Elina Xenophontos explains: Why has Trump abandoned regime change in Venezuela?

Venezuela

• Kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro: On January 3, 2026, U.S. special forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas during “Operation Absolute Resolve”. The operation involved over 150 aircraft and strikes on military strongholds, airports, and ports.

• Arraignment in New York: Maduro and Flores were flown to New York and arraigned in a Manhattan federal court on January 5, 2026. Both pleaded not guilty to charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.

• New Interim Leadership: Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president on January 5, 2026. While she initially condemned the U.S. “aggression,” she has since signaled a willingness to collaborate with Washington on a development agenda.

U.S. Stance and “Control”

• “In Charge”: President Trump has stated that the U.S. is currently “in charge” of Venezuela and intends to “run the country” until a transition of power is complete (his secretary of state has modified this goal to one of want to ‘quarantine’ Venezuela from exporting oil on sanctioned tankers).

• Economic Strategy: The U.S. administration is pushing for an “oil quarantine” and seeking to allow American companies into Venezuela’s oil industry to revitalize the sector (which they are showing a reluctance to do, given the staggering scale of necessary investment).

• Diplomatic Pressure: The U.S. State Department has issued stern warnings to Delcy Rodríguez, with President Trump stating she will “pay a very big price” if she does not cooperate with U.S. terms.

Ground Situation and International Reaction

• Atmosphere in Caracas: Reports describe an “eerily quiet and tense” atmosphere in the capital. While some celebrations occurred, many citizens remain in “pseudo normalcy,” facing internet restrictions and uncertainty over the new government.

• Global Condemnation: Russia, China, and several Latin American nations have condemned the U.S. raid as a “crime of aggression” and a violation of international law.

• Casualties: Cuba reported that 32 of its officials/operatives were killed during the U.S. strike in Venezuela. Estimates of total numbers of dead currently range from around 40 to around 80.

Humanitarian and Economic Context

• Deepening Crisis: Prior to the ouster, the country remained in a severe humanitarian crisis, with millions food insecure and over 7 million people having fled the country. This is largely due to US resistance to and debilitating sanctions against the Bolivarian socialist revolution of Hugo Chavez.

• Oil Market Reaction: Global oil stocks rose sharply (but briefly) following the seizure, as investors anticipate new opportunities to tap Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Venezuelan Government and State Reactions

The Venezuelan administration, now led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as ordered by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, has officially categorized the U.S. operation as a “kidnapping” and an “extremely serious military aggression”.

• “State of External Commotion”: The government published a decree granting broad powers to the presidency to search for and capture anyone involved in “promoting or supporting” the U.S. attack.

• Rejection of U.S. Control: Despite President Trump’s claim that the U.S. is “in charge,” high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, maintain that “there is only one president, Nicolás Maduro Moros” and that the government remains unified in its revolutionary force.

• Oil and Resources: State media and officials have accused the U.S. of using the “war on drugs” as a pretext for “regime change” to seize Venezuela’s mineral and oil reserves.

• Maduro’s Court Statement: During his arraignment in New York on January 5, Maduro declared himself a “decent man” and a “prisoner of war,” insisting he is still the legitimate president of his country.

International and Anti-US Responses

Multilateral organizations and major global powers have condemned the operation as a violation of international law.

• ALBA-TCP: The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America denounced the “illegal military aggression,” calling it a “wound to the dignity and sovereignty” of Latin America and a revival of the Monroe Doctrine.

• China: The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed it was “deeply shocked,” calling the raid a “blatant use of force” and “hegemonic behavior” that threatens regional peace. Beijing has demanded the immediate release of Maduro and his wife.

• Russia: Moscow condemned the “act of armed aggression” and called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Former President Dmitry Medvedev stated the move had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with oil.

• Regional Neighbors: Brazilian President Lula da Silva stated the bombings and capture crossed an “unacceptable line,” while Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned he would “take up arms” to defend Colombia if similar U.S. interventions were threatened against his country.

Humanitarian and Legal Critiques

• Casualties: Reports from Venezuelan and Cuban officials indicate more than 80 people were killed in the strikes, including 32 Cuban military and intelligence members.

• Legality: International law experts and groups like the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) have noted that while Maduro’s government committed abuses, the unilateral U.S. operation lacked congressional authorization and violated the UN Charter.

Venezuela: Issues and Questions

I shall start by highlighting some information of which I was not aware a day ago, namely that 32 Cuban bodyguards responsible for protecting Maduro were killed in the US decapitation strike. There may of course be other Cuban bodyguards who were involved and were not killed.

Their deaths represents a tragedy and a humilitation for Cuba which is generally threatened by the US action in Venezuela because of Cuban dependence on subsidized Venezuelan oil supplies. These deaths may contribute to a unification of the Cuban people in defense of their socialist revolution and a hardening of Cuban resolve to work around all the ways in which the US will try to strangle it in the days, weeks and months ahead. One of these workarounds may involve a return to closer relations between Cuba and Russia.

Consideration of Cuba, as I have indicated several times in recent posts, invites us immediately to consider the largely negative implications for, as well as the potential for resistance from, Colombia (bearing in mind the continuing influence of FARC, ELN and other guerrilla groups, whether active or capable of being mobilized), Mexico (which now has greater reason to fear the potential for US military interference on the pretext of counter-narco operations which in turn will likely destabilize significant areas of Mexico) and, perhaps, countries like Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia which, even if recently captured by pro-US right-wing South American aristocratic or oligarch classes, may seek to export both revolutionary and criminal movements to Venezuela.

Here is an AI note on such movements in Colombia:

Colombian militias refer to various non-state armed groups, primarily left-wing guerrillas like the ELN and FARC dissidents, and right-wing paramilitaries (like the defunct AUC), born out of resistance to reactionary, pro-US and corrupt government, but sometimes involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and conflict with the Colombian state and each other. While the historic FARC demobilized in 2016, splinter groups, known as Ex-FARC Mafia, continue to operate, alongside the ELN and criminal groups like the Clan del Golfo (some doubt as to whether this really exists or is a CIA concoction) creating a complex landscape of ongoing armed conflict and criminal activity, particularly in drug-producing regions.

“Key Colombian Armed Groups

• National Liberation Army (ELN): A Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, Colombia’s oldest insurgency, involved in armed revolution, kidnapping, and increasingly, drug trafficking.

• FARC Dissidents (FARC-EP, EMC, Segunda Marquetalia, etc.): Splinter groups from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that rejected the 2016 peace deal, focusing on drug trade and territorial control.

• Clan del Golfo (Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia - AGC): The country’s largest criminal group, emerging from right-wing paramilitaries and heavily involved in transnational drug trafficking.

• Right-Wing Paramilitaries (AUC, etc.): Groups formed to combat left-wing guerrillas, often linked to landowners, drug traffickers, and security forces, now largely replaced by criminal groups like the Clan del Golfo”

Governance of Venezuela

So far, the governance of Venezuela remains intact. The acting president, Dilcy Rodriguez has made defiant statements but at this point nobody can be sure as to whether these are genuine indications of likely regime resistance to the US or are part of a theatrical playbook whose purpose is to obscure the fact of an implicit or explicit deal between the national administration and the US.

Rodriguez has a strong, heroic record, but in South America, perhaps more than in most other parts of the world, we have witnessed many sharp twists and turns by leading politicians, for all sorts of reasons that include personal or regime survival and pragmatic adaptation, perhaps in the hope of future opportunities to redress wrongs done.

The politics of South America exhibit notable ideosyncracies. These relate to pre-conquest indigenous dynmics of internal imperialism; the nature of Spanish, Portuguese and British imperialisms and their impacts on European settler populations, indigenous elites and the masses; the persistence everywhere of both sharp racial and social class warfare, very often mediated through conflicts between military institutions and social class dynamics; the special characteristics of relations with the USA, the original US Monroe doctrine, and the Teddy Rosevelt “Monroe corollary;” and an extensive experience with guerrilla warfare).

US Rogue State

US interference in the domestic affairs of almost all if not all South and Central American nations is the norm. The forms of interference vary over time in response to prevailing geopolitical trends and pressures. Trump has chosen to throw away or, at best, deploy with evident lack of conviction, the usual deceptive languages of virtue and pretext (e.g. of the following kind: “they” committed humanitarian abuses; “they” owe us money; “they” do not govern responsibly or do not do as we say they should; “they” give harbor to our enemies; ‘they” pose a threat to the US; “they” are wedded to narco-trafficking and other criminal activites. These discourses, of course, generally provide cover for interference in other countries’ affairs that are the result of US State and corporate greed.

Two or three factors to which I do not think the current Trump administration is giving sufficient weight: (1) the depth of experience in the region as a whole and especially in what one might describe both as the Amazonica and the Bolivarian regions, of guerrilla warfare and the fractious and fragmentary relationships between national, regional and local centers of power; (2) the opportunies for strengthened relationships between the US’s major competitor big power nations, mainly Russia and China, with local resistance movements; (3) the weakness of oil infrastructure in Venezuela, the heavy costs of refining its very think crude oil, modernizing its drilling and other equipment after decades of relative decay, and even of just accessing oil deep beneath the Orinoco basin; (4) the likelihood that the maintenance of a substantial fraction of the US naval force in the Caribbean over a long period of time will attrite US military resources even faster than they have already been attrited by Russia in Ukraine, reduce US flexibility in the pursuit of its goal to go to war with China, and increase the vulnerability of the US to the acceleration in volume of the shocks and shifts of change in the geopolitical order.

On the question of naval power, AI provides this assessment:

“As of early January 2026, the United States has an unusually large naval force in the Caribbean as part of “Operation Southern Spear”. While the exact proportion of total U.S. naval power is not explicitly stated in official reports, one source from October 2025 indicated that 14% of the Navy’s fleet was stationed in the Caribbean at that time.

This significant presence, the largest U.S. military buildup in the region in decades, is primarily (justified by) focused on counter-narcotics operations and pressure on the Venezuelan government. The deployment includes:

• Vessels: Around a dozen warships, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group (which includes destroyers), an amphibious ready group centered on the USS Iwo Jima, and a nuclear-powered attack submarine.

• Personnel: Approximately 15,000 military personnel, including sailors and Marines.

• Aircraft: A variety of air power, including F-35B fighter jets (some based in Puerto Rico), B-52 and B-1B bombers, and various surveillance and patrol aircraft.

This force is under the operational control of the U.S. Fourth Fleet, which is the naval component of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM). This buildup is a notable increase from the typical presence of “two or three American warships and Coast Guard cutters” usually on patrol in the region”.

Spheres of Influence

At the start of the second Trump presidency, it seemed clear to me that US foreign policy had for some time been battling desperately to preserve its global hegemony, principally on three fronts: Ukraine where, through NATO, the US was fighting a proxy war with Russia; Taiwan, where the US was fighting both a direct and a proxy war (allied with vassals such as South Korea, the Philippines, Japan etc.) against China, and the Middle East where the US was supporting Zionist ambitions to expand the territory under Israel control, suppress if not annihilate the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and to dismember the largest regional threat to a nuclearized Israel, Iran.

Further into the first year of this presidency, as speculation grew that Trump was genuinely interested in settling the Ukraine conflict and withdrawing from Europe, I temporarily opened my mind to the “spheres of interest” argument namely, that the US would be content with a world in which it exercised prevailing power over the Americas (perhaps with the absorption of Greenland and the annexation of Canada), while Russia would consolidate its influence over Central Asia and grow into something of a big brother to the European Union, and China would grow its already dominating trade influence through east and southeast Asia.

But, as it continued to become too clear to ignore that the US was intent on going to war with China, I abandoned the “spheres of interest” theory. Note: I was never inclined to advocate in favor of a “spheres of interest” division of global power because I regard it as a deeply imperialistic stance that abandons the interests of smaller nations to the greed and plunder of regional giants. On the other hand, the BRICS and Chinese notion of a multimodal or multicentral world subject to regulation by a reformed UN in which all powers, big and small, enjoy sovereignty and freedom from external interference, seems to accord far more satisfactorily with basic principles of freedom and justice. Unfortunately, as illustrated by the weakness of Brazil in confronting US aggression in its own immediate sphere of influence, BRICS has a very long way to travel to be able to offer the world a convincing alternative to the current great powers dynamic.

Some analysts profess to see in recent events in Venezuela (along with Trump’s growing lust for Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Canada) an indication of US abandonment of neocon or globalist ambitions. It is not impossible that there is some secret understanding along these lines between the US, Russia and China. But I do not believe this to be the case.

First of all, I see no really convincing evidence that Trump really has “abandoned” Ukraine, as (effective) US/CIA confirmation of its involvement in the recent attempt to assassinate Putin (or destroy the nuclear command post in his compound near Valdai) in Novgorod indicates, and as his massive arms sales to Taiwan (a direct missile threat to China) also suggest.

Secondly, I don’t believe that any serious leaders of any country in the world can continue to expect that anything can be negotiated in good faith with Trump specifically or the US generally. Nations may stay committed to their humble status as vassals, but that is because their leaders (as in Europe) see no other option that will permit them to continue to enjoy their domestically privileged wealth and status.

Increasingly, Russia and China, despite their leadership of the BRICS alliance, project weakness, not strength, in the realm of the global order. They fail to come meaningfully to the assistance of allies under attack (e.g. Syria, Iran, Venezuela), they fail to deploy what they say are ground-breaking developments in weaponry such as the Oreshnik, Burevestnik or Poseidon missiles developed by Russia, they remain very focused on local threats to their power (Ukraine in the case of Russia, Taiwan in the case of China) and limit their interventions against major affronts to humanitarian and other violations of human dignity and justice largely to rhetorical denunciations.

The basic driver of geopolitical events currently is the US bid for continuing if not for increased global supremacy. Peoples of the world (and this includes residents of the US just as much as anyone) should focus more on the question of how they will deal with a supremacist US that is now untethered from ethical, moral, humanitarian or even rational principles or restraints, than the question as to whether the US may be inclined to veer towards a “spheres of

influence” structure of geopolitical relations.

About the Author

Oliver Boyd-Barrett is Professor (Emeritus) at the Department of Journalism and Communication at Bowling Green State University, Ohio and at the Department of Communication, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His research interests are international communication, national and international news agencies, media imperialism and propaganda. His most recent books include Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change (edited with Tanner Mirrlees) (Rowman and Littlefield); Mainstream Media and the Ukraine Crisis (Routledge); Media Imperialism (Sage); Hollywood and the CIA (Routledge). He is currently researching a book for Routledge on Syria in the context of false pretexts for war.