The uncertainty after Maduro: What next for Venezuela?

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, has been apprehended and flown to the U.S., where the U.S. attorney-general has announced he will face charges of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. The U.S. military’s operation to snatch Mr. Maduro was carried out in the early hours of January 3 and follows months of steadily mounting pressure on the Venezuelan government.

Also read: U.S.-Venezuela tensions LIVE updates

Now it appears that the U.S. operation to remove a leader it has designated as a “narco-terrorist” has come to fruition. But whether the capture and removal of Mr. Maduro will lead to regime change in the oil-rich Latin American country remains unclear at present.

The U.S. campaign against Venezuela is the product of two distinct policy impulses within the Donald Trump administration. The first is the long-held desire of many Republican hawks, including U.S. Secretary of state Marco Rubio, to force regime change in Caracas. They detest Venezuela’s socialist government and see overturning it as an opportunity to appeal to conservative Hispanic voters in the U.S.

The second impulse is more complex. Mr. Trump campaigned for election in 2024 on the idea that his administration would not become involved in foreign conflicts. But his administration claims that Venezuela’s government and military are involved in drug trafficking, which, in Washington’s thinking, makes them terrorist organisations that are harming the American people. As head of the country’s government, Mr. Maduro, according to the Trump administration’s logic, is responsible for that.

During Mr. Trump’s first administration, his Department of Justice indicted Mr. Maduro on charges of “narco-terrorism”. Now U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says there might be a new indictment which also covers Mr. Maduro’s wife, who was taken into detention with him. The fact that U.S. law enforcement was involved in their capture reinforces the idea that they will now face those charges in a New York court, despite an early claim by opposition sources in Venezuela that Mr. Maduro’s departure may have been negotiated with the U.S. government.

Also read: Tragedy and farce: On the U.S. and Venezuela

What comes next?

The big question is what comes next in Venezuela, and whether either the Republican hawks or the “America first” crowd will get the outcome that they want: ongoing U.S. military presence to “finish the job” or simply a show of U.S. strength to punish its adversary which doesn’t involve a lengthy American involvement.

The U.S. has discovered time and again in recent decades that it is extremely difficult to dictate the political futures of foreign countries with military force. The White House might want to see the emergence of a non-socialist government in Caracas, as well as one which cracks down on the drug trade.

But simply removing Mr. Maduro and dropping some bombs is unlikely to achieve that goal after nearly three decades of building up the regime under Mr. Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez.

The Trump administration could have learned this lesson from Libya, whose dictatorial government the U.S. and its allies overthrew in 2011. The country collapsed into chaos soon after, inflicting widespread suffering on its own citizens and creating problems for its neighbours.

In the case of Venezuela, it is unlikely that the American military’s strikes alone will be enough to fatally undermine its government. Mr. Maduro may be gone, but the vast majority of the country’s governmental and military apparatus remains intact. Power will likely pass to a new figure in the regime. The White House may dream that popular protests will break out against the government following Mr. Maduro’s ousting. But history shows that people usually react to being bombed by a foreign power by rallying around the flag, not turning against their leaders.

Nor would Venezuela’s descent into chaos be likely to help the Trump administration achieve its goals. Conflict in Venezuela could generate new refugee flows which would eventually reach America’s southern border. The collapse of central government authority would be likely to create a more conducive environment for drug trafficking. Widespread internal violence and human rights violations could hardly be portrayed as a victory to the crucial conservative Hispanic voting bloc.

If the Trump administration dreams of establishing a stable, pro-American government in Caracas, it is going to have to do more than just arrest Mr. Maduro. Bringing about durable regime change typically involves occupying a country with ground troops and engaging in “nation building”. The U.S. tried this with decidedly mixed results in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump has pledged to avoid such entanglements and Mr. Rubio has said that, for now at least, the U.S. has no plans for further military action against Venezuela. Mr. Trump has a penchant for flashy, quick wins, particularly in foreign policy. He may hope to tout Mr. Maduro’s capture as a victory and move on to other matters.

Nation-building failures

In almost no recent U.S. military intervention did the American government set out to engage in nation-building right from the beginning. The perceived need to shepherd a new government into existence has typically only come to be felt when the limits of what can be accomplished by military force alone become apparent.

The war in Afghanistan, for instance, started as a war of revenge for the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, before transforming into a 20-year nation-building commitment. In Iraq, the Bush administration thought that it could depose Saddam Hussein and leave within a few months. The U.S. ended up staying for nearly a decade.

It’s hard to imagine Mr. Trump walking down the same path, if only because he has always portrayed nation-building as a waste of American lives and treasure. But that still leaves him with no plausible way to achieve the divergent political outcomes he, his supporters and America’s foreign policy establishment want with the tools that he has at his disposal.

Meanwhile, the U.S. president will face pressure from a range of constituencies from Republican hawks to conservative Hispanic voters to force wholesale regime change in Venezuela. How Mr. Trump responds to that pressure will determine the future course of U.S. policy towards the country.

Andrew Gawthorpe is lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University. 

(This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original here: https://theconversation.com/us-snatches-maduro-in-raid-on-caracas-what-we-know-so-far-272660)

Published – January 04, 2026 10:42 pm IST