Trump leaves Venezuela’s opposition sidelined and Maduro’s party in power

Venezuela’s political landscape shifted dramatically when U.S. military forces captured President Nicolás Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores from their home on a military base in Caracas. The authoritarian leader now sits in a New York jail on drug trafficking charges, but his removal hasn’t delivered the democratic transition many had envisioned.

Instead of installing opposition leadership as expected, U.S. President Donald Trump allowed Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control of the oil-rich nation. This decision stunned Venezuela’s opposition, which had spent years working toward Maduro’s ouster with support from both Republican and Democratic U.S. administrations.

“They were clearly unimpressed by the sort of ethereal magical realism of the opposition, about how if they just gave Maduro a push, it would just be this instant move toward democracy,” explained David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades.

The move represents a significant departure from the U.S. position following Venezuela’s disputed 2024 presidential election. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, had been barred from running against Maduro. She instead backed retired ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia as her proxy candidate.

While Maduro’s government quickly declared victory, Machado’s campaign presented detailed tally sheets indicating González had defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin. The United States and numerous other nations subsequently recognized González as Venezuela’s legitimate president-elect.

Trump, however, expressed skepticism about Machado’s leadership potential after Maduro’s capture. “She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” Trump told reporters. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Ironically, Machado had consistently praised Trump and supported U.S. policies regarding Venezuela, including campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and operations against alleged drug traffickers in international waters – positions that diminished some of her domestic support.

In her first televised interview following Maduro’s capture, Machado continued praising Trump without acknowledging his decision to work with the Maduro regime’s vice president rather than the opposition. “What he has done is historic, and it’s a huge step toward a democratic transition,” she told Fox News.

The constitutional path forward remains disputed. Venezuela’s constitution requires an election within 30 days when a president becomes “permanently unavailable” – a timeline followed when Hugo Chávez died in 2013. However, Venezuela’s Supreme Court, loyal to Maduro, declared his absence “temporary,” allowing Rodríguez to take over for up to 90 days, with a possible extension to six months if approved by the ruling party-controlled National Assembly.

Complicating matters further, the court ruling made no reference to the constitutional 180-day limit, suggesting Rodríguez might attempt to extend her tenure indefinitely as she works to unite ruling party factions against electoral challenges.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since attempted to clarify Trump’s statement that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela, insisting that Washington will use control of Venezuela’s oil industry – home to the world’s largest proven crude reserves – to force policy changes.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, suggested an election will eventually take place: “We’re going to build the country up – infrastructure wise – crescendoing with an election that will be free,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters, without specifying a timeline.

For opposition leaders, multiple obstacles remain. Both Machado and González are currently in exile – González in Spain since September 2024, and Machado abroad since last month when she appeared publicly for the first time in 11 months to receive her Nobel Prize in Norway.

Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory in Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario, warned that Trump’s decision to work with Rodríguez rather than the opposition could damage Venezuela’s democratic aspirations.

“What the opposition did in the 2024 election was to unite with a desire to transform the situation in Venezuela through democratic means,” he said. “To disregard that is to belittle, almost to humiliate, Venezuelans.”