Trump and the Venezuela Model of Compliant Autocracy
On Jan. 3, the United States military captured and extracted the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in a military raid ordered by President Donald Trump. Operation Absolute Resolve, the raid, reiterated Trump’s determination to ensure American dominance in the Western Hemisphere but it also carried an implicit promise: the democratic rebirth of Venezuela.
For 12 years, Maduro presided over the hollowing out of Venezuela as the steward of Chavismo, the hybrid regime forged by Hugo Chavez that wrapped authoritarianism in a democratic disguise. Rooted in a combustible mix of left-wing populism and petro-state largesse, the movement secured loyalty through social programs funded by an oil boom that has long since turned to bust. Chavismo defined itself globally by broadcasting fiery anti-Americanism while courting allies in Havana, Moscow, and Tehran to champion a multipolar world.
Over time, as the political scientist Javier Corrales has argued, the “autocratization by stealth” became overt and systematic: checks and balances were dismantled, state institutions were hollowed out, and the regime consolidated power by subordinating the National Assembly, the judiciary and security forces. The Chavista system suppressed the opposition and dissenting voices and turned the courts and police into instruments for the persecution of political opponents.
President Trump succeeded in removing Maduro, but Chavismo was not replaced by democracy. In an ironic twist, the American president became the regime’s midwife, forcing the old order to mutate and reinvent itself. Washington effectively recycled the regime under the leadership of Delcy Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president and was one of the most consequential operators within his inner circle. She was elevated to the interim presidency in what many interpret as a transactional arrangement between the Trump Administration and the Chavista establishment in Caracas.
Washington has not supported the democratic transition that Venezuelans have spent decades fighting for. American strategy toward Caracas amounts to granting the recycled regime the international legitimacy that Maduro never enjoyed and that Chávez might well have envied. By repeatedly praising Rodríguez for being cooperative and describing her as “terrific,” Trump validates a politician who represents the continuity of a political apparatus stained by corruption and egregious human rights violations. National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, brother of Delcy Rodríguez, has stated that there will be no elections in the near future.
Oil and autocracy in Venezuela
The currency of exchange between America and Venezuela is oil. Washington is formalizing political tutelage that blends energy interests with geostrategic calculation and sending some of its senior-most officials—the Secretary of Energy, the C.I.A. director, and the commander of U.S. forces in Latin America—to Caracas. A reinvented Chavista power structure is operating with the support of its former adversaries. As the U.S. embraces the fraught policy of establishing spheres of influence, Venezuela has become a laboratory for redefining the kind of regimes Washington is willing to legitimize in the name of energy security and geopolitical stability.
Following Maduro’s removal, polls show cautious optimism among Venezuelans, which is a striking contrast to the despair that followed the fraudulent 2024 election. But hope for economic recovery masks a deeper paradox: the demand for genuine democracy remains dangerously unfulfilled. Rodríguez walks on eggshells. Her legitimacy in Caracas is tied to the power structures that existed under Maduro. Her cooperation with Washington reflects strategic calculation and the need to buy time without losing the Chavista base amid geopolitical turbulence. She is both hostage to a game she does not control and a skillful political survivor.
Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world but produces only a fraction of its potential after years of infrastructural collapse and decline in extraction. Rodriguez has quickly secured the passage of a Hydrocarbons Law designed to attract foreign investment and restore oil production. In early March, the Trump Administration pushed for greater access for American companies to mining Venezuela’s critical minerals and gold; Rodriguez obliged by advancing a mining law in the National Assembly, which is expected to be codified into law soon.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has projected a 30% growth in Venezuela’s current oil output of 900,000 barrels per day in the short to medium term—a prize for Washington, which also seeks to pull Venezuela away from the orbit of Cuba, China, Russia, and Iran. Venezuelan crude oil—extra-heavy, sour, and complex to refine—does not present an obvious short-term opportunity, particularly in a well-supplied global market and the U.S. is already a net exporter. Still, America does have a significant advantage: refineries along its Gulf Coast from Texas to Mississippi have been processing Venezuelan crude for decades and are equipped to handle it.
And the disruption in the Persian Gulf, which has placed up to a fifth of global oil supply at risk, has altered the calculus. What once seemed a marginal asset now appears increasingly vital over the medium term. This economic reality is mirrored by diplomatic one. In a sign of normalization and institutional realignment, the U.S. government has recognized Rodríguez as president and reopened its embassy in Caracas, which had been closed since 2019.
No time for democracy in Caracas
The prospects of political reform are bleak. Rodriguez has signed an amnesty law as gesture of reconciliation but, in essence, it shields Chavista officials from accountability. Though hundreds of prisoners have been released, the Rodriguez government simply does not meet the requirements of a democracy: free elections, an independent electoral authority, separation of powers, and guarantees of political rights.
What Trump is testing in Venezuela is a functional authoritarianism: stable, predictable, and strategically aligned with American energy and geopolitical interests. Washington’s business-first approach offers material order in exchange for indefinitely postponing democratic aspirations. Stability without democracy is a replicable model that could normalize the management of useful authoritarian governments worldwide.
Time and again, the Venezuelan opposition has converted popular fury into political momentum, only to watch Chavismo regroup, survive, and consolidate. In the run up to the 2024 election in Venezuela, the opposition leader María Corina Machado, a conservative, built a massive social movement uniting millions and backed Edmundo González, a diplomat, as a presidential candidate. The Biden Administration recognized González as the winner, but Maduro stole the election.
The Trump Administration has sidelined González’s team in Madrid and Machado’s network in Washington from the new arrangements, even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently spoke of an eventual transition to democracy. Inside Venezuela, opposition leaders recently released from prison are starting to operate. Many are quietly regrouping, demanding an end to repression, a renewed electoral authority, and transparency in oil dealings with Washington.
Machado has repeatedly promised to return to Venezuela. She carries the popular legitimacy the new order seeks to suppress indefinitely. Her return to Venezuela would be combustible—Rodríguez has already threatened reprisals—but potentially transformative. Democracy will return to Venezuela only if those who embody it choose to contest power where it is actually exercised: inside the country, and before normalization hardens into an irreversible precedent. She herself is her own trump card.
What is truly at stake is the future of freedom in Venezuela and beyond. A stable, functional authoritarianism calibrated to serve American energy and geostrategic interests could be emerging as an acceptable model of governance. The attack on Iran and its consequences for the oil market make Venezuela’s geopolitical importance even clearer. The Rodríguez siblings have become central to a larger geopolitical calculus, while Trump’s support for opposition figures like Machado remains an open question.
Venezuela after Maduro is a template that could be exported across the globe, allowing Washington to oversee compliant authoritarian regimes while ignoring the erosion of democracy.