Trump Has Tried This — and Failed — in Venezuela Before
Nothing about Donald Trump’s brazenly illegal actions against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro suggests that the American ruling class has learned any lessons from US imperial overreach and failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Venezuela itself.
The problem for US empire is not operational capability to carry out actions like the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro — it is the US’s persistent inability to translate force into durable political transformation. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
We’ve been here before when it comes to the Trump administration’s attempts to force a political transition in Venezuela.
In 2019 and 2020, the Trump administration attempted to engineer such a change through pressure, spectacle, and public declarations of inevitability. Military defections were said to be imminent. Regime insiders were allegedly ready to flip. Juan Guaidó was presented as the rightful president-in-waiting. And then — nothing happened. The armed forces held. The institutions stayed put. The promised transition never materialized.
Six years later, the second Trump administration is dusting off the same playbook.
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