venezuela to avoid chaos.
A step towards democratic transition would require both internal and external pressure. According to Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2018), when an individual has amassed significant power in a dictatorship, the death of that leader coincides with regime collapse in half of the cases. As with elections, leadership transitions represent particularly vulnerable moments for dictatorships. Unlike Chávez’s personalist dictatorship, Maduro’s regime is better viewed as a mix of personalist and party-based autocracy. Still, Maduro’s ousting would clearly open a window of opportunity for democratic forces to push for a democratic breakthrough.
According to David Smolanski, Machado’s international spokesperson, the Venezuelan opposition has a plan for the first 100 hours and 100 days after regime collapse to ensure governability and a successful transition to democracy (Smolanski and Marckwardt 2025). This would first require strong mobilisation of the population during the leadership transition in Caracas in support of Machado to prevent the political, military, and intelligence elite from perpetuating the current regime; it would also likely necessitate active international backing to ensure governability once the transition begins. Having both conditions met, given the current circumstances, is unlikely.
