Trump’s Strategy against Maduro

Donald Trump does not measure his intentions by consequences, but by political expediency. If overthrowing Maduro becomes one of his objectives, no diplomatic maneuvers will stop him.

Donald Trump surprised the world again last week with a new announcement of his trade war: The president announced that he will impose a 25% tariff on all countries that import oil from Venezuela.

With this measure, the White House reaffirms its intention to strangle the finances of Nicolás Maduro’s regime, imposing sanctions not only on Venezuela, but also on those who provide it with economic oxygen, for countries such as, for example, India, one of the main buyers of Venezuelan crude oil. Doing business with the Miraflores Palace will surely become an expense India will not be willing to assume; thus, this decision has the potential to severely impact the U.S. neighbor.

This announcement, in addition to other measures, demonstrates that Trump will not limit his interactions with Venezuela to rhetoric. As we have already seen, on the one hand, he revoked the license allowing Chevron to operate in his country, and on the other hand, Trump accused Caracas of “purposely sending tens of thousands of high-level criminals” to the United States — in reference to members of the Tren de Aragua gang, declared a terrorist group by his government in January.

These bombshells have been dropped during the couple of months since Trump assumed the presidency and are clear signs of an unambiguous position regarding the Venezuelan dictatorship.

The inevitable question is this: Will the pressure be effective this time? All recent international attempts to force a democratic transition in Venezuela have ended in resounding failure. Recognizing Juan Guaidó and the famous “diplomatic encirclement” were far from effective as a strategy in dethroning Chavismo. And last year, despite initial optimism before the election and the emergence of María Corina Machado as the unifying voice of the Venezuelan opposition, neither evidence of the greatest electoral fraud seen in the region in decades, nor the pronouncements of multilateral organizations, nor the vehement rejection and dismissal of Maduro by many of the leading countries of the region — a list in which, sadly and unfortunately, Colombia does not appear — did they manage to reach the goal of evicting the dictator.

Today, in 2025, Maduro is more authoritarian and apparently more entrenched in his position than ever. Democracy, on the other hand, has become blurred; for many Venezuelans, it is at best a distant memory. There is deterioration, feeding a sense that Venezuela is advancing rapidly toward the status of pariah state: a nation diplomatically and economically isolated from the rest of the world, dominated by a mafiosi regime and supported by a military elite, where complicity with the dictatorship and blind obedience to Maduro reign supreme.

However, the reactivation of a punitive approach toward Caracas is emerging as a possible reversal of this trend. Trump’s measures are not symbolic. Where Joe Biden bet on negotiation and concessions, Trump is projecting an image of strength. In a matter of days, he has deported more than 200 alleged members of the Tren de Argua, has suspended the oil licenses granted by Biden and now threatens to block, de facto, all Venezuelan oil in the world.

Will this be the vision that will become reality in the relationship with Venezuela? As described by analyst Moisés Naím, within Trump’s own government three currents coexist in dealing with Caracas: the hard-line, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who does not see Maduro as a head of state, but as the leader of a criminal organization; the pragmatic approach, represented by Richard Grenell, presidential envoy for special missions, who does not rule out tactical dialogue with the regime; and a third that is edgier and more belligerent-sounding — even with suggestions of military intervention.

But the risk is that the coup d’etat will not have the expected effect. For example, the sanctions have the potential of pushing Caracas even closer to the orbits of Moscow and Beijing, although that currently remains unclear, considering that Trump’s relationship with these two countries has changed. Or it could be that an economic collapse translates into a new migratory wave to the north, and that Maduro, far from being weakened, will find in an anti-imperialist narrative the tool for internal cohesion.

Even so, in the Miraflores Palace they should not sleep peacefully. Trump does not measure his intentions by consequences, but by political expediency. If overthrowing Maduro becomes one of Trump’s political objectives — as it seems it might be — no diplomatic maneuvers will stop him.