Caracas, January 3, 2026. This date will remain etched in the collective memory as a day of visual euphoria. The images of Nicolás Maduro in handcuffs, escorted by U.S. military personnel, have satisfied a thirst for justice pent up over years of dictatorship.
According to UNHCR data, nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans have been forced to flee the country. Torture, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence were not isolated incidents, but documented, systemic practices. For years, the World Food Programme (WFP) has reported millions in urgent need and soaring levels of food insecurity. No one is shedding a tear for the end of a regime that transformed one of South America’s most prosperous nations into a systematic humanitarian collapse.
Maduro and chavismo starved Venezuela, and their downfall is cause for celebration. However, when an event is this cinematic, we have an obligation to look beneath the surface.
Liberation or Asset Seizure?
If we overlay the rhetoric of “liberation” onto factual reality, a deep fracture emerges. We seem to be witnessing less of a democratic restitution and more of a corporate change of ownership. The official justifications for Maduro’s capture do not hold up to scrutiny and appear, unfortunately, entirely disconnected from Venezuela’s democratic destiny.
The first signal is the exclusion of the democratic opposition leaders from the chain of command. On July 28, 2024, Edmundo González—backed by María Corina Machado—won the country’s elections. The proof did not come from corrupt institutions, but from a vast network of citizens who risked their lives to photograph and digitize the tally sheets (actas) from over 30,000 polling stations. González’s margin was so wide that, statistically, it was impossible to overturn without leaving obvious numerical fingerprints.
The Trump Management: Venezuela as “Distressed Property”
In launching the operation, Donald Trump coordinated nothing with the democratic opposition. On the contrary, he dismissed Machado—the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate—as a figure who “doesn’t have support inside the country.” From Air Force One, Trump simply declared: “We are going to run it.”
Not “we will help,” not “we will support,” not “we will facilitate.” We are going to run it. This is the verb a CEO uses when taking over a mismanaged company. It is not used to describe the liberation of a people; it is used to describe the control of a property. It is language that sounds nothing like a civilian-led democratic transition, and everything like a new stability negotiated inevitably with segments of the old apparatus.
It is in this light that one can interpret—according to diplomatic sources—the backchannel opened between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Delcy Rodríguez, the former Vice President and a key figure in the remaining chavista apparatus. With the regime scrubbed of Maduro, these segments of the machinery would guarantee the flow of crude oil without the uncertainty of a true civilian transition. The approach is transactional. Venezuela is being treated as a “distressed property,” foreclosed upon by the bank due to mismanagement, to be restructured according to the new owner’s dictates. Trump speaks openly of bringing in major U.S. oil companies to “fix the infrastructure” and “take back our oil.”
Monroe Doctrine 2.0
We are facing an explicit return of the Monroe Doctrine, updated for 2026. In 1823, James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere the U.S. “sphere of influence.” But it was Theodore Roosevelt, in 1904, who transformed that defensive doctrine into a license for intervention.
With his “Corollary,” Washington invested itself with the right to intervene militarily in Latin American countries to “maintain order” and protect U.S. interests. For over a century, the United States used that logic to justify invasions and coups. Now, Trump is reactivating it without the mask: Latin America is the “backyard” that must be cleared of external influences (China, Russia, Iran).
International Backlash and a Dangerous Precedent
In Latin America, the message has been received as a warning. Governments across the continent—from Claudia Sheinbaum’s Mexico to Lula’s Brazil—have condemned the action as a return to interventionism. Even countries traditionally aligned with Washington have expressed “grave concern.” This is not an isolated incident: as Trump descends on Caracas, he is simultaneously doubling down on buying Greenland and threatening to retake control of the Panama Canal. It is the same grammar: sovereign states treated as assets to be acquired.
Russia and China have condemned the action as a violation of sovereignty. Moscow’s audacity is as nauseating as it is predictable, but Xi Jinping is evidently taking notes for Taiwan. The strategic damage of Trump’s move lies in the terms it sets, wiping away even the pretense of international law.
Conclusion: A Free Future, But For Whom?
Replacing a local authoritarianism with what risks becoming an imperial protectorate delegitimizes the very idea of democracy in the eyes of the world. If “freedom” arrives in the form of such an operation, it validates the most dangerous thesis of all: that democracy is not a universal value, but merely a faction’s slogan.
Maduro in handcuffs is a victory, and it should be acknowledged without hesitation. For millions of Venezuelans, it is the end of a daily terror. But stopping there would be shortsighted. We must scrutinize Trump’s ultimate end. He is not doing this for democracy, nor for the war on drugs (Venezuela is not the cause of the fentanyl epidemic). The goal remains utilitarian: domination over what he considers his hemisphere and the seizure of resources.
Venezuela is free from Maduro. But is it free for whom? And what message is Trump sending to the rest of the world?