Venezuela as America’s next foreign policy disaster

Is the Trump administration planning to bring down Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro? The short answer is: probably not deliberately, but it might stumble that way anyway—and that’s precisely the problem.

The recent escalation tells a familiar story. The administration is weighing military strikes against drug cartels operating inside Venezuela as part of a broader strategy aimed at weakening Maduro.

While President Donald Trump has not yet approved any action, with the US and Venezuela talking through Middle Eastern intermediaries, the pattern emerging is one of increasing pressure without a clear endgame.

The narco-terrorism frame

The Trump team has cleverly framed this as counternarcotics and counterterrorism rather than explicit regime change.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a driving force behind the hardline approach, views Venezuela through the prism of his Cuban-American background: Maduro’s regime is kept alive by Cuban intelligence, while Venezuelan oil keeps Cuba afloat. In this worldview, taking down Maduro is the “first phase of cleaning up the hemisphere.”

But here’s where reality intrudes on ideology. Trump himself has denied seeking regime change in Venezuela, even as he ordered a large military buildup off Venezuela’s coast. This contradiction isn’t mere diplomatic dissembling—it reflects genuine confusion about objectives.

Is the US trying to pressure Maduro into negotiating an exit? Hoping the military will stage a coup? Banking on economic collapse to spark a popular uprising? All of the above?

The unintended consequences

The problem with regime change—whether acknowledged or inadvertent—is what comes after. Venezuela isn’t Iraq or Libya, but it shares their curse: oil wealth combined with weak institutions.

The opposition, while legitimate in its electoral claims, remains fractured and largely exiled. The military brass is deeply complicit in narco-trafficking. Any transitional government would face immediate legitimacy challenges, economic chaos and likely violence.

More troubling still, the current approach may be achieving the opposite of its stated aims. Maduro is preparing to declare a state of emergency and mobilize civic-military forces, rallying nationalist sentiment against American threats.

Nothing strengthens an authoritarian like external pressure that can be framed as imperial aggression. We’ve seen this movie before—in Cuba, Iran, North Korea. It rarely ends well.

The migration paradox

Here’s the ultimate irony: Trump campaigned heavily on stemming immigration from Venezuela. His supporters cheered his promises to deport Venezuelan gang members and restore order.

But destabilizing Venezuela further—whether through military strikes, economic strangulation or facilitating regime collapse—will generate precisely the migration surge the administration aims to stop.

Venezuela has already produced over seven million refugees and migrants. A state collapse scenario could easily double that number. Colombia, Brazil and other neighbors are already overwhelmed. Where do Trump and his advisors think these people will go?

Realism requires reality checks

A genuinely realist approach to Venezuela would acknowledge several uncomfortable truths. First, Maduro, while reprehensible, is not an imminent threat to US national security. His regime is brittle, corrupt and gradually hemorrhaging support, but it’s not on the verge of collapse without external intervention.

Second, the US has limited leverage. The administration has already moved to cancel sanctions waivers, setting a May 27 deadline for foreign oil companies to exit Venezuela. That’s maximum pressure territory. What’s left? Military action risks turning a manageable problem into a regional crisis.

Third, and most importantly, the Trump administration needs to ask: what’s America’s actual interest here? If it’s genuinely about narcotics trafficking, there are more effective ways to target cartels than bombing Venezuela, which would likely scatter operations and radicalize survivors.

If it’s about democracy promotion, history suggests military intervention tends to undermine rather than foster democratic development.

The real alternative

The administration faces a choice: It can continue down the path of escalating pressure, risking accidental regime change without planning for the aftermath. Or it could pivot toward a more transactional approach of targeted engagement focused on specific, achievable goals like counternarcotics cooperation, migration management and gradual economic normalization in exchange for verifiable concessions.

Is such engagement distasteful? Absolutely. Does it mean legitimizing an authoritarian regime? To some degree, yes. But realism has never been about choosing between good and evil—it’s about choosing between unpalatable options and catastrophic ones.

The tragedy is that the Trump administration seems to be headed toward regime change by drift rather than design. No one explicitly wants to own Venezuela’s reconstruction, but the cumulative effect of current policies may force that responsibility upon us anyway. That’s not strategy—it’s negligence dressed up as toughness.

If the Trump administration is serious about avoiding endless commitments abroad, it should resist the siren song of regime change in Caracas, no matter how it’s packaged. Venezuela’s people deserve better than Maduro. They also deserve better than becoming the next American foreign policy disaster.

Leon Hadar is a foreign policy analyst and author of “Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.”