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Since the beginning of the year, President Donald Trump has enthusiastically reinstated regime change as a key tool of U.S. statecraft, despite previously campaigning against the military excesses of former presidents. This drastic foreign policy reversal owes much to his administration’s dramatic capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a successful raid and arrest on Jan. 3. Clearly encouraged by the apparent ease with which this act of leadership decapitation converted a one-time regional adversary into something Trump can present as a vassal state virtually overnight, the administration has sought to replicate this success in other revisionist states, most notably by initiating fresh conflict with Iran on Feb. 28.

However, the current war with Iran and the regional instability that has ensued in the Middle East has raised considerable doubts as to the replicability of Trump’s newfound strategy. It has also obscured not only the motives, aims, and objectives that drove the intrepid military operation that captured Maduro, but any subsequent debate on whether these were achievable, and if so, how they served U.S. interests.

Upon closer analysis, it becomes clear that few — if any — of the stated objectives touted by administration officials are viable in Venezuela, either in the short or long term. The strategy of regime co-optation in Venezuela might lead to some immediate positive outcomes — such as the recent release of political prisoners — but it is unlikely to lead to economic stabilization or an eventual re-democratization of the country. Tellingly, this strategy does further one longstanding policy goal of the Republican Party: fostering regime collapse in Cuba.

History Does Not Repeat Itself: It’s Just Poorly Plagiarized

On Dec. 19, 1908, Venezuelan Vice President Juan Vicente Gómez quietly deposed his boss, President Cipriano Castro, while Castro was receiving medical treatment overseas. With the support of the Roosevelt and Taft administrations, Gómez quickly pledged to honor his country’s foreign debts and opened up the country’s vast oil reserves for foreign investment, reversing his predecessor’s policies that had made Venezuela an international pariah. The burgeoning relationship proved successful. During his 27 year-long dictatorship, Gómez modernized Venezuela using oil revenues provided largely by the United States. The northern hegemon, in exchange, secured a key oil supplier and stable ally in a strategically important yet volatile region for the remainder of the century.

Some 117 years later, the United States again finds itself the key protagonist in another Venezuelan political transition following the capture of Maduro and his country’s sudden geopolitical realignment. However, despite the similar circumstances to the ouster of another Venezuelan president early last century, this time it is unlikely that either country will similarly benefit from the renewed relationship. All early signs indicate that Trump’s unorthodox strategy of regime co-optation is unlikely to achieve its economic, electoral, or geopolitical objectives in the short or long term. What exactly, then, is his administration’s endgame in Venezuela?

On the surface, it is hard not to assume it is all about oil. Immediately following Maduro’s capture, arrest, and swift replacement with his malleable Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, Trump claimed stewardship of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, framing the move as part of a three-phase plan to stabilize the country, revive Venezuela’s moribund oil production, and oversee a democratic transition. Numerous challenges threaten the feasibility of this strategy. Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is decrepit, while American energy companies have balked at investing in an autocratic country fond of expropriating foreign assets. The current American regulation of Venezuelan oil sales similarly does not address the country’s structural economic problems, further complicating any stabilization or democratic transition.

Others believe that it is yet another media distraction. However, the administration’s attempt to frame Maduro’s capture as a historic foreign policy victory has not succeeded in distracting the American public from other persistent scandals, and has produced mixed reactions at home. Recent polls have shown a near parity between those who approve and disapprove of the military operation to remove Maduro from power, although a clear majority lack confidence in Trump’s ability to manage the country moving forward — numbers that are heavily skewed along the partisan divide.

Public attitudes towards the Trump administration’s foreign adventure in the South American country are unlikely to improve anytime soon. Despite the superficial changes inside Venezuela, the sans Maduro regime maintains total control and the average Venezuelan’s living conditions remain abysmal, while Trump has sidelined Venezuela’s democratic opposition. China continues to make inroads in the region despite the Trump administration’s recent exercise of the ”Trump Corollary” in the Western Hemisphere.

The initial impact of Trump’s strategy does point to one longstanding policy goal that appears within reach after decades of failure: regime collapse in Cuba. Since Maduro’s capture and Venezuela’s realignment with Washington, shipments of subsidized fuel to Cuba have evaporated, exacerbating widespread scarcity to the breaking point. The concerted policy coordination behind the renewed maximalist approach towards Cuba suggests that, instead of merely being complementary to larger goals in Venezuela, it might be the opposite: Regime co-optation in Venezuela is a means to dismantle Cuba’s regime.

Regime Change in Cuba

Similar to other foreign policy endeavors, Maduro’s recent capture bears the hallmarks of the Trump administration’s policy formation process. In the absence of a grand strategy, different factions lobby Trump to enact their preferred course of action by promising easy victories that showcase American strength abroad and yield some economic benefit for the president. Different administration officials perceive regime co-optation in Venezuela as an easy means to score public relations wins, seize control of oil reserves, validate American interventionism/expansionism in its near abroad, and hasten regime collapse in Cuba. This aggressive revival of gunboat diplomacy in Latin America has outwardly achieved some of these immediate goals, but questions remain as to why the administration has seemingly prioritized regime collapse in Cuba at the expense of a veritable democratic transition in Venezuela.

All signs point to the influence of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio. The son of Cuban immigrants and a stalwart of Florida’s Cuban exile community,  Rubio spearheaded the maximalist pressure against Venezuela and Cuba during Trump’s first administration, and appears to have learned that the only way to weaken either regime was to sever the robust bilateral ties that ensured their collective survival. Regime co-optation in Venezuela not only ruptures this vital relationship, but it also spares the administration from potentially undertaking two arduous state-building projects in the region when it is simultaneously trying to militarily induce regime change in Iran.

Other factors have shaped this asymmetric approach to Venezuela and Cuba. Powerful Cuban-American interest groups have staunchly supported the Republican Party for decades in pursuit of toppling the communist dictatorship. The Cuban regime, currently led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, has little to offer Trump except for vague promises of stability and modest reforms. Florida’s Cuban community is not likely to tolerate an ambiguously defined transition that permits a continuation of the current regime when its collapse appears imminent. In contrast, the sans Maduro regime has granted Trump access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, while the Venezuelan electorate possesses no comparable electoral influence in the United States to dissuade the administration from allying with Maduro’s inner circle.

The Road to Havana goes through Caracas. And seemingly Tehran

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez assumed office in 1999, Venezuela and Cuba quickly developed a symbiotic codependency. Chávez provided highly subsidized fuel and cheap loans to the Castro brothers, while they in turn supplied their South American ally with doctors, security personnel, and perhaps most importantly, intelligence experts. However, regime co-optation in Venezuela has ended these critical oil shipments to Cuba. The recent seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers and the threat of additional American tariffs against countries sending fuel to Cuba threaten to destroy the Caribbean country’s meager economic capacity and accelerate its collapse.

The sans Maduro regime has demonstrated a willingness to break ranks with Cuba and become an American vassal state as long as the recalibration ensures its own survival. However, the Trump administration may derive the wrong lessons from this geopolitical shift. It was the unprecedented and likely illegal exfiltration of Venezuela’s sitting president that finally achieved regime co-optation, not the sustained maximum pressure campaign in place since 2019.

As recent history shows, both the Venezuelan and Cuban regimes have an abnormal threshold for external pressure and international isolation. They have both survived prolonged humanitarian crises — more often than not self-inflicted — that were compounded by comprehensive sanctions regimes led by the United States. They did so by strategically hedging their alliances and streamlining the distribution of dwindling state resources to an ever smaller number of key actors required to maintain regime survival. Meanwhile, the civilian population bore the brunt of the repression and extreme austerity demanded by this autocratic survival strategy.

In the past, both regimes responded to severe economic contractions and the ensuing reduction in food imports by maintaining or adopting centralized food rationing systems, leaving average citizens to procure the majority of their dietary necessities on their own. Unsurprisingly, food insecurity and hunger became widespread. During the “Special Period” following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until Chávez became the island’s new patron after 1999, the average Cuban lost an average of 5–25 percent of his or her body weight. Similarly, the average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds during the implosion of the country’s economy in 2016.

Presently, both regimes are playing for time, but under different circumstances. Trump’s use of economic coercion via tariffs has been severely curtailed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling, and he is certain to be constrained by further checks and balances following November’s midterm elections. Until then, however, it is unclear what constraints exist — if any — that could discourage Trump from seeking to replicate what he perceives as successful regime decapitation in Venezuela in other adversarial states such as Cuba. Although Trump’s ability to coerce other countries through tariff threats has been limited, he can still hypothetically enforce a complete blockade against Cuba via temporary tariffs — as permitted under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act — or other economic measures outlined in the various congressional acts codified over previous decades.

As Cuba deteriorates further, the regime has sought lifelines and relief elsewhere with minimal success. Some regional and international partners not aligned with the Trump administration have provided humanitarian aid, giving the Cuban regime a modest respite from the unprecedented economic pressure. In late February, the U.S. Treasury Department authorized the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba as long as it was used strictly for commercial and humanitarian use, apparently in response to domestic and regional backlash against the potential fallout from regime collapse. Domestically, the regime is purportedly trying to increase existing energy production from crude to solar, yet in light of the recent collapse of the country’s electrical grid these measures appear to be too little, too late.

In the event that the regime somehow resists the current pressure and the Trump administration tires of waiting for its collapse, opting for direct military action against Cuba, it will find leadership decapitation an easier feat than trying to foster regime co-optation with some pliant faction within the existing leadership corps. Unlike Venezuela (and similar to Iran), the Cuban regime was forged in a violent revolution whereby all alternative power centers were destroyed and the Communist Party of Cuba assumed total control of the island, permeating every facet of life imaginable. Quite simply, finding opportunistic replacements who can and will throw the likes of Díaz-Canel and former leader Raul Castro under the bus is a considerably more challenging task than it was in Venezuela.

If attacked militarily or facing imminent collapse due to the intolerable conditions, the Cuban leadership may very well resort to their own trump card that it has played previously on various occasions by weaponizing emigration. Devoid of the military capacity, let alone the basic resources required to defend itself against the United States, the Cuban regime could plausibly open the pressure valve by encouraging outgoing emigration in order to mobilize American public opinion against the Trump administration and the adverse effects of the maximum pressure campaign. Quite simply, Republican voters do not want more asylum seekers trying to gain entry to the United States, while Democratic voters do not want to see human rights abuses happening on their doorstep.

The sans Maduro regime, in contrast, will likely appease Trump to the extent that it can without upsetting the more hardline elements of the ruling coalition — including figures such as  Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello — while using what oil revenues it does receive to strengthen its position in anticipation of his eventual exit from office. However, the ruling coalition is far from monolithic. Rather, it represents a union between civilian ideologues cosplaying as revolutionaries and kleptocratic military officials. Both factions have thus far circled the wagons to maintain regime cohesion and accept Washington’s impositions. However, it is possible that the civilian faction, many of whom previously received training in Cuba, will chafe at the sudden break with Havana and will look to resume ties once the opportunity presents itself — if the Cuban regime is still intact. The military faction, on the other hand, has less affinity for Cuba, but nevertheless is bound to harbor enormous resentment against the United States for the international humiliation it has been forced to endure.

But what is occurring in Venezuela and Cuba is not playing out in a bubble. The conflict between the United States and Iran affects the outcome of the administration’s strategy in the Caribbean basin in several important ways. Importantly, American military actions against Iran have prompted the Islamic Republic to close the Strait of Hormuz, leading global oil prices to rise over 100 dollars per barrel, making investments in the Venezuelan oil industry look more attractive by the day. However, the estimated costs, human expertise, and time required to revive Venezuelan oil production to previous record levels, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the sans Maduro regime, has hitherto dissuaded foreign investment in Venezuela. Paradoxically, Trump’s three-stage plan posits that financial stability is required to facilitate a democratic transition, yet no energy company wants to invest in an enterprise overseen by such an odious regime.

The dramatic military escalation has already forced the Trump administration to shift its focus and concentrate military assets in the Middle East, a move that might ease pressure on both the Venezuelan and Cuban regimes and buy them time to strategically adapt to their new realities, despite the constant barrage of threats coming from Trump himself. Conversely, the longer the Iranian conflict drags on without producing any tangible foreign policy success, the more likely Trump will be to either escalate commitment, or cut and run. In either case, he may look for a more attainable public relations victory elsewhere to divert attention.

This renewed American intervention in the Americas and the Middle East is also playing out amidst a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical competition between the United States and China. As highlighted in the 2025 National Security Strategy, a central goal of the Trump administration in the Americas is to contain and expel Chinese influence from the region, an objective that Maduro’s ouster seemingly advances. Yet, regime co-optation in Venezuela might prove beneficial to China in the long term, as it allows the Asian superpower to divest from Venezuela and write off the South American country’s debts that are unlikely to be repaid. China has strategically sought to protect its investments and defend its commercial interests linked to the region without risking full blown escalation with the Trump administration. However, the fate of Venezuela and Cuba are ancillary to longer term Chinese strategy, which would sacrifice influence in the Americas if it secured hegemony in Asia.

What’s Next?

As time wears on and the Trump administration discovers how challenging, expensive, and exhausting military-led regime change campaigns are — particularly in the Persian Gulf — it will be at risk of experiencing a premature case of imperial overreach. If Trump does opt to escalate the war in Iran at the present, which all signs suggests he will, then this will considerably limit his options for future action in Cuba. In this event, it is highly probably that the administration will search for an available off-ramp, regardless of the sunk costs in its Venezuela and Cuba policies. Despite American officials asserting that time is not on Cuba’s side, the same can be said for the administration. If the current regimes in either Venezuela or Cuba — or any incarnation of these regimes — still find themselves in power following the expected losses for the Republican Party in the midterm elections, then they will surely have weathered the worst and will be better positioned to survive in the long term.

What happens in those two countries is important because it has ramifications for the larger region. Early 20th-century gunboat diplomacy secured U.S. hegemony in the Americas and produced substantial economic benefits for domestic interests, yet left the region with entrenched institutional deficiencies and lasting grievances. Trump’s bellicose embrace of American interventionism has produced performative compliance from regional leaders. However, this obedience is unlikely to be sustained solely by the threat of military force now that economic coercion is no longer readily available as a tool of American statecraft as it was until recently. As the specter of hegemonic imposition recedes with the waning of Trump’s power, many distrustful Latin American countries will continue to hedge their sovereignty by deepening ties with other middle and great powers.

Charles Larratt-Smith, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Security Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. He has published numerous academic articles, book chapters, and media pieces about authoritarian survival, criminal dynamics, and migration in Venezuela.

Image: Gorupdebesanez via Wikimedia Commons