Foreign Affairs - The End of the Beginning in Venezuela The Real Challenges and Risks for U.S. Policy Are Still to Come - Juan S. Gonzalez - January 4, 2026

 Foreign  Affairs

The End of the Beginning in Venezuela

The Real Challenges and Risks for U.S. Policy Are Still to Come

Juan S. Gonzalez

January 4, 2026

Government supporters gathering in Caracas, January 2026

Gaby Oraa / Reuters

JUAN S. GONZALEZ served in the U.S. Department of State from 2004 to 2016 and as Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council from 2021 to 2024.

The United States’ use of military force to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro marks a turning point for Venezuela and for U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. But it would be a mistake to confuse drama with resolution. Images of Maduro in U.S. custody create the impression of finality. Yet this is not the beginning of the end of Washington’s long struggle with Venezuela. It marks the end of the beginning, and the start of a far more difficult and perilous phase.

The Trump administration is treating the removal of Maduro as a tactical success that speaks for itself, even as it deliberately assumes responsibility for what comes next. President Donald Trump has been explicit about that choice. By announcing that the United States will “run Venezuela” for a while, he is not merely projecting confidence. He is intentionally assuming responsibility for the political, economic, and security consequences that follow.

History offers a warning. In May 2003, President George W. Bush stood beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner and declared victory in Iraq. What followed was not stabilization, but fragmentation—an insurgency, a legitimacy crisis, and years of costly entanglement. Venezuela now sits at a similar inflection point. Removing Maduro could open the door to a durable transition. It could just as easily draw the United States into a dangerous quagmire.

If Washington manages the next phase with discipline—combining coercion with incentives, and force with political legitimacy—it could reset Venezuela’s trajectory, pull the country back into the community of democracies in the hemisphere, and reassert U.S. influence in a region that has spent the past decade hedging against American power. If this happens, the payoff would be substantial.

Venezuela’s collapse over the past two decades has been the single largest driver of irregular migration, transnational crime, corruption, and illicit financial flows in the hemisphere, negatively affecting U.S. interests. Stabilization would address those problems at their source rather than at the U.S. border. It would also shut down a permissive environment that allowed the Maduro regime to commit systematic crimes against its own population—crimes that hollowed out Venezuelan society while exporting instability abroad. And it would deprive U.S. adversaries (including China, Iran, and Russia) of a strategic foothold.

But achieving such an outcome will take a degree of skillful policy and fortunate circumstance that are far from assured in any administration. The plausible paths of failure include a partial transition that leaves criminal networks intact, a prolonged period of political limbo that sustains migration and instability, or a creeping security commitment that the United States never intended but finds difficult to unwind. What happens next will determine whether this moment becomes a hinge in hemispheric history or another entry in the long catalogue of American overreach.

THE GAMBLE

The operation that ended Maduro’s rule carries the unmistakable imprint of Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It reflects a worldview that prizes decisiveness, spectacle, and payoff—political and economic alike. For Trump, Venezuela is less a foreign policy problem to be managed than an asset to be exploited. The United States, he insists, will “run the country,” extract and sell Venezuelan oil, and convert geopolitical leverage into tangible return. This is mercantilism, unapologetically applied: statecraft blurred with profit, and opportunity created not just for U.S. firms but also for political allies and intermediaries close to power in particular.

Those instincts are already shaping expectations in the energy sector. Beyond Chevron, U.S. companies such as ConocoPhillips—long mired in litigation over expropriated assets—are widely expected to reenter Venezuela. But Trump’s room to maneuver is narrow. Most producing fields are already contractually awarded, including to Chinese firms that will insist that those agreements be honored. This constrains Washington’s options and increases the temptation to bypass Venezuela’s future government altogether. If the United States instead seeks to capture Venezuelan state oil revenues directly, it will leave little fiscal space for domestic reconstruction—effectively ensuring that Washington “runs” Venezuela regardless of who formally holds office.

Maduro’s removal does not mean the collapse of chavismo.

For Rubio, the stakes are different but no less significant. For years, he has argued that incremental pressure only entrenched the regime while expanding Chinese, Iranian, and Russian influence. This moment offers a chance to prove that hard power can deliver outcomes where diplomacy and sanctions failed and to reshape the terms of debate over U.S. leadership in the hemisphere.

If the bet pays off, the implications extend well beyond Caracas. It would validate what critics have labeled the “Don-roe Doctrine,” a Trump-era reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that favors unilateral enforcement over multilateral restraint. It signals that Washington is prepared to reassert primacy in its near abroad, even at the cost of institutional friction and diplomatic discomfort.

This would force a recalibration across Latin America and the Caribbean, reminding governments that U.S. disengagement is a choice, not a constraint—and that American power, when exercised, can be decisive enough to leave them few options for open opposition. It would also embolden Washington advocates who favor strategic and commercial results over diplomatic process and persuasion in hemispheric policy.

But that logic rests on assumptions forged in another era. The Monroe Doctrine worked when U.S. power was unrivaled in the hemisphere and external competitors were distant. That world no longer exists.

FRAGMENTATION WITHOUT RESOLUTION

Maduro’s removal does not mean the collapse of Chavismo—the hybrid ideological, political, and criminal system built around the Bolivarian project of Hugo Chávez (Maduro’s predecessor, who first came to power in 1999 and died in office in 2013) and sustained through patronage, repression, and illicit finance. The regime was never a single structure. It was a coalition, held together by access to rents and a shared fear of retribution. With Maduro gone, that coalition will splinter. But splintering is not the same as political transition.

The decisive variable is the armed forces. There is little evidence of a clean institutional break suggesting a rapid transfer of power. A more likely scenario is prolonged bargaining, selective defection, and hedging. Some commanders will seek accommodation with whatever authority emerges. Others will dig in, betting that uncertainty works in their favor. Civilian power brokers—governors, party officials, economic intermediaries—will follow the same calculus.

Venezuela’s constitution offers a narrow, contested path forward. It calls for new elections within 30 days following a presidential vacancy, while also recognizing the results of the July 2024 vote that Maduro refused to honor—a vote that produced a clear opposition victory for Edmundo González, a former diplomat chosen to run in place of opposition leader, María Corina Machado, a victory widely recognized abroad but never enforced at home. The tension between constitutional procedure and political reality captures the core challenge ahead: legality alone will not resolve the transition without enforcement and buy-in from those who still control coercive power.

A peaceful transition remains possible. It will require calibrated pressure, credible guarantees, and a willingness to prioritize reintegration over blanket punishment. Otherwise, spoilers will emerge—not only ideological hard-liners, but rational actors acting in self-preservation.

Complicating matters is the ecosystem Maduro left behind: traffickers, corrupt officials, armed groups, security actors. These entities are deeply embedded in the state and economy. Removing the figurehead does not dismantle the system.

THE NEXT FOREVER WAR?

Failure would be costly, for both the United States and Venezuela. A rapid U.S. disengagement risks leaving Venezuela in limbo—ungoverned, unstable, and continuing to hemorrhage people and capital. Staying too long carries a different danger: entanglement in a low-grade conflict that drains U.S. attention, legitimacy, and political will. This is the paradox of intervention: too little invites chaos, too much invites quagmire. The margin for error is thin, and the costs of miscalculation would be felt far beyond Venezuela’s borders.

A protracted crisis would create space for additional external intervention. Iran and Russia have leaned on security ties. China has played a longer game—focused on infrastructure, finance, and market access. A heavy-handed U.S. military presence could unintentionally strengthen Beijing’s position by reinforcing the perception that Washington offers coercion while China offers development.

This is where the “Donroe Doctrine” falls short. Military power is no longer the most effective tool for shaping outcomes in Latin America and the Caribbean. It may have been in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the United States imposed order through occupations and gunboat diplomacy. But today, the contest for influence in the hemisphere is no longer primarily military. It is economic and technological. China recognized this years ago, embedding itself in supply chains, ports, power grids, and digital infrastructure—often stepping in where Washington relied on sanctions or lectures. Without economic follow-through, military primacy will not drive China out of Venezuela or the region. It will encourage hedging.

If oil revenues are diverted externally, political sovereignty will be hollow.

Regional and global reactions to the U.S. strike make clear the importance of what happens next. Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico have condemned the U.S. move, even as many Venezuelans openly celebrate Maduro’s removal. European responses—from Brussels, London, and Paris—have been cautious rather than critical: broadly supportive of the outcome, but reserving judgment on the methods and the aftermath. Support for Maduro’s removal is real. Endorsement of how the United States manages what follows is conditional.

The balance sheet, rather than the battlefield, will prove to be the more decisive arena—and here, Trump’s instinct to reward political allies risks diverting capital and control away from the long-term investment required to rebuild Venezuela’s economy. The country has lost more than three-quarters of its GDP in a decade. Oil production has collapsed, even as the country continues to have some of the most extensive reserves in the world (the largest by some measures). Public services barely function. No post-conflict recovery effort in the hemisphere approaches this scale. In that context, control over oil revenues is not a technical issue—it is the central determinant of whether any future government can govern at all. If those revenues are diverted externally, political sovereignty will be hollow, regardless of elections.

Control over Venezuelan oil carries global implications. Even under optimistic assumptions, infrastructure decay, capital constraints, creditor claims, and political risk will slow production growth in the short term. Over time, however, Venezuelan supply could meaningfully alter global balances. In that scenario, Washington would become a de facto participant in shaping global oil markets—functionally inserting itself into the logic of OPEC+ without formal membership.

This is an opportunity for the United States to compete where it holds real advantages. Economic statecraft—not military dominance—will determine whether Venezuela’s reintegration strengthens U.S. influence or undermines it. Stabilization will require far more than sanctions relief. It demands private investment, debt restructuring, restored energy production, and integration into the technological shifts reshaping the global economy. Latin America and the Caribbean stand on the edge of structural change—in artificial intelligence, health care, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. Venezuela must participate in that future, or remain trapped in extraction and dependency.

THE PATHS AHEAD

Three broad scenarios appear likely in the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s forced exit.

The first path is a managed transition. Elections may proceed, but whether a single opposition figure emerges as a viable governing leader remains uncertain. Machado’s political momentum, although real, does not automatically translate into governing authority in a post-Maduro landscape shaped by institutional decay, security players with veto power, and unresolved power balances. Exile, fragmentation, and fatigue have weakened the opposition bench. Power could instead coalesce around an interim authority or technocratic arrangement acceptable to key domestic actors, including elements of the former regime and the armed forces. This scenario offers the best chance of stabilization, but only if paired with rapid economic relief and credible security guarantees.

The second path is criminalized continuity. Much of the regime’s coercive and criminal architecture remains intact. Armed groups and traffickers continue to operate. Political change becomes cosmetic, while instability persists. Power could be formally handed to a civilian placeholder—such as Vice President Delcy Rodríguez—who offers international interlocutors procedural continuity while preserving the underlying networks that sustained the regime. Early signals would include selective prosecutions, quiet assurances to security elites, and the preservation of control over key revenue streams rather than their reform.

The third path is escalation. Power struggles turn violent, armed actors proliferate, and the United States—having claimed ownership—faces pressure to intervene again. What begins as stabilization risks becoming another open-ended commitment.

Which path prevails will depend less on the operation that removed Maduro than on the U.S. strategy that follows. Venezuela is now a test—not just of American power, but of American judgment. The temptation to declare victory and move on will be strong. So will the impulse to control outcomes directly. Both must be resisted.

If Trump and Rubio succeed, they will reshape hemispheric politics and validate a hard-edged vision of U.S. leadership. If they fail, the costs will echo for years—fueling migration, empowering adversaries, and reinforcing skepticism about American intervention. Venezuela’s future will be decided not by Maduro’s removal, but by the discipline, restraint, and economic imagination applied in its aftermath.

Topics & Regions: United States Venezuela Geopolitics U.S. Foreign Policy Donald Trump Administration Nicolás Maduro Latin America

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