US imperialism, Maduroismo without Maduro and Venezuelan sovereignty after January 3

The US government’s January 3 military assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of then President Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores, sent shockwaves through the region. It has also sparked intense discussions about why and how it was able to occur, what the new Delcy Rodríguez government represents and what it all means for Venezuelan sovereignty.

To discuss these questions and more, Federico Fuentes, from LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal, spoke to Malfred Gerig, a sociologist from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Central University of Venezuela) and author of La Larga Depresión venezolana: Economía política del auge y caída del siglo petrolero (Venezuela’s Long Depression: Political economy of the rise and fall of the oil century).

How do you interpret the US military actions that, after deploying warships throughout the Caribbean for several months, culminated in a military assault on Caracas and Maduro and Flores’ kidnapping? Is this simply about gaining control of Venezuela’s oil?

Obviously, the military intervention relates to oil, because everything concerning Venezuela relates to oil. But it is a bit more complex, because two things converged: the Venezuelan crisis and Trump’s foreign policy. Venezuela’s long depression, the political crisis, and the externalisation of national politics by the political class — both the Madurista (Maduro-aligned) ruling elite and the opposition elite — ultimately led to an externalisation of their conflict. The weakening, over so many years, of the sources of national power — economic, political, institutional, military, and cultural — resulted in the most humiliating political and military episode ever in the country’s history as a republic.

This weakening of the Venezuelan nation made it appealing for Trump to intervene. First, because he was acting against a government with no social support base, and lacking any rational or legal legitimacy. The US knew the Venezuelan people would not defend Maduro, and this weighed heavily in their decision. They intervened against an unpopular head of state with no democratic legitimacy.

Second, because the country’s political institutions were utterly illegitimate in legal terms and severely weakened in their capacity to wield real power — as shown by the reaction to the military operation. And third, because the Maduro government, being weak and having undermined national power over many years to cling to power for its own sake, was an easy target for the US to begin leveraging its entire foreign policy toward Latin America.

We can add that the Venezuelan political class doubled down on externalising the conflict, believing Trump would arbitrate in good faith in favour of one of the parties without later demanding a tribute. There we see the moral, ethical and, above all, strategic character of the various factions of the Venezuelan political class. If responsibility must be assigned to the catastrophic outcome of this systemic crisis, it is precisely the Venezuelan political class, both the Maduristas and the opposition, who must be blamed.

This weakening of the nation was exploited by the “foreign sentinel," which now seeks to leverage economic and political advantage. They will find a way to make Venezuela pay tribute — because that is the word that best describes the situation, Venezuela is tributing [paying as an acknowledgment of submission]. Venezuela will pay dearly for this weakening of the nation and the errors of its political class.

Here, oil is crucial to US plans to profit from its intervention through the payment of imperial tribute. The Venezuelan people will unfortunately pay dearly, in the face of territorialism and Trumpian neo-mercantilism, for our inability to resolve the overall state crisis on our own. We will pay with oil, but also with dependency and a loss of popular and national sovereignty over our immediate future.

But Trump was negotiating with the Maduro government, as we saw with Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell's visit to Caracas. Why not simply accept Maduro's offer to hand over Venezuela's resources in exchange for remaining president?

It is clear that at a certain point Trump changed his mind and no longer believed Maduro was a credible negotiating partner. That point came when Grenell was removed from the negotiations. Trump realised Maduro could not be trusted; Maduro was no longer the “strongman” in Caracas for the US if he was willing to give up everything to stay in power. By offering everything to the US, Maduro also lost his credibility with Russia and China. Secretary of State Marco Rubio even said in an interview that Maduro’s “broken every deal he’s ever made.” Maduro ceased to be the person the US thought it could leverage its policy of “outward regime change” or geopolitical realignment, as it is known in international relations terms.

When Trump withdrew Grenell, we all assumed — or at least I did — that the US was going to take military action in Venezuela. In military terms, it was very similar to what happened with Russia and Ukraine: this military buildup was not intended, as some analysts suggested, to force an internal rupture within the regime, etc. If that had happened, it would have been the icing on the cake for Trump. The US was going to take military action. The debate was over the form this would take and what the aftermath would look like.

Simply put, Maduro lacked the national and international credibility to carry out this geopolitical realignment. Credibility is highly valued in international politics, and Maduro’s was practically nonexistent, much like his rational-legal legitimacy.

You said Venezuela was seen as an easy target for the US to begin leveraging its entire policy toward Latin America. What role is Venezuela playing in Trump’s foreign policy?

When Trump changed his mind, he began to leverage Venezuela as the basis for his now maximalist policy toward Latin America. The target was no longer just Venezuela. He enacted some completely irrational policies, for example, including Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s popular and legitimately elected president, on the Clinton List [of individuals sanctioned for alleged involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering]. Constant threats of “terrestrial” military interventions in Mexico have also begun, along with open electoral interference to support candidates aligned with what we might call the MAGA International, particularly in Honduras and Argentina.

Venezuela became the lever for a much more maximalist policy toward Latin America. That policy is reflected in the White House’s National Security Strategy and reactivation of the Monroe Doctrine, with its “Trump corollary” that represents a pivotal moment in terms of US grand strategy. Behind this Monroe Doctrine reactivation lies an entire school of geostrategists, from Nicholas Spykman to Robert J Art, who view territorialism in Latin America as essential in a moment of global or hegemonic conflict. 

According to this territorialism, North and South America possess the resources that the US needs to survive a major global confrontation, which would inevitably disrupt the world market. The “Trump corollary” represents precisely a return to territorialism, where the US, by controlling the Western Hemisphere, can afford a major global conflict without becoming isolated or falling into a general depression due to supply chain disruptions.

That is why we have gone from the Barack Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” to Trump’s “Pivot to Latin America.” Latin America is going to pay the price for the empire’s decline and its withdrawal from Europe and, above all, Asia. Venezuela offered the Trump administration a weakened opponent, with little military capacity and internationally discredited, on which to leverage a policy of reorganising Latin America according to the MAGA worldview. Venezuela’s weakening under Maduro offered the US a wide range of low-cost victories.

Ideologically, it offers the defeat of socialism, notwithstanding Maduro’s regime being socialist in name only. Militarily, it offers a demonstration of firepower and persuasion. Geopolitically, it is a power move at the table of great powers, something Washington was eager for. Economically, it offers a substantial oil windfall for the US state and the corporations that financed Trump’s campaigns.

There was a lot of talk about regime change. But in the end, power remains in the hands of those who were in power with Maduro. How can we understand this situation?

I wrote an article about the concept of regime change recently. In The Long Venezuelan Depression, I said that the sanctions imposed by the Trump 1.0 administration failed to achieve regime change from above, but absolutely succeeded in achieving regime change from below; that is, they achieved regime change in the country’s political economy, steering it towards what I called neoliberalism with patrimonial characteristics and a very sui generis Venezuelan model of crony capitalism.

This regime change from below has converged with what we could call “outward regime change” or geopolitical realignment. A prime example of realignment, which I mentioned in our previous interview, is Anwar Sadat’s Egypt. The US achieved a complete realignment of post-Nasser Egypt, turning it against the Soviet Union. That is what the US is doing now in Venezuela. 

It would have been extremely difficult to achieve this with Maduro, given his nonexistent legitimacy, credibility, and ability to shift the country’s political climate. Maduro tried: in his interview with Ignacio Ramonet on December 30, he clearly stated everything he was willing to give up, namely, all of the country’s natural resources, which, as a true patrimonialist, he believed belonged to him. That proposal failed for Maduro personally, but not for Madurismo without Maduro. Realignment or outward regime change will continue, but now under Madurismo without Maduro.

Do you think Trump will succeed in this realignment?

A few days ago, when asked why he was doing things this way, Trump said: “If you ever remember a place called Iraq, where everybody was fired — every single person, the police, the generals, everybody was fired — and they ended up being ISIS.” Trump may be right about that. He is trying a different approach “to the day after” the start of a regime change. But that does not mean it will be successful.

Venezuela is facing, to use another concept from international relations, what is known as a “Shimonoseki moment”, in reference to the 1895 Sino-Japanese War. That war, and especially the tributes and humiliation following Japan’s imposition of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, inaugurated an era of China’s humiliation. Something similar occurred with the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I — and we know how that ended. Well, that is precisely what the US is doing today: taking advantage of the Venezuelan state’s collapse, it seeks to impose colony status in the form of a protectorate and an oil-based colonial model that is irreversible in the medium term. 

This model involves the US — as requested by the CEOs of major US oil companies — guaranteeing that things remain unchanged for a considerable period (20 or 30 years) and that a constant tribute is paid. The US is transitioning Venezuela toward a protectorate and ensuring the counterrevolution against Venezuelan oil nationalism, which was the backbone of the Venezuelan state’s construction throughout the 20th century, is irreversible. I would go further and add that they are doing this with the approval of both major factions of the Venezuelan political class.

So, what precisely is happening? A transition where the “foreign sentinel” establishes a protectorate and, with the acquiescence of the national political class, attempts to make it as irreversible as possible. What has made this possible? The extreme weakening of the foundations of the Venezuelan nation, to the point that Venezuelans preferred a military attack, a military intervention, when it proved impossible to resolve things on our own and halt the Maduro regime’s transition to patrimonialism. This weakening of the nation was due not only to the opposition political class, but also the Madurista political class, which for many years ignored the consequences for national sovereignty of its strategies for remaining in power for its own sake, as its sole leitmotif.

What happens now? Venezuela’s political class now has no substantive agency whatsoever, neither the opposition nor the ruling Madurismo elite. All they can do is obey Washington’s dictates and compete to be the best custodian to install the protectorate.

Where does this leave the right-wing opposition, which remains out of power?

Regarding the opposition political class, there is much to say. First, it is important to highlight the idiosyncratic worldview of a sector of Venezuelan society that is ignorant of Venezuela and utterly subservient [to Washington]. This meant that the only strategy available was to externalise the conflict, to put all their eggs in the basket of a foreign sentinel. 

If we look at [right-wing opposition leader] María Corina Machado’s speeches, especially after the July 28, 2024 presidential elections, we can see that she was not speaking to Venezuelans in Venezuela. Her only political weapon was emotionally exploiting the Venezuelan diaspora. This reflected a complete weakening of her domestic political strength, an inability to manage and capitalise on the anti-government and referendum-like climate that led to July 28, 2024, even with government repression.

This weakening of the opposition elite’s capacity for domestic resistance was exploited by the US. Machado’s entire anti-Venezuelan narrative, whether active or passive, was utterly irresponsible and, dare I say, criminal. Machado and the opposition political class provided the Trump administration with elements, without any evidence whatsoever, to bolster its anti-Venezuelan policy, effectively decreeing that Venezuelans were hostis humani generis (enemies of humanity), to leverage not only its foreign policy but also domestic immigration policy, on the basis of criminalising a nationality. They committed this crime against the Venezuelan nation. This crime was consummated when they endorsed military intervention and stained their hands with the blood of those Venezuelans killed by a foreign military force on January 3.

We now have an opposition political class, mostly — or at least the most well-known and widely supported, both domestically and internationally — competing to see who can best install the US protectorate. That is the magnitude of our tragedy.

Were you surprised by how quickly relations between the Rodríguez and Trump governments became so friendly, just days after Maduro’s kidnapping?

No, because it was well known that the Maduro regime had been orchestrating a realignment, in which they were willing to give up everything — because they believed themselves to be the owners of the nation’s natural resources and the Venezuelan state, very much in line with their patrimonialism — just to remain in “political power,” as they like to say. 

Nor was it surprising that the much-touted “thousand-year war,” “second Vietnam,” or “permanent resistance” lasted only two hours and was an extremely humiliating operation for the Venezuelan Armed Forces. All of this was very much in keeping with the Maduro regime: absolute incompetence in military terms and no one taking responsibility for the humiliation.

This did not surprise me because the only doctrine Madurismo — and now Madurismo without Maduro — believes in is precisely power for power's sake. They abandoned their programmatic, ideological, ethical and other principles long ago. They have long clung to power, with no intention of using it to transform society, or anything of the sort. What is surprising is seeing Delcy Rodríguez in the National Assembly calling Trump’s colonial-administered funds “sovereign funds” — yet another episode in the massacre of language and reality to which Venezuela, the kingdom of euphemisms, has become accustomed.

The situation now is as pathetic as it is concerning. Trump issues orders, such as his decision to administer the monopoly on the sale of Venezuelan oil and manage the revenue from those sales with complete discretion, transferring to the Venezuelan government whatever he deems appropriate, along with establishing a monopoly on imports. Trump dictates orders, and they obey. 

He is dictating matters of such gravity, that it is very difficult to say that Venezuela is a sovereign country right now. [German jurist and political theorist] Carl Schmitt said “sovereign is who decides,” and those making decisions in Venezuela right now are in Washington.

What we are witnessing, in real time, with some rhetoric and attempts to cling to the traditions of the Bolivarian Revolution, is the establishment of a colonial protectorate in Venezuela. A protectorate where true power lies with the US, and the Venezuelan political class and the Venezuelan people are mere objects of policies dictated from Washington, without influence on our own destiny, at least for now. 

It will be up to the Venezuelan people, the Venezuelan nation, the remaining moral, ethical and dignified reserves that still exist, to decide how long this continues. The solution will not come from the Maduro regime nor the opposition. If anyone can act against this national humiliation, it is the Venezuelan people, not the political class that caused the humiliation.

The Rodríguez government is taking steps to amend Chávez's hydrocarbons law. Why? What is happening in terms of state sovereignty over oil?

What is happening is the dismantling — to the delight of many in the country who always wanted this — of the foundations of Venezuelan oil nationalism. This was one of the great pillars of the construction of the Venezuelan state and nation throughout the 20th century. The Bolivarian Revolution, of which one pillar was precisely the defence of oil sovereignty, is, in this period of Maduroism without Maduro, overseeing the most anti-national episode in our oil history. It is worse than even the [Juan Vicente] Gómez era [of military dictatorship between 1908–35], with its oil concessions that enriched the power elite. 

Today, what we have is a “lease” imposed by force, in the sense that oil production is being handed over to private US companies for a specific period of time. The proposed reform to the Hydrocarbons Law is Venezuela’s surrender as an oil-producing country, stepping backwards to the first half of the 20th century when it was a country that solely owned the resource.

Specifically, it is a radicalisation of what was already occurring, its formalisation. What was already occurring? The anti-blockade law and so-called “Chevron model,” greatly celebrated by Maduro, based on Production Participation Contracts (CPPs) in which PDVSA’s partners control everything, where there is absolute delegation on all operational matters. Essentially, capitulating on the idea of being an oil producing country. The Chevron model is now being radicalised; we will see this model on steroids, since it also grants private US companies a monopoly over marketing, discretionary management of income, a monopoly over imports, and so on. 

Some argue: “But they pay taxes and royalties.” But this is not clear; it is absolutely opaque how it works. Can we take the idea of 15% royalties, as the reform proposes, seriously? Under the pretext of increasing production, are they reverting the state’s participation over its property back to what happened in the 1920s? The state’s participation in the oil business is not exercised through the legal categories of “taxes and royalties.” Oil rent is how the state collects, on behalf of the nation, the income it is entitled to from its ownership of the resource. Oil rent is the owner’s share of the profits from the resource. Until this is clarified, the true extent of the embezzlement of national property will not be known.

Obviously, all of this goes against the Constitution and the current Hydrocarbons Law. That is why they have to adapt the law to reflect current practices, which oil companies requested in their meeting with Trump. This will allow oil companies with much greater expertise and capacity to enter the market, while all those shell companies, unknown companies, and very strange companies — such as the one owned by Trump's friend, Harry Sargeant — will be driven out. These companies entered the oil industry without any oversight or transparency, in a completely opaque manner. The CPPs were a prerequisite for the entry of crony capitalism into the oil sector through these phantom oil companies that served the interests of the political clique and were created simply to plunder Venezuelan oil.

[Venezuelan lawyer and former Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons between 1959–63] Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo understood very well that the logical consequence of the state owning oil was the state producing it, as being a producer was the only way to maximise revenue. A state that does not produce oil has no way to claim income from its property. Therefore, this reactionary reform to the Hydrocarbons Law, under the pretext of raising oil production, eliminates the country’s role as a producer and an owner. In other words, ownership of oil is meaningless if you are unable to extract the resource. 

Furthermore, this model envisions an oil-producing country dependent on importing light crude and diluents to market its heavy crude. Revenue will plummet, even if production rises slightly. Venezuela will become an oil-producing country dependent on imports of crude oil and refined products. This is a consequence of undermining the capacity of the state-owned company, PDVSA, to vertically integrate for 60 years.

Do you see any possible resistance against Trump’s recolonisation plans?

The future, in the short and medium term, is very difficult to predict, because I see all these agreements as highly unstable. It is true that the Madurista political class offers the least resistance — to put it mildly — to implementing Trump’s foreign policy in Venezuela. It is no coincidence that the CIA reports on which Trump based his policies chose Madurismo to lead the transition to a protectorate. And as we can see, it is achieving this without much fanfare, for now. 

But there could be other sources of resistance and conflict: for example, internal conflicts within Madurismo could be a point of resistance that leads to this new normal collapsing at some point. Not for reasons of dignity, or over ethical or programmatic issues, but because of power struggles inherent to each faction, as well as attempts to settle scores between them. But I do not foresee any major problem or resistance to establishing this protectorate coming from within the political class.

Nor do I expect the social base of Madurismo — what remains of it — to accuse Madurismo without Maduro of betraying Chávez's legacy or the Bolivarian Revolution. That water passed under the bridge a long time ago. Madurismo is an utterly uncritical, de-ideologised movement, devoid of doctrine and solely advocates for the economic survival of its cadre. Its only homeland is so-called “political power” — namely, its privileges that come with state management.

But I do believe — and that is why I mentioned the Shimonoseki moment — that nations possess moral and ethical reserves that allow them to persevere in their very being, a certain spirit of the homeland. The Boxer Rebellion followed the Shimonoseki moment in China. The Venezuelan nation, in some way, will have to demonstrate a reservoir of dignity to reaffirm how it perseveres and asserts its right to self-governance. 

We are perhaps entering the most important crossroads in our republican history, where we will see how the nation rebuilds itself and begins to demand its rights, primarily its right to decide its own destiny. There will be no shortage of reactionaries who advocate for the Venezuelan nation to lose sovereignty over itself as penance for the catastrophic outcome of the political conflict. But there will also be no shortage of republicans and Bolivarian supporters advocating for freedom, sovereignty, equality, virtue, and the general and national-popular interest as a supreme value that we can give ourselves and that we deserve.

Do you think a return to democratic governance is possible in the short or medium term?

The transition to democracy, elections, and so on, is not expected anytime soon by the US. Why? Because Trump made a sound decision — in terms of his own interests — when he realised that Madurismo without Maduro could guarantee much better stability for the protectorate than a government led by Machado or [opposition presidential candidate] Edmundo González could have. They would have had to confront democratic, economic and popular demands that Madurismo has suppressed. 

This is largely the reason for Trump’s decision to have Madurismo lead the initial stages of the protectorate, as it represents the point of least resistance to establish US interests in Venezuela. The transition to patrimonialism seems to have been halted, but crony capitalism — with one of its most important representatives now at the head of the government — is very well positioned for the future. I think we need to pay close attention to this, to see what happens next. For Trump, tribute comes first, while democracy can wait.

I do not see a transition to democracy as the most important thing for the US in the short or medium term. The main thing is to make the protectorate irreversible or at least to make a lot of money, in Trump’s own words. And in this, he seems to agree with the government, which believes that the Venezuelan people must be kept politically captive so they do not vote for the far right. I think other international actors will begin to exert pressure as the months go by for a government with electoral legitimacy, and I think this will be no small matter.

I believe that the Venezuelan nation’s perseverance at this moment hinges on reclaiming our right to self-governance, on establishing a government that defends our national interests. But we must also focus on strengthening the sources of national power, without which, realistically speaking, no nation is viable within the international system. A nation that collapses militarily, as Venezuela did on January 3, is not viable within the international system. Nor is a nation viable when it has collapsed healthcare and education systems, political institutions lacking in any representation or legitimacy, and so on. 

For Trump, Venezuelans will only be able to vote when they are no longer capable of choosing against the US’ interests — that is, when the protectorate is irreversible. But for the Venezuelan people, political participation and electoral expression based on their interests is a vital imperative.

What can the left do internationally to support the struggle of the Venezuelan people?

The first thing the left should understand is that its solidarity must be with the people of Venezuela, not with the Maduro government as it was before, or with the Madurismo without Maduro now. What we in Venezuela are asking for is a political ethic that stands with the Venezuelan people, with those who have truly endured this crisis and will continue to endure it for a long time.

This government ceased representing the deepest and most profound interests of the Venezuelan people a long time ago. Not only does it fail to represent their interests, but, as we see, it has no qualms siding with those who seek to undermine the interests of the peoples of the world. Nicolás Maduro's son had no qualms stating that Venezuela should establish relations with Israel, while Maduro’s actions toward the global left closely resembled those of Machado with the Venezuelan diaspora: emotional exploitation and nothing more.

The Maduro government was a moral and strategic debacle for the left, not only in Latin America but globally. When I say strategic, I mean that Maduro was a champion of defeats who weakened the nation and annihilated the ethical and political strength of the movement he inherited. He reduced it to dust. And when he had to put that movement in historic danger to defend his own power, he did so.

This attack by US imperialism does not prove that Maduro was right, that imperialism was plotting against him, and that imperialism was the cause of all this. Rather, it proves that Maduro was utterly incompetent — I repeat, incompetent — when it came to defending the Venezuelan nation against imperialism. 

What Maduro did was precisely help imperialism do what it wanted to the nation: weaken it militarily, economically, culturally, and institutionally, and above all, weaken its popular forces, the popular sovereignty upon which the nation and its social transformation rests. What we must ask ourselves is: why did an attack like this, obviously against international law, obviously against international rights, give hope to the majority of the Venezuelan people, both inside and outside the country?

Furthermore, Trump found the perfect scapegoat to leverage his interventionist policy toward Latin America. A policy that, as we see, goes against President Petro in Colombia, against President Sheinbaum in Mexico, but above all, against the national sovereignty of those sister Latin American nations. What made this possible? It was the patrimonialist government of Maduro, which a certain section of the international left, which does not consider Venezuelans to be subjects of anything, so loves to defend.

For much of the left, Venezuelans are incapable of even “domestic tyranny,” to use a phrase coined by [Venezuelan liberator] Simón Bolívar. This left absolves the Maduro government of any agency, even that of despotism; the only actor for them in this whole story is imperialism. The problem with much of the global left, especially in the Global North, is that they do not consider Venezuelans — neither the elite nor the people — to be subjects in this story, actors in their own story. 

They do not consider the Maduro government to be a subject, one capable of carrying out its own domestic tyranny, which is precisely what it ended up doing. Because for them, we are merely objects of a history determined by imperialism. The history of imperialism against Venezuela is a convenient narrative for leveraging an “anti-imperialist” domestic policy in their respective countries. The complexities of reality matter little to them.

Even though it seems that we lack the capacity to decide our own destiny right now, I assure you that the Venezuelan nation will be reborn in some way, sooner rather than later, and we will take the reins of our future and our destiny. To rephrase the [Colombian writer and] poet [Gabriel García Márquez]: The peoples condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have a second chance on this earth.