U.S. President Donald Trump continues to befuddle observers around the world by refusing to conform to the usual “hawk” vs. “dove” binary. Not content with seeking peace in Ukraine this week, he’s also apparently seriously considering overthrowing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and engaging in regime change in Venezuela. As much as a third of the U.S. Navy is now stationed in the Caribbean, and there are rumors that U.S. Southern Command—the command responsible for all of Latin America—is preemptively canceling leave for troops over the holiday period.
The signals may be suggesting imminent action, though what form U.S. action against the Maduro regime would take is not entirely clear. Trump certainly could use the major military assets now stationed in the Caribbean to overthrow Maduro—or rely instead on covert action by the CIA, which Trump has authorized to conduct operations in the country. Regardless of which tool is used, however, regime change in Venezuela is a disaster waiting to happen, one that won’t achieve the president’s goals—and risks alienating a sizable chunk of his base.
U.S. President Donald Trump continues to befuddle observers around the world by refusing to conform to the usual “hawk” vs. “dove” binary. Not content with seeking peace in Ukraine this week, he’s also apparently seriously considering overthrowing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and engaging in regime change in Venezuela. As much as a third of the U.S. Navy is now stationed in the Caribbean, and there are rumors that U.S. Southern Command—the command responsible for all of Latin America—is preemptively canceling leave for troops over the holiday period.
The signals may be suggesting imminent action, though what form U.S. action against the Maduro regime would take is not entirely clear. Trump certainly could use the major military assets now stationed in the Caribbean to overthrow Maduro—or rely instead on covert action by the CIA, which Trump has authorized to conduct operations in the country. Regardless of which tool is used, however, regime change in Venezuela is a disaster waiting to happen, one that won’t achieve the president’s goals—and risks alienating a sizable chunk of his base.
Though public support for regime change in Venezuela may be polling at only 17 percent, you wouldn’t get that impression from major publications’ opinion pages. There, Trump’s threats of regime change are being cheered effusively.
Writing in the New York TimesBret Stephens, for example, argued that Maduro’s regime is an “importer and exporter of instability” given its ties with China, Russia, and Iran, as well as the major refugee flows that have originated in Venezuela. Foreign Policy contributor Matthew Kroenig likewise highlighted Venezuela’s ties with American adversaries, urging regime change to curb Venezuelan drug trafficking and migration. The prospect of a little regime change even seems to have brought some of Trump’s biggest critics out of the woodwork: John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor and current foe, wrote an opinion piece offering the president a strategy for doing regime change in Venezuela right.
The pundits’ arguments for action against Venezuela mirror the reasons given by the Trump administration: drugs, migration, and Venezuela’s ties with nefarious regimes in Russia, China, and Iran. They also sound a lot like the cases for regime change that have been made in prior such debates. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, the prospect of ousting an unpopular, incompetent, or unsavory leader—all of whom are usually hostile to the United States—was tantalizing. And few can argue that the world is a worse place with Saddam Hussein or Muammar al-Qaddafi dead.
But as we learned in those cases, the reality is that regime change is unpredictable; even well-intentioned and morally upright regime change can lead to costly blowback for the United States. In Iraq, where the case was made that the United States needed to intervene to stop a dangerous leader, regime change led to a deadly sectarian war, terrorism, and regional instability. In Afghanistan, U.S.-led regime change did not curb opium production—and the Taliban ultimately returned to power. And in Libya, where advocates for regime change argued it was necessary to stop genocide and promote regional stability, the resulting instability led to thousands of deaths and a flood of migration into Europe.
Many of the proponents of these wars might argue it was worth it anyway, given the importance of opposing dictators and spreading democracy. But such arguments make little sense in the context of a Trump presidency; the president has spoken witheringly of neoconservatives and has built his entire foreign policy around the notion of concrete American interests, rather than values. It’s particularly vexing, therefore, that he seems to buy the argument that regime change in Venezuela would be good for U.S. interests in Latin America, when the exact opposite is true.
To put it bluntly: Regime change in Venezuela is a risky prospect that offers no guarantee of stability, reduced migration flows, or control over drug flows.
Proponents of regime change like Stephens or Kroenig tend to argue that Maduro is unpopular, and that clear alternatives are standing in the wings to be easily installed. Instead, intervention tends to scramble politics in ways that policymakers cannot predict or control. Research on decades of foreign-imposed regime change operations also suggests that a government installed by the United States is likely to be seen by Venezuelans as foreign-backed, increasing the likelihood of coups or state collapse, with the new government’s failures seen as the result of external meddling in sovereign affairs. Venezuela, with its large, powerful officer corps, is likely to be particularly susceptible to the former. Over the entire history of U.S. attempted regime changes using covert action, Alexander B. Downes and Lindsey A. O’Rourke wrote in Foreign Affairs“not one of these operations produced a stable, pro-American democracy.”
The consequences for botched regime change in Venezuela could be higher than even Iraq or Afghanistan because of Venezuela’s proximity to the United States. Though it’s true that Venezuela is already a source of instability for the United States—nearly 8 million Venezuelans have already fled the country due to its failing economy and repression—major conflict could worsen these dynamics, straining neighboring countries and leading to additional migrants trying to reach the United States. Instability in Venezuela could also increase its role as a drug transit huband could lead to the government turning further to drug production for financing.
U.S. intervention that destabilizes Venezuela could also be a gift to the U.S. adversaries that worry so many pro-regime-change voices. The optics of a blatant U.S.-led intervention would reinforce Chinese messaging that paints the United States as a destabilizing and reckless power. Any new government in Caracas, meanwhile, is liable to seek Chinese development and security aid. This is particularly likely if the Trump administration, as it has in other cases, has no plan to provide resources in the aftermath of a successful military or covert action in Venezuela. This leaves China as the most likely source of rapid development aid and trade ties for any new government.
Much of the debate surrounding Venezuela has, to this point, focused on the feasibility—and the aftermath—of overthrowing Maduro, but it has not focused on the more fundamental question of U.S. interests. Trump’s base is notably skeptical of regime change wars after Iraq, and candidate Trump set himself apart from other candidates by arguing against costly foreign interventions and ideological wars. U.S. entanglement in Venezuela threatens to exacerbate major issues for his base—migration and drug smuggling—without providing any clear deliverable. Removing Maduro does nothing to advance the economic issues or concerns over foreign commitments that have animated Trump supporters.
Ironically, perhaps the easiest way to address the issues that Trump’s base cares most about is engagement and negotiation with the regime in Caracas. This was the administration’s original approach to the crisis, with special envoy Ric Grenell reportedly negotiating directly with the Maduro regime on questions of oil exports, sanctions, drugs, and migration. Indeed, throughout this crisis, the Venezuelan government has continued to accept deportation flights from the United States at the request of the Trump administration.
Yet the negotiation approach was jettisoned by the administration, sidelining Grenell in favor of a more hard-line insistence that Maduro must go. This push has been spearheaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long been a hawk on Latin America and on Cuba and Venezuela in particular. There is little evidence that Grenell’s negotiations were failing to work; the deportation flights were agreed, and a deal on resources was reportedly forthcoming. Instead, for Rubio and his allies among Washington’s neoconservatives, painting their long-running arguments to overthrow Maduro in “America First” terms is an easy way to achieve the regime change that they’ve long sought in the region.
But if Trump wants his MAGA base to continue to see him as a peacemaker and master dealmaker, attacking Venezuela is the wrong way to go. Nor is unleashing a wave of new migration and instability from Latin America likely to be popular with those who elected the president.
Trump was right about regime change in 2016 when he ran for president and denounced the war in Iraq. He was right about regime change this year, when he refused to overthrow the government in Iran. He should stick to his guns on Venezuela, resist regime change, and avoid the counsel of hawks with an already-calamitous record on the outcomes of regime change.
