In December 1823, President James Monroe declared in his State of the Union address that “the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European powers”, setting out a vision of US dominance over the New World.

Now, President Trump has revived the so-called Monroe Doctrine to justify his aggressive foreign policy in the Americas

Why was the Monroe Doctrine established?

In the years before Monroe’s address, Spain’s vast empire in the Americas had collapsed. Venezuela, Mexico and around a dozen other former colonies had won independence and opened their once-closed ports to American and British trade.

Rumours were circulating that Spain might try to reconquer its New World possessions, while Russia claimed control of the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Oregon. Monroe’s statement was, at the time, quite limited: he said that the US would “not interfere” with existing colonies (Britain and Spain’s Caribbean territories; and Russia’s in Alaska, which lasted until 1867).

Did other countries take Monroe’s warning seriously?

Not initially. The young US was not yet a major military power, making the policy more of an aspiration than a declaration of intent; it was not known as the “Monroe Doctrine” until the 1850s. And it did not, for instance, stop the French from invading Mexico and installing a puppet monarch, the Austria-born Maximilian I, in 1864, while the US was distracted by the American Civil War. It was only as the century came to an end that America started to meaningfully enforce and broaden the doctrine, during what became the nation’s only period of out-and-out imperial expansion beyond the continental United States.

How did US policy change?

The Monroe Doctrine was invoked during the 1898 Spanish-American War, when the US helped liberate Cuba from Spanish rule – and also took direct control of Madrid’s former possessions of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (which the US held until 1946). In that year, the US also annexed Hawaii.

Emboldened, President Theodore Roosevelt would radically expand the doctrine after taking office in 1901. When British, German and Italian gunboats blockaded Venezuelan ports in 1902 to collect debts, he told the Europeans to strike a deal quickly with the dictatorship in Caracas or see a US fleet dispatched against their ships. The Europeans complied. In 1904, he laid out what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The US, he said, must act as “an international police power” to keep America’s backyard “stable, orderly, and prosperous”. A period of extensive interventionism followed.

What did that entail?

Between 1903 and 1934, US marines were deployed to half a dozen countries in the Western hemisphere. These included Honduras, where troops were sent seven times to quell revolutions; Nicaragua, which was occupied near-continuously from 1912 to 1933; the Dominican Republic, which US forces occupied in 1916; and Haiti, which the US controlled between 1915 and 1934.

Nicolás Maduro joins a long list of Latin American and Caribbean leaders who have been dislodged by the US, from Nicaraguan president José Santos Zelaya, in 1909, to Hudson Austin, who led a Soviet-backed coup in Grenada in 1983. The great exception, of course, is Cuba’s Fidel Castro, who resisted not only the Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) but a series of attempts on his life.

Why did such interventions happen?

Their goals were to protect sea routes – including the new US-owned Panama Canal, completed in 1914 – and the interests of US companies such as United Fruit, which controlled the trade in bananas and other tropical fruits. A powerhouse in Washington, the company backed coups against elected leaders and the installation of accommodating puppet governments (hence “banana republics”).

These occupations became military quagmires, in which hundreds of US soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians were killed. The “Banana Wars” became very unpopular in the US; and in 1933, the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, put an end to them with his Good Neighbour Policy, which stressed regional cooperation over military force.

Did FDR’s policy last?

It did in the sense that the US became, in theory, anti-imperialist again. But in the Cold War, the Monroe Doctrine was invoked to combat the spread of Soviet-style communism across Latin America. In 1954, shortly after CIA-backed insurgents toppled a Leftist government in Guatemala, the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, said the “intrusion of Soviet despotism” there was “a direct challenge to our Monroe Doctrine, the first and most fundamental of our foreign policies”.

Over the following decades, the US covertly supported the overthrow of left-wing governments in Brazil (1964), Bolivia (1971), Chile (1973) and Nicaragua (the 1980s), among others. The historian John Coatsworth has detailed 41 interventions between 1898 and 1994, 17 direct and 24 indirect. In many of these cases (notably Guatemala and Chile), the US was implicated in atrocities: mass extrajudicial killings and forced “disappearances”.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, such interventions fell out of favour; in 2013, the then-secretary of state, John Kerry, won applause when he told an audience of Latin American officials, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”

How has President Trump resurrected the doctrine?

Trump keeps a portrait of Monroe in the Oval Office, and his administration’s recent National Security Strategy laid out a “Trump Corollary” to the doctrine, known as the “Donroe Doctrine”. The US, it states, will keep the Western hemisphere “reasonably stable and well-governed”, and will insist that governments cooperate to combat mass migration, drug trafficking and “hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets”.

It soon followed through with the removal of Maduro – whom it accused of drug trafficking and hosting “foreign adversaries”. Trump later asserted that the US would “run” Venezuela. He has also threatened to use military force in Mexico and Colombia, to “take back” control of the Panama Canal, and to annex Greenland. The Monroe Doctrine “was very important, but we forgot about it”, Trump said last month. “We don’t forget about it any more.”

President Trump finally has his Nobel Peace Prize, said Brian Bennett in Time—“sort of.” Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado visited the White House on Jan. 15 and gifted him the 18-karat gold medal she won in November for her brave defiance of Nicolás Maduro’s brutal autocratic regime. Speaking to reporters, Machado said she told Trump that he deserved the medal for his “unique commitment” to Venezuelan freedom and likened him to George Washington. Let’s be clear what happened here, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review: Trump “extorted the medal from its rightful owner and then posed with it as a trophy.” He made it abundantly clear before last year’s Nobel Committee announcement that he’d be peeved if he didn’t get the Peace Prize. And after the U.S. captured Maduro this month, White House insiders said the only reason he didn’t name Machado as Venezuela’s interim president was that she had committed the “ultimate sin” of accepting the Nobel. To secure U.S. support for a true democratic transition in Venezuela, Machado likely thought she had no choice but to hand “our impossibly small-souled president” a prize he did not win or deserve.

Trump’s “unquenchable thirst” for adulation and awards is deeply amusing, said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. It’s also deeply disturbing. We have a president who is making world-changing decisions based not on America’s best interests but whether or not he thinks he’s been sufficiently flattered. A failure to kiss the ring can be cataclysmic. This week, he blamed his threat to conquer Greenland on the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s failure to recognize his supposed contributions to world peace. “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS,” he wrote to Norway’s prime minister, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

But sucking up to Trump doesn’t necessarily deliver results, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. Having handed over her Peace Prize, Machado now has nothing else to give a president who always wants more. Meanwhile, Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s former vice president and now the U.S.-approved interim president of Venezuela—can supply Trump with “a steady stream of income,” which is why he’s likely to stick with her. Machado made a mistake in thinking that she could defeat autocracy at home by providing “cover and legitimacy” to an aspiring autocrat here in the U.S. But anyone who “bows and scrapes” before Trump “spits in the face of Americans being beaten in the streets of Minneapolis. And makes our attempt to save American democracy a tiny bit harder.”

It took US forces less than two-and-a-half hours to snatch President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the small hours of last Saturday morning, said Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian.

But this “extraordinary display of imperial power” – involving 150 US aircraft, including bombers and fighter jets – was the product of months of planning.

‘He got bum rushed so fast’

According to Gen Dan “Raizin” Caine, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, US intelligence agencies had been working since August to establish Maduro’s “pattern of life”. Using spy drones, and information from one or more agents within the Venezuelan government, they’d discovered “where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets”.

As the US steadily built up its military presence in the Caribbean from August – the deployment ultimately included up to a quarter of all the US navy’s warships – Maduro knew he was in danger. He tightened up his security, stopped trailing his public appearances, and slept in different places; yet the US still managed to achieve “tactical surprise”.

The Trump administration had hoped that its show of force in the Caribbean would persuade Maduro to stand down; and it seems that, late last month, he was offered a “gilded exile” in Turkey, said The New York Times. Yet he rejected that, and was then seen dancing at rallies – a public display of nonchalance that apparently incensed the White House, and prompted Trump to give the order for Operation Absolute Resolve to proceed.

Shortly after 2am on Saturday, residents of Caracas were woken by the sound of huge explosions, as US aircraft disabled Venezuelan air defences; the lights went out across the city (“Due to a certain expertise that we have,” Trump would boast later); and a convoy of helicopters then swooped over the capital, carrying Delta Force commandos to the Maduros’ fortified compound. As they stormed in, Maduro made it to a safe room, but – said Trump – “he got bum rushed so fast” he didn’t have time to close its steel door. A number of US troops suffered bullet and shrapnel wounds; according to Havana, 32 members of Maduro’s Cuban security detail were killed. By 4.20am, the couple had been dragged into a helicopter, and were being flown across the ocean, to the warship USS Iwo Jima.

The raid evoked memories of the US assault on Panama in 1989, when George H.W. Bush sent in troops to capture another Latin American leader accused of drug-related offences in the US, said The Economist. But that was a "full-fledged invasion, involving more than 27,000 troops”. It was directed at a far smaller country, with a far smaller army – and it was far less impressive. Having initially evaded capture, Manuel Noriega took refuge in the Vatican’s embassy: the US had to flush him out by blasting rock music at it. The apparent ease with which US forces entered Caracas backs Trump’s boast that this was one of the most “stunning” displays of American might in history – and that “no [other] nation in the world” could have achieved it.

‘Maduro regime was loathed and feared’

It’s being described as the fastest regime change in history, but at the same time, Maduro’s downfall has been a long time coming, said Simeon Tegel in The Daily Telegraph. The sorry state of Venezuela today owes much to his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, the leader of the socialist “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela. He set in train the collapse of the once-prosperous country by, among other things, nationalising swathes of businesses and relying far too heavily on revenues from oil exports; but his redistributive policies and anti-imperialist posturing ensured that he remained popular with many. So when he anointed the unswervingly loyal Maduro as his heir, shortly before his death from cancer in 2013, it did much to ensure the former bus driver’s succession.

Yet Maduro lacked Chávez’s charisma and his popular support; and under his hapless tenure, the crisis accelerated, said Michael Day in The Independent. The oil price crashed and social programmes were dismantled. Price controls led to dire shortages of food and medicines. Businesses closed and oil production plummeted, owing to lack of investment and lucrative jobs being handed to Maduro’s cronies. Inflation reached 344,509% in 2019. With US sanctions exacerbating the problem, GDP shrunk 80% from 2013 to 2025. Eight million people – about a quarter of the population – emigrated.

Maduro, however, held on to power, by rigging elections; allowing business leaders, senior army officers and judges “to engage in highly profitable graft” in return for their support; and brutally suppressing dissent. In this, said Colette Capriles in The New York Times, he was also aided by the intelligence services, paramilitary groups called “colectivos” and regional bosses vying for kickbacks. And that is the problem. The Maduro regime was loathed and feared. But the corrupt networks that sustained it can’t be dismantled overnight, and while they’re in place, the path to a better future for Venezuela will not be clear.

I never thought I’d feel nostalgia for the Iraq War, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. But it turns out that the runup to that conflict, when America did at least strive to convince the world of the righteousness of its cause, was the “good old days”.

There was no such effort to legitimise the US strike on Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro. Nobody sought consent from any international body or Congress. And while a flimsy legal case was made for the coup – a court charged Maduro this week with, inter alia, “narco-terrorism conspiracy” and possession of machine guns – the Trump administration’s predatory objectives were transparent.

The US will “run” Venezuela, said Trump; US oil companies will “go in” and take “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground”.

‘Gunboat diplomacy’

There’s no disguising the truth about this operation, said Thomas Fazi in The Daily Telegraph: it was a “completely unprovoked and blatantly illegal act of aggression against a country that posed no real threat to the United States”. And Trump is threatening to carry out more such acts of “military adventurism”, said Edward Luce in the FT. He has advertised designs on Panama, Canada and Greenland. On Saturday, he claimed that “something is going to have to be done with Mexico”, lamenting the power of its drug cartels, and warned Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s left-wing president, to “watch his ass”. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the “incompetent and senile men” running Cuba should be “a little worried”.

Trump has talked of reasserting the 19th century Monroe Doctrine (which he has facetiously recast as “the Donroe doctrine”) to restore US pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, said Patrick Cockburn in The i Paper. It seems America is returning to the days of “gunboat diplomacy”.

The truth is that it never really left them, said Trevor Phillips in The Times. From Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada to George Bush Sr’s seizure of the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, there’s nothing new about Washington wielding force in Latin America. “The first rule of the rules-based order is that America makes the rules, and it makes them to suit America.”

The only difference is that Trump is open about it. Power, not “international law”, is the ultimate guarantor of security, said The Wall Street Journal. Last weekend’s display of “US nerve and military prowess will do more than a thousand UN resolutions to protect the free world and make Russia, China and Iran think twice”.

The Caracas raid was primarily about China, said Doug Stokes in The Spectator. Beijing has been quietly increasing its presence in Latin America and the Caribbean: in 2024, its trade with the region hit a “staggering” $515bn. Maduro’s capture was less about securing oil than about stopping Beijing from “establishing a forward operating base in the Americas”.

US is a ‘regional bully’

“No autocrat likes to see one of their own seized, shackled and renditioned,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Daily Telegraph. But China and Russia won’t be that upset about the ousting of their ally Maduro. The lesson they’ll draw from this episode is that the US is withdrawing from a global role in pursuit of regional hegemony. A world carved up into “spheres of influence” – within which powerful states and strongman rulers can do what they like – would suit Moscow and Beijing just fine, agreed Gideon Rachman in the FT.

Indeed, back in 2019, Trump’s former Russia adviser Fiona Hill told Congress that the Russians had been, in her words, “signalling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap agreement between Venezuela and Ukraine”. America’s rivals will also be delighted by Trump’s flouting of international law, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. The US may not always have lived up to its high ideals, but by disregarding them entirely, Trump has “recklessly sacrificed America’s moral leadership”.

And all for what, asked Mary Dejevsky in The Independent. If Venezuela is successfully restored to a functioning democracy, Trump will be able to claim victory. But if, as is all too likely, the situation descends into chaos, he’ll be “very vulnerable”. After all, he promised to extract the US from intractable conflicts, not start new ones. Venezuelans won’t want to “live in a Trump-backed dictatorship staffed with Maduro cronies”, said Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. Nor will most Americans want to see their military being used to fight on behalf of oil interests. If the US becomes just a “regional bully”, it will alienate friends and foes alike, eventually leaving it “with no sphere, and no influence, at all”.

On Jan. 3, 2026, President Donald Trump authorized an attack on Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his rendition to New York. Once there, he and his wife, Cilia Flores, were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism.

While the episode was a departure from more recent, comparatively hands-off American policy in the region, it was very much aligned with a long post-World War II history of U.S. interventions designed to change unfriendly regimes into friendly ones. In addition to direct military interventions, the CIA supported numerous coups across the region during the Cold War.

Guatemala, 1954

The first major post-World War II intervention was in Guatemala. “Using psychological warfare, propaganda and economic pressure, the CIA helped create a rebel army that toppled the Guatemalan government” of Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, said Responsible Statecraft. The leader’s land reforms had been “met with fierce opposition from Guatemala's elite and the U.S. government, which had economic interests” tied to the United Fruit Company. As a ploy for stability, it didn’t work — Guatemala suffered through a 36-year civil war that began in 1960 and experienced multiple coups.

Cuba, 1961

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized a covert program to train 1,400 Cuban exiles in Guatemala to invade and topple the still-young communist regime of Fidel Castro. A series of strategic errors, including the failure to keep the plans a secret along with a misappraisal of the Castro government’s military capabilities, led to an embarrassing disaster.

The exile force landed at the Bay of Pigs on the morning of April 17 and was immediately pinned down. More than 100 were killed and Kennedy was forced to bargain for the more than 1,200 survivors who were taken prisoner. A “major embarrassment for the United States and the Kennedy administration,” the Bay of Pigs fiasco “strengthened Castro’s power in Cuba and pushed him to pursue closer relations with the Soviet Union,” said The New York Times.

Brazil, 1964

In 1964, the U.S. threw its support behind a military coup to oust Brazilian President João Goulart. The U.S. “launched Operation Brother Sam, a plan to lend logistical support to the Brazilian military’s effort to take control of the Brazilian government,” said the Library of Congress, although “additional material support proved unnecessary” to complete the coup. The military would rule for the next 21 years as a close Cold War ally of the United States before a transition to democracy took place in 1985.

The Dominican Republic, 1965

In 1963, the U.S. had backed a coup against the democratically elected leftist government of Juan Bosch. In 1965, pro-Bosch military forces launched their own rebellion against the junta and the country was plunged into civil war. Under the pretext of protecting American citizens and preventing the emergence of another Castro-like regime, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the deployment of 42,000 Marines to the capital of Santo Domingo on April 28, 1965, where they collaborated with forces loyal to the junta and quickly defeated the rebels.

The following year, Bosch was defeated at the ballot box by junta-backed former president Joaquín Balaguer. During 12 years of “harsh rule” under Balaguer, “democracy was trampled, corruption ran rampant and social reform was denied,” said The Wilson Center.

Bolivia, 1971

While much less well-known than the 1973 coup in Chile, the CIA also provided support in 1971 to oust the leftist government of President Juan José Torres in Bolivia. Torres was replaced by a lengthy military dictatorship led by Hugo Banzer, during which “more than 14,000 Boli­vians were arrested with­out a judi­cial order, more than 8,000 were tortured — with elec­tric­ity, water, beatings — and more than 200 were exe­cuted or dis­ap­peared,” said Harper’s Magazine. The country remains politically troubled today.

Chile, 1973

The CIA backed the ouster of the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. While the agency had a more prominent role in a failed 1970 coup attempt ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon, the 1973 coup is widely considered one of the worst offenses of American foreign policymakers during the Cold War. Allende committed suicide that year when it was clear the coup had succeeded. His successor, General Augusto Pinochet, ruled with an iron fist for 17 years, leaving behind a trail of “40,175 victims, including torture, executions, detentions and disappearances,” said Amnesty International.

Nicaragua, 1979

A socialist government led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front took power in Nicaragua in 1979, and the recently inaugurated administration of Ronald Reagan wanted to overthrow the government as part of its Cold War policy of “rollback” against communist regimes. Reagan “approved an operation in which the CIA would aid Nicaraguan rebel insurgents — who were fighting the newly established socialist Sandinista government — with the goal of preventing the spread of Communism,” said The Miller Center. Because Congress refused to allocate money for Reagan’s Nicaragua venture, the campaign also led to the Iran-Contra scandal when the U.S. sold weapons to Iran and used the proceeds to back the Contras.

Grenada, 1983

The long shadow of the Bay of Pigs could be seen in the U.S. invasion of the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, with a population of less than 100,000 people, in 1983. A socialist government had seized power in a bloodless coup in 1979, led by Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Fearing a growing alliance with Castro’s Cuba and fixated on Bishop’s plans to build an international airport capable of accommodating Soviet aircraft, President Ronald Reagan planned for an invasion and finally got his opportunity when military hardliners deposed and later executed Bishop. On Oct. 25, 1983, Reagan dispatched a small combined military force to overthrow the regime. The intervention was “popular within the United States, serving as proof of concept that Reagan was a tough anti-Communist,” said The National Interest.

Panama, 1989

Before the Persian Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush authorized an invasion of Panama to topple the country’s de facto dictator, General Manuel Noriega. It was a dizzying turn of events, given that Noriega was only recently considered a reliable Cold War ally and CIA informant who had provided intelligence to the U.S. about leftist movements for decades. But his deepening involvement with Colombia’s Medellín Cartel and increasingly authoritarian rule triggered a crisis that Bush resolved with a swift invasion that began on Dec. 20, 1989, and concluded with Noriega’s surrender to U.S. forces just two weeks later. His overthrow was a “decisive assertion of U.S. military force for a new American president in a moment of global tumult,” said The New Yorker.

Haiti, 1994

In 1991, the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown in a military coup. The resulting military junta compiled a horrific human rights record and instigated a mass migration of Haitians to the United States, which became a campaign issue in the 1992 presidential election. The new administration of Bill Clinton began preparing to overthrow the junta. Ultimately, the U.S. did not have to fire any shots. With “American planes in the air” carrying 3,900 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the “generals buckled and agreed to leave” on Sept. 16, 1994. U.S. forces ended up facilitating the transfer of power back to Aristide rather than fighting the Haitian military. The intervention “has been all but forgotten by many Americans,” but may have been a “key contributor to many of the problems that now endure in Haiti,” said Time.

What happened

President Donald Trump said on social media Tuesday that Venezuela “will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels” of “Sanctioned Oil” to the U.S. “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me” to “ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” he wrote. At current market prices, the oil would be worth as much as $2.8 billion.

Who said what

If Trump’s assertion is “confirmed, it would be the first significant concession by Venezuela’s new leaders since U.S. forces seized” President Nicolás Maduro last weekend, The New York Times said. It was a “strong sign that the Venezuelan government is responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to U.S. oil companies or risk more military intervention,” Reuters said. Venezuela did not comment on Trump’s post.

Despite having the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela “only produces on average about one million barrels” per day, The Associated Press said. The U.S. “goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply.”

What next?

Trump “intends to meet representatives of the three largest U.S. oil companies” — Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips — at the White House on Friday to “discuss making significant investments in Venezuela’s oil sector,” The Wall Street Journal said. He told NBC News on Monday the U.S. oil industry would be “up and running” in Venezuela within 18 months, and the U.S. government might reimburse their “tremendous” expenditures.

“I’m a president and prisoner of war,” Nicolás Maduro shouted as he was led away from a New York courtroom in tears on Monday.

It was a remarkable fall from grace for the former Venezuelan leader, who was sensationally captured by US special forces and whisked out of the country along with his wife, Cilia Flores, to face drug trafficking and weapons charges in the US.

The US operation in Caracas “put an end to Maduro’s contentious 12-year rule, which saw Venezuela lose millions of inhabitants, 72% of its economy, democratic legitimacy in the eyes of much of the world, and many of its most important international allies”, said Inés Capdevila on CNN.

Humble roots

Born in 1962 in Caracas to a working-class family, Maduro began his career working as a bus driver for Caracas Metrobus, serving the capital city.

A member of the Socialist League since his student days, he was an up-and-coming union leader when he met his future wife, Flores, in the 1990s. Later the first woman to lead the National Assembly, she would come to be seen by many as the real “power behind the throne”, Carmen Arteaga, PhD in political science and professor at Simón Bolívar University, told CNN.

Maduro’s union activities also brought him into contact with the man who would become his political mentor: Hugo Chávez. When Chávez took office in 1998, Maduro’s “loyalty, political skill and ideological commitment led to a rapid rise through the ranks of Venezuela’s ruling party”, said Jason Burke in The Guardian. After six years in the National Assembly, Maduro was made foreign minister, before becoming vice-president six years later.

In government he was a “good second, always obedient”, Ronal Rodríguez, researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario, told CNN. “Always an underestimated leader”, Maduro emerged from a pool of possible successors when Chávez fell ill with cancer. “None achieved what he did: on one hand, Cuban support, and on the other, distributing power within chavismo”, the regime’s programme of nationalisation and social welfare. A month after Chávez’s death in 2013, Maduro narrowly won the presidential election to secure his first six-year mandate, despite lacking the charisma of his political idol.

From president to ‘narco-terrorist’

Almost immediately, Maduro’s presidency was “plunged into crisis”, said The Guardian. In a sign of the repressive tactics to come, security forces brutally cracked down on opposition protests led by the now-Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado, killing 42.

Having survived an assassination attempt in 2018, Maduro ran nearly unopposed in the presidential election that year after opposition parties were blocked from the ballot and some opposition figures were either imprisoned or fled into exile.

Along with allegations of rigged elections and human rights abuses, under Maduro’s leadership, Venezuela experienced a “severe economic collapse marked by hyperinflation and shortages”, said Modern Diplomacy. Amid the chaos, millions of Venezuelans left the country, sparking a refugee crisis across Latin America that exists to this day.

Hopes that economic reforms aimed at boosting the struggling economy and ending US-led sanctions and an oil embargo would lead to greater political freedoms and free elections were dashed in 2024 after a presidential election that was widely denounced as fraudulent.

Widely mocked – for his working-class roots, his belief that Chávez appeared to him in the form of a bird and a butterfly, and his presidential order bringing Christmas forward by two months to “lift the spirits of Venezuelans” – Maduro had nevertheless “proven for years that underestimating him can be a mistake”, said Capdevila on CNN.

That was until Saturday morning when he and his wife were dragged from their bedroom by US soldiers and put on a plane leaving Venezuela, most likely for the last time, with his second-in-command Delcy Rodríguez now in charge.

After President Donald Trump made global shockwaves by capturing and extraditing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, thoughts inevitably turned to Maduro’s successor. That role quickly landed at the feet of Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, who’s currently serving as Venezuela’s interim president in the wake of the country’s power vacuum. She has been a mainstay in Venezuelan politics, but her role as Venezuela’s de facto leader could prove significantly more challenging.

Rodríguez’s beginnings

Rodríguez, 56, was born in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas alongside her brother, who has served as the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly since 2021. Rodríguez and her family have “sterling leftist credentials,” said The Associated Press. Her father, who heavily influenced her career, helped found the Socialist League, a militant far-left Marxist party, in the 1970s.

She was an attorney before entering politics and then “began her political career in 2003, during the reign of former President Hugo Chávez,” said Time. Under Chávez, who served as president from 1999 until 2013, Rodríguez climbed the ranks and “served in many roles, including as vice-minister for European affairs and general coordinator to the vice president of Venezuela.” When the authoritarian Maduro took over in 2013, he “appointed Rodríguez as minister of communication” before appointing her vice president in 2018.

In 2017, Maduro praised Rodríguez, saying she had “defended Venezuelan sovereignty, peace and independence like a tiger,” according to Reuters. But like Maduro himself, who was reelected several times following contested elections, Rodríguez has “faced sanctions from several countries and is currently banned from neighboring Colombia,” said Time. The United States, Canada, Switzerland and the European Union have all sanctioned Rodríguez for her “role in undermining Venezuelan democracy,” said the AP.

‘A deeply uncertain future’

As interim president, Rodríguez will likely face an uphill battle, given that the majority of the Western world, including the U.S., did not recognize the Maduro administration as legitimate. Despite this, Rodríguez has “been backed thus far as the nation's new leader by Venezuela's military,” said CBS News. Following Maduro’s capture, Rodríguez lambasted the Trump administration, saying that Maduro was Venezuela’s “only president” and that the military operation had “Zionist undertones.”

Soon after this, though, Rodríguez seemed to change her tone, saying she was “moving toward balanced and respectful international relations between the United States and Venezuela” in a social media post. But Trump maintains that the United States will run Venezuela’s government in Maduro’s absence, though it is “not clear how the U.S. expects to be in charge of Venezuela,” said NPR. The U.S. has not had a diplomatic embassy in Venezuela since 2019, and despite Trump’s wishes, his “administration may have limited influence on what happens inside the country.”

This will likely leave the happenings in Venezuela to Rodríguez, and the “country’s roughly 30 million people face a deeply uncertain future in the wake of President Trump’s actions,” said CBS. It remains unclear “how much autonomy Washington will allow the country,” though Rodríguez and Trump have reportedly been in contact, with Trump pushing for pro-U.S. policies. If Rodríguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump said to The Atlantic, though he did not elaborate on this threat.

What happened

Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro Monday pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy in a Manhattan courtroom, striking a defiant tone in his first public appearance since the Trump administration seized him and his wife from Caracas in a U.S. military raid. His wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty.

Maduro told the court through a translator that he was “kidnapped” and is a “decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” He called himself a “prisoner of war” while leaving the courtroom.

Who said what

Maduro’s brief arraignment “kicked off a nearly unprecedented legal battle” over trying a foreign head of state in an American court, said The Wall Street Journal. Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, told the court he planned to contest the legality of the “military abduction” of a “head of a sovereign state.” But “Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990,” The Associated Press said.

As “Maduro declared his innocence in New York,” his former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was being sworn in as interim president and “moving to consolidate power,” The Washington Post said. Trump and his aides have “offered mixed signals” on what they think “lies ahead for Venezuela,” but “much of the leftist power structure that rules Venezuela appeared to be publicly backing Rodríguez.”

What next?

Maduro’s next court hearing is scheduled for March 17. If federal prosecutors can prove “to the satisfaction of a New York jury” that he helped funnel cocaine to the U.S., “Maduro will be convicted,” the Post said in an editorial. But “just five weeks ago, Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras” for similar cocaine trafficking crimes, and “it wouldn’t be surprising if Trump eventually cuts a deal with Maduro to cut short what promises to be a protracted U.S. legal process.”

After months of saber-rattling and increasingly violent maritime operations, the Trump administration’s surprise invasion of Venezuela and seizure of President Nicolás Maduro have pushed both nations toward two very different types of national crises. As the U.S. grapples with the implications of MAGA’s renewed expansionist fervor, Venezuelans face an even more acute danger from the chaotic power vacuum created in Maduro’s wake. Newly installed Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has sent mixed messages about cooperating with the Trump government, while the White House floats similarly contradictory signals about its imperial aspirations for one of the world’s biggest petro-hubs.

Washington’s search for someone to ‘play by their rules’

The Trump administration had an “easy choice” selecting Rodríguez as its “acceptable candidate to replace” Maduro, said The New York Times. Internal debates identified the deposed leader’s second in command as someone who would “protect and champion future American energy investments in the country.” To that end, the White House will support Rodríguez’s presidency “based on her ability to play by their rules,” although it reserves the right to “take additional military action if she fails to respect America’s interests.”

As an “insider for Venezuela” with an “extensive hardline resume,” Rodríguez’s strengths from her government portfolio of “overseeing the oil industry and the regime’s intelligence agency,” as well as her “good relations with the military,” could be weakened domestically if she “appears to be aligning too closely with the U.S. government,” said NPR. Since assuming the presidency, Rodríguez has already begun offering “cooperation” with the Trump administration in a “change of tone” from her previous denunciation of the coup against Maduro as a “barbaric” act.

Maduro’s kidnapping and rendition to the United States may have been a “startling tactical success,” The Washington Post said, but the “reality” of President Donald Trump’s stated goal to “run” Venezuela in the months to come “appears uncertain and stubbornly complex.” To wit, the president conspicuously refused to work with Venezuelan democratic opposition leader María Corina Machado in part because of her decision to “accept the Nobel Peace Prize,” which Trump had “openly coveted” last year, according to sources who spoke with the Post.

While the administration may be moving toward a more stable detente with Rodríguez, some within Trump’s own party are publicly unconvinced. Rodríguez may have “control of the military and security services,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on CNN’s “State Of The Union” this past weekend. ”We have to deal with that fact, but that does not make them a legitimate leader.”

Rubio and Miller take point

The nighttime capture of Maduro may have been part of the “realization of a longtime political goal” for Trump, but it was also a “personal victory” for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, one of the “primary architects” of the White House’s Venezuelan policy, said USA Today. Given his “personal history” as the son of Cuban immigrants and his “close ties to the Cuban and Venezuelan diasporas,” Rubio has landed a “direct role in shaping Venezuela’s future” for the administration.

With Rubio’s robust Cabinet portfolio and time constraints, however, the White House has also considered giving Stephen Miller, the president's chief anti-immigration adviser, a “more elevated role” in post-Maduro Venezuela, said the Post.

What happened

President Donald Trump Sunday night told reporters that the U.S. is “in charge” of Venezuela after the U.S. military seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife in a raid on Caracas early Saturday. Trump on Saturday said the U.S. would “run the country” and its oil wealth for an unspecified period of time, and he was “not afraid of boots on the ground.” But Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier Sunday said the U.S. is “running policy” in Venezuela through coercion and duress, not direct rule.

Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, assumed the role of interim president Sunday and is being sworn in today. At least 80 people were killed during the U.S. raid, including 32 Cuban security officers, and several U.S. soldiers were injured, The New York Times said, citing officials in the three countries.

Who said what

Rodríguez initially denounced the U.S. incursion as an “atrocity that violates international law,” but said on social media Sunday night she hoped to build “respectful relations” with Trump and was willing to “collaborate” on “shared development within the framework of international law.” Trump had told The Atlantic earlier Sunday that if Rodríguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” Asked last night what he needs from her, Trump said “total access” to “the oil and to other things in the country.” The “very controversial” answer to “who’s in charge” in Venezuela is “we’re in charge,” he told reporters.

Democrats and many legal experts called Trump’s actions blatantly illegal, especially since he did not seek authorization from Congress to invade another country, or even inform key lawmakers beforehand. “Most Republicans lined up behind the president,” The Associated Press said, but “there were signs of unease across the spectrum within the party,” especially the “America First” wing. “This is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn’t serve the American people, but actually serves the big corporations, the banks and the oil executives,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

What next?

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Manhattan today on newly unsealed charges of drug trafficking and other alleged crimes. The United Nations Security Council is holding an emergency session today focused on the legality of the U.S. raid.

Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of oil tankers subject to US sanctions heading to or from Venezuela. He accused Maduro’s government of using “stolen” oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”.

Referring to the US deployment to the region of a dozen warships and more than 14,000 troops, Trump wrote that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.

Oil prices jumped in the wake of Trump’s blockade order, which came days after US forces had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Since September, the US military has killed around 100 people in more than two dozen strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Trump has also threatened to strike drug-related targets inside Venezuela. Caracas denounced his “warmongering threats” and called on oil workers to organise a worldwide protest “against the piracy of those who believe they have a licence to plunder the world’s resources”.

Drug blockades

Trump is tightening the screws on Caracas, said The Wall Street Journal – and not before time. While Maduro is accusing the US of piracy, he’s the one who “stole Venezuelan democracy” by refusing to cede power after losing the 2024 presidential election. More than eight million Venezuelans have fled his police state. Trump isn’t concerned about Maduro’s authoritarianism, said The Guardian. Nor is this about tackling drug cartels: Venezuela isn’t a big supplier of drugs to the US. Trump is driven mainly by the desire to stem refugee flows and get rid of the socialist Maduro, a long-term target.

The US blockade carries some risks, said The Washington Post. It could provoke a marine confrontation that drags the US into a land war in South America. And by reducing the regime’s main source of revenue, it could exacerbate a humanitarian crisis. Still, it’s a more “legally defensible” strategy than the US air strikes on alleged drug smugglers. Given that about 80% of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market, and that most tankers stopping there are sanctioned, Trump “can argue that he’s merely stepping up enforcement”. His first-term effort to oust Maduro failed because “his attention drifted”. Will he stay the course this time?

Squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade

Maduro is vulnerable, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. Venezuela has the world’s largest-known oil reserves and used to be one of the region’s richest countries. But more than 25 years of hard-left rule, initially under Hugo Chávez and then his protégé Maduro, have driven it to ruin. Its poverty rate is now about 80%. People talk about the danger of civil war if Maduro is ousted, but this isn’t a divided country. Nobel Prize-winner María Corina Machado would have coasted to victory had she not been barred from standing in last year’s election. In a recent poll, nine out of 10 Venezuelans said they believed that the man who won that vote by a landslide – Machado’s chosen candidate, Edmundo Gonzáles – is their rightful president.

Trump is hoping that his “drip-drip pressure campaign” can bring about a coup without the need for direct US military force, said Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner. US navy jets are wearing down Venezuelan defence units by forcing them to remain at a state of high readiness, and CIA assets inside the country are no doubt encouraging top officials to move against Maduro. It’s the right approach. If Maduro is ousted, there’s a good chance that there will be an insurgency involving narco-traffickers and at least some unreconciled elements of the old regime. Given Venezuela’s “abundance of deep jungles and sprawling favelas”, the US doesn’t want to get entangled in any counter-insurgency campaign.

Trump is squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade, said Keith Johnson in Foreign Policy. Activity in its ports has sharply reduced and multiple inbound tankers have turned around mid-voyage in recent days. Some oil is still flowing, said a report in the Financial Times. US-based Chevron, which accounts for about a quarter of Venezuela’s oil production, still has a licence to sell oil; tankers not included in the US’ expanding list of sanctioned vessels can still ply their trade. If the US keeps tightening the noose, though, it will create enormous difficulties for Maduro’s regime. “But given that the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ started by Chávez has survived for a quarter of a century, few are willing to bet on the Venezuelan regime collapsing” without direct US military action.

Lack of storage capacity

Trump says the US military build-up will continue until Caracas returns “all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us”. Under Chávez, Venezuela expropriated assets belonging to US oil companies. Trump hasn’t given any further details about how the US blockade on sanctioned tankers will be enforced.

Until recently Venezuela produced about 0.8% of global crude oil output, exporting some 900,000 barrels a day. Most of this ended up in China. Last week, Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, said that crude exports were “continuing as normal”, but experts believe it will soon have to halt production owing to a lack of storage capacity.

The United States under President Donald Trump appears to be readying for war in Venezuela or at least is seeking to depose leader Nicolás Maduro. But it remains unclear why, exactly, the White House has decided to take aim at the regime in Caracas.

Trump has “repeatedly” shifted the public rationale for targeting Venezuela, said The Wall Street Journal. Drugs have been offered as a reason but so has ownership of oil fields formerly owned by U.S. companies. American officials say that “multiple rationales” have been discussed during internal administration discussions, but Congress has largely been left out of the loop. Some GOP members are concerned about “defending the prospects of U.S. military action” to anti-war MAGA voters in November. “I want to know what’s going to happen next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after a meeting with national security officials.

Minerals? Oil? Putin?

Trump’s focus on Venezuela is “about oil, not drugs,” Chris Brennan said at USA Today. Venezuela must “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us” during the nationalization of that country’s oil industry, Trump said in a Truth Social post. But a war in pursuit of oil profits would be the kind of “American military adventurism” that Trump once decried.

“It is minerals, not drugs,” Krystal Kauffman said at The Hill. Rare minerals used in high technology and advanced manufacturing are “emerging as geopolitical currency” in the race to shape the next century, and Venezuela claims more than a trillion dollars in reserves. If that is the objective, the Trump administration should “negotiate agreements” instead of wage war. “Venezuelans deserve more than to become collateral in a global resource race.”

Venezuela is a “client state of Russia,” David Marcus said at Fox News. Action against Venezuela would be proof that Vladimir Putin “cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” The Russian leader is already “stretched” by the Ukraine war and U.S. sanctions. Trump’s target in Venezuela “isn’t really Maduro, it’s Putin.”

Maduro’s regime is “both an importer and exporter of instability,” Bret Stephens said at The New York Times. His government’s ties to China, Russia and Iran give those countries a “significant foothold in the Americas,” while Venezuela’s chaos has produced a “mass exodus of refugees and migrants.” Maduro should be given a chance to leave the country, but “any morally serious person should want this to end.”

A nation-building trap

The Trump administration has asked American oil companies if they want to return to Venezuela but is “getting no takers,” said Politico. Oil markets are already “glutted with supply,” and prices are at “nearly five-year lows,” giving oil companies little incentive to risk “pouring huge investments” into the country’s oil infrastructure. Forcing Maduro out of power would probably be the “easy part,” Gregory J. Wallance said at The Hill. It is the governing afterward that would be difficult. Trump could become the latest American president to “fall into the nation-building trap.”

What happened

President Donald Trump announced on social media Tuesday night that he had ordered a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.” The military campaign to block oil exports, the lifeblood of Venezuela’s economy, will “only get bigger” until President Nicolás Maduro and his government “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” Trump wrote.

Who said what

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote, and must return “our Oil, Land” and other assets “IMMEDIATELY.” The post marked a “major escalation of his pressure campaign” against Maduro, The Wall Street Journal said, though “it was unclear how many tankers would be affected.” An “effective embargo” is already in place following last week’s U.S. seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, Reuters said.

Trump’s announcement Tuesday “underscored” his focus on Venezuela’s oil, which was largely put “under state control in the 1970s,” CNN said. The Trump administration says its naval buildup and controversial strikes on civilian boats in the region are about fighting drug trafficking. But “behind the scenes,” officials have “focused intently on Venezuela’s oil reserves,” The New York Times said. Trump “has said both privately and publicly that the United States should take Venezuela’s oil” for years.

“Oil industry experts and former U.S. officials questioned the legal and policy rationale of Trump’s declaration,” The Washington Post said. “A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said on social media. “A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.”

What next?

A “high-level meeting” scheduled for today “could result in new orders to U.S. naval and air forces gathered in the Caribbean” and “more forceful U.S. naval operations in the next several days,” the Post said, citing a person familiar with the situation. Trump has also been threatening land strikes in Venezuela. But “if he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday, and “then Congress” would need to assent.

What happened

The U.S. intercepted and seized control of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela Wednesday. The merchant ship has been under U.S. sanctions “for years” after transporting “sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil called the seizure “blatant theft and an act of international piracy” aimed at robbing Venezuela of its oil.

Who said what

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized, actually,” President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday. Asked what will happen to the oil, he said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.” The ship was seized by FBI and Homeland Security agents with military backing, Bondi said. “Using U.S. forces to take control of a merchant ship is incredibly unusual,” The Associated Press said.

The operation was a “significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy,” The Washington Post said. The White House did not specify “the legal authority under which the vessel and its contents were seized.” It also wasn’t clear the U.S. “had the legal authority to keep the oil,” The New York Times said, but according to one official, a “federal judge issued a seizure warrant roughly two weeks ago because of the ship’s past activities smuggling Iranian oil, not because of links to the Maduro government.”

The tanker, identified as the Skipper by officials and maritime tracking firms, was sanctioned under its previous name, the Adisa, and was falsely flying the Guyana flag. Venezuela uses dozens of these “shadow” tankers to evade U.S. sanctions on oil exports, the backbone of its economy. The tankers “typically disguise their locations until long after departure” as they head to Malaysia or China, Venezuela’s top oil buyer, Reuters said. The U.S. is No. 2.

What next?

The vessel seizure was a “warning to other tankers waiting to dock and load up Venezuelan crude,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing a Pentagon official. It also “came just hours after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado left the country on a boat, an escape that potentially gave the Trump administration an opening to take more aggressive action against the Maduro regime.” Machado arrived in Oslo last night, missing her Nobel Peace Prize bestowal ceremony by hours.

What happened

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most advanced U.S. aircraft carrier, and its three accompanying warships entered the Caribbean region Tuesday, adding to President Donald Trump’s unusual buildup of naval might off the coast of Venezuela. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the carrier strike group “will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking” in the region. But Venezuela said Tuesday it was mobilizing its entire military, including weaponry and troops, in preparation for a possible U.S. attack.

Who said what

The massive “firepower” of the Ford strike group “goes beyond what is required to strike the small boats that the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “only reason” to move a strategic asset like an aircraft carrier from the Middle East to the Caribbean “is to use it against Venezuela,” Mark Cancian at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Washington Post. Now that the Ford has arrived, “the shot clock has started” for President Donald Trump to “use it or move it.”

America’s military “dwarfs Venezuela’s, which is debilitated by a lack of training, low wages and deteriorating equipment,” Reuters said. So the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has “bet on two potential strategies” — a publicly disclosed “guerrilla-style defense” and a secret “anarchization” plan to “create disorder on the streets” and “make Venezuela ungovernable for foreign forces.”

What next?

The Trump administration has “developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela,” but the president “has yet to make a decision about how or whether to proceed,” The New York Times said, citing officials. Trump was reportedly “reluctant” to put U.S. troops in danger or risk “an embarrassing failure,” but “many of his senior advisers are pressing” for “ousting” Maduro.

Since Donald Trump began his second term, he has put increasing pressure on multiple Latin American nations – including US allies. And the seemingly haphazard nature of his attacks is raising questions about his motives.

The US president has imposed 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico, the US’s largest trade partner. He has threatened to seize the Panama Canal and has carried out mass – allegedly unlawful – deportations of Latin Americans. He has tried to use punitive 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports, in an attempt to influence the outcome of the trial of Brazil’s former president and Trump ally, Jair Bolsonaro.

The US military has sharply increased its presence in the southern Caribbean, deploying 10,000 troops and multiple warships and aircraft. It has struck at least seven Venezuelan vessels that Trump claimed were trafficking drugs – without offering evidence. At least 32 people have been killed as of Friday. Trump has slammed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and admitted to authorising covert CIA operations against him.

And on Sunday, Trump escalated his feud with Colombia, one of America’s closest allies, slashing aid and increasing tariffs on its exports because it “does nothing to stop” cocaine production. Trump called Colombian president Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader”, after Petro accused the US of committing “murder” in the Caribbean. He warned that Petro “better close up” drug operations or the US would “close them up for him”.

What did the commentators say?

One “lament often heard from Latin America” is that the US has “paid insufficient attention to the region”, said the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But now Trump has given it “more attention in nine months than many past administrations of either party have since the Cold War” and those countries may well “regret getting what they wished for”.

The US pivot stems from a fear that, for too long, it has “prioritised power projection and policing global hotspots over attending to its ‘shared neighbourhood’”. This has led China to “expand its influence” in the region, and allowed organised crime, drug trafficking and migration to “threaten US security”. In response, Trump “seems to be adopting a ‘Monroe Doctrine 2.0’”: abandon soft-power initiatives in favour of threatening (or deploying) military force, while “relying on economic coercion” in the form of tariffs.

The problem is that the tariffs and the cutting of “already-slashed levels” of US development and aid to Colombia will “make it harder” for Bogotá to combat the cocaine trade, said Keith Johnson on Foreign Policy. Colombia is, by far, the primary source of cocaine in the US, and, historically, “the biggest chunk” of US aid “has come in the form of counternarcotics and law-enforcement support”.

“If the US were truly interested in countering drug trafficking, the last thing you would do is to alienate the one military in the region” capable of fighting drug traffickers, Elizabeth Dickinson, senior Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Johnson.

US military assets in the Caribbean “are not much use” in fighting the drug trade, said The Guardian’s foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall – especially if their focus is on Venezuela, through which only small quantities of cocaine are trafficked to America. So what is Trump up to here?

President Maduro claims the White House is attempting to “forcibly impose regime change” on his country and is waging “undeclared war”. Analysts suggest Trump “covets Venezuela’s abundant oil, gas and mineral resources”. And there’s a personal aspect: Marco Rubio is “a long-time critic of left-wing rulers in Cuba and Nicaragua” – for him, Maduro is “unfinished business”. But, given Trump’s “hapless blundering on other key foreign issues”, the most likely explanation is that “he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing – in Venezuela or Latin America as whole”. There is no plan.

What next?

America is Colombia’s biggest trading partner, so Trump’s threats of further tariffs have “some potential leverage”, said Johnson on Foreign Policy. But “the pain will be felt as much by US consumers as by Colombian exporters”.

In Venezuela, the Trump administration thinks “its campaign against Maduro is working”, and that increased US military pressure will convince the Venezuelan leader “he can’t remain in power”, said The Wall Street Journal. “The idea is to make him miserable enough to go away,” a senior administration official said. But, far from weakening Maduro, it might “achieve the exact opposite”, said Tisdall in The Guardian. Maduro is using the crisis to increase his grip on power.

More broadly, Trump’s “bullying of other left-leaning Latin American countries”, including Colombia and Brazil, and his “presumptuous cheerleading for right-wing populists in Argentina and El Salvador”, is “spurring a regional backlash”. Trump’s efforts to “reprise the role of Latin American neighbourhood policeman” are ultimately “self-defeating”. Long-term, the “big winner” will be China.

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday confirmed he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela and said he was also considering military strikes inside the country. Trump announced on Tuesday that the U.S. military had destroyed a fifth boat in the Caribbean, killing six more alleged drug traffickers. With “the sea very well under control,” he told reporters Wednesday, “we are certainly looking at land now.”

Who said what

Trump said he approved the CIA intervention because Venezuelan authorities “have emptied their prisons into the United States” and because “we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.” He provided no evidence to back up either claim. When asked if the CIA had permission to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, Trump called it a “ridiculous question” but said he thinks “Venezuela is feeling the heat.”

Trump’s “decision to confirm, even in general terms, his instructions to the CIA was highly unusual,” The Washington Post said. According to The New York Times, which first reported the classified directive, the CIA’s “new authority” allows it to “carry out lethal operations in Venezuela,” including “covert action” against Maduro or his government “either unilaterally or in conjunction with a larger military operation.” U.S. officials “have been clear, privately, that the end goal” of the “intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela” is to drive Maduro from power, the Times said.

“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups?” Maduro said in a televised speech Wednesday night. “Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them and repudiates them.” Trump’s decision, The Associated Press said, also “spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war” on legally dubious grounds and “without seeking congressional authorization.”

What next?

Authorizing “covert CIA action, conducting lethal strikes on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said Wednesday. “The American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the U.S. into another conflict.”

Why is the U.S. targeting Maduro?

The Trump administration has accused the Venezuelan president of waging war on the U.S. through “narco-terrorism.” Many experts dispute whether that label is appropriate, but what is clear is that Maduro, 62, is a foe of U.S. influence in Latin America and a strongman who has pushed Venezuela deeper into dictatorship and economic decline. A stolid former Caracas bus driver, Maduro claims to be continuing the socialist mission of his predecessor Hugo Chávez. But, lacking Chávez’s charisma, he has resorted to rigging the last two presidential elections and using security forces to persecute, torture, and, in some cases, kill opponents. The U.S. is offering $50 million for information that will lead to Maduro’s arrest—the biggest reward of its kind—and has labeled him “one of the world’s largest drug traffickers.” In recent weeks, the U.S. has deployed a naval task force to the Caribbean that includes some 4,500 Marines and sailors, destroyers, an attack submarine, and 10 F-35 stealth fighters. And it has used air strikes to destroy at least four alleged drug-smuggling boats off Venezuela— killing 17 people—without a legal process. Maduro calls President Trump’s claims of drug trafficking a lie, saying the U.S.’s real goal is regime change and the installation of a “puppet government” so it can “take control of Venezuela’s oil.”

How did he gain power?

While working as a bus driver, Maduro rose through the ranks of the trade union movement. He entered Chávez’s inner circle in the early 1990s when he began dating his now wife, Cilia Flores, a lawyer who helped secure Chávez’s release from prison following the former tank commander’s failed 1992 coup attempt. After Chávez won the 1998 presidential election, both Maduro and Flores took top posts in government. In December 2012, a cancer-stricken Chávez used his final speech to urge Venezuelans to vote for then–vice president Maduro in the upcoming election. Chávez died three months later and Maduro—who claimed his mentor’s spirit visited him in the form of a songbird—won the presidency that April by a slim 1.5-point margin. Many supporters of Chávez boycotted the vote to protest worsening economic conditions.

What policies did Maduro pursue? 

He continued Chávez’s campaign of nationalizing industries, expanding social programs, and cracking down on the fast-growing opposition. Maduro used El Helicoide—a futuristic, uncompleted 1961 mega-shopping mall in Caracas—as a prison and torture center for hundreds of political detainees. “We would hear the screams all night,” said former Venezuelan lawmaker Rosmit Mantilla, who was detained there from 2014 to 2016. “I heard about people raped with blunt objects, others given electric shocks.” Like Chávez, Maduro raided the coffers of the state-owned oil company—Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves—to pay for the social programs that kept the working class loyal. Then, in 2014, global oil prices crashed, a catastrophe for a petrostate that relied on oil for 95% of export earnings.

What happened to the economy? 

It cratered, shrinking 80% from 2014 to 2020. Three-quarters of Venezuela’s roughly 30 million people fell into extreme poverty, and 8 million fled abroad, including 800,000 who headed to the U.S. Inflation hit 800% in 2016 and zoomed past 1 million percent two years later. Maduro responded with price controls, but that only worsened food shortages. In 2017, Maduro nullified the opposition-controlled National Assembly by creating a new regime-controlled Constituent Assembly, which granted itself wide powers to write and pass legislation. Dozens of opposition supporters were killed in protests and hundreds more were arrested. Maduro was re-elected president in a rigged 2018 vote that triggered economic sanctions from the U.S. Today, a new Maduro-allied elite splashes money around Caracas gained through regime connections, as well as through criminal activity such as smuggling gasoline and minerals, and drug and human trafficking.

Does that make Maduro a ‘narco-terrorist’? 

Regime insiders are involved in the drug trade: About a quarter of the world’s cocaine passes through Venezuela, and narco-trafficking generated $8.2 billion in profits for Venezuela last year. Two of Maduro’s nephews were arrested in a 2015 DEA sting in Haiti, after attempting to transport 800 kilos of cocaine to the U.S.; they were later released in a prisoner swap. In 2020, at the end of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department indicted Maduro and high-ranking Venezuelan officials and military officers, accusing them of leading Cártel de Los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), a “narco-terrorism” network that works with Colombian guerrilla groups and Mexican cartels to ship cocaine to the U.S. Some regional experts doubt there really is such a cartel. “There has never been clear evidence that such an organization exists,” said Phil Gunson of the nonprofit International Crisis Group. And despite the Trump administration’s claims, there is no evidence that Venezuela is smuggling the deadly opioid fentanyl to the U.S.

Is the U.S. trying to topple Maduro?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has hinted as much, saying last month that “Maduro is not a government or political regime” but a member of a “terrorist organization and organized-crime organization.” A source close to the administration told NBC News that officials hope the boat strikes will lead cartel bosses inside and outside Venezuela to turn on Maduro, so they can return to business as normal. One administration official told Axios that wasn’t the goal, saying, “This is 105% about narco-terrorism, but if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.” But experts warn that this campaign could end up aiding Maduro, who now portrays himself as a defender of Venezuelan national sovereignty. “If their intention is to topple Maduro, it’s not working,” said former U.S. diplomat Brian Naranjo, who served in Caracas. “It’s bolstering him.”

A lifeline from Beijing 

“Ni hao!” Maduro said during an August speech, pretending to greet Xi Jinping on a Huawei phone that the Chinese president had personally gifted him. That’s not all China offers Maduro’s regime: It buys around 90% of Venezuelan oil and has invested more than $67 billion in the country since 2007, including military aid. Last year, Xi congratulated Maduro on winning a third presidential term, though international observers presented evidence showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won by a wide margin. But would Xi support Venezuela in a war with the U.S.? China’s Foreign Ministry has denounced U.S. “coercion and bullying” against Venezuela, but experts are skeptical that China will offer anything more than words of support for Maduro. “In Beijing,” said Ryan C. Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “they probably consider him to be a clown.”

“America’s quarter-century-old global war” on terror has taken a disturbing new turn, said W.J. Hennigan in The New York Times. Last week, President Trump ordered an air strike on an allegedly drug-laden speedboat travelling in international waters in the south Caribbean, killing all 11 people on board. He justified the attack by stating that officials had identified the vessel’s crew beforehand as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the US designated a terrorist group in February. Trump claims the cartel is controlled by Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

For decades, the US navy has detained suspected smugglers. That this practice has been replaced by extrajudicial executions “defies comprehension”. Now eight US warships and thousands of marines have been deployed to the Caribbean. “Let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking of bringing drugs into the US,” warned Trump. “There’s more where that came from.”

Assuming the boat’s crew were gangsters, the air strike was “a good move”, said The Wall Street Journal. Tren de Aragua – which though not “Maduro’s creature”, is certainly “in cahoots” with his regime – has exported its crime model around the hemisphere and poses a clear security threat to the US. Trump’s critics say his administration should stick to the usual protocol for stopping suspect boats. “But Venezuelan capos don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules, and the US doesn’t have to refrain from sending them a more convincing kinetic message.”

“Is it awesome to see bad guys getting blown up?” Sure, said Jim Geraghty in National Review. Whether this use of lethal force is constitutional, though, is a “murkier question”. I very much doubt it is, said Andrew McCarthy in the same magazine. In 1989, the US invaded Panama to depose and capture its ruler, General Manuel Noriega, who – like Maduro – had been indicted by the US for drug trafficking. But before that invasion, Noriega’s regime had declared war on the US and attacked its personnel. Trump, by contrast, claims that Maduro’s regime is full of “narco-terrorists” using cocaine as a weapon against America, and that its trafficking operations amount to an invasion – so he has the authority to take military action without consulting lawmakers. That’s “a controversial claim, to put it mildly”. Not for the first time, we’re left to ask: “Where the hell is the Republican-led Congress?”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been at odds with several U.S. presidential administrations, but the rift between the Venezuelan government and the United States seems to be coming to a head. Maduro, who is widely considered a dictator and not recognized by the U.S. as Venezuela's legitimate leader, dispatched militia soldiers to counter a deployment of military forces by President Donald Trump, in the latest sign that things are escalating between the two countries.

Maduro deploying militia

Trump has long targeted Venezuela, claiming that drugs from the country are pouring into the U.S. through illegal channels. The president has "pushed for using the U.S. military to thwart cartels he blames for the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs," said The Associated Press. As part of this military force, Trump dispatched a trio of U.S. Navy destroyers into the waters off the Venezuelan coast.

In response, Maduro "said he would deploy 4.5 million militia members in response to 'outlandish threats' by the United States," said CBS News. Maduro's move was also seemingly in response to the Trump administration raising the longstanding bounty on his head from $25 million to $50 million.

"I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory — militias that are prepared, activated and armed," said Maduro in a televised address. But the true number of Venezuela's militia is unclear; official "figures say the Venezuelan militia, founded by Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, contains about 5 million people — though the actual number is believed to be smaller," said CBS News. Venezuela itself only has a population of about 30 million.

'The empire has gone mad'

The escalation between the U.S. and Venezuela may not come to a quick end. When asked if the "increased U.S. Navy presence in the Caribbean could eventually translate to a military intervention inside Venezuela, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not rule out the possibility," said the Miami Herald. Trump is "prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice," Leavitt said, calling Maduro a fugitive cartel head.

Maduro also seems to think that the conflict could escalate. "The empire has gone mad and has renewed its threats to Venezuela's peace and tranquility," Maduro said in his address. But this type of military action has been seen before. In 2020, the "first Trump administration also launched what it called 'an enhanced counternarcotics operation' near Venezuelan shores that also targeted the Maduro regime," said the Herald.

Trump has tried to ramp up rhetoric against Venezuela by designating the country's Tren de Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist organization. This "designation is normally reserved for groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group that use violence for political ends — not for money-focused crime rings such as the Latin American cartels," said the AP.

Trump has also attempted to bring other countries into the fray to pressure Venezuela, most notably Mexico. But Trump already has a contentious relationship with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and it doesn't seem that Mexico wants to create further disarray in Latin America. Sheinbaum has "rejected US allegations linking Maduro to Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, saying her government had no evidence of such ties," said Al Jazeera.

'The California wildfires just revealed this very grim truth'

Nitish Pahwa at Slate

"Naturally, it's conspiracy time" about the California wildfires, and this is "just how every major climate disaster is going to unfold online from here on out," says Nitish Pahwa. In an "ecosystem where social media outlets have purposefully hobbled their ability to provide real-time, reliable updates to users, the people affected by those disasters are literally left in the dark." It "takes time and effort to extinguish flames and dispatch reliable information in favor of the public interest."

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'Venezuela's Maduro could be the next dictator to fall'

Kristina Foltz at The Hill

The "swift fall of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is a lesson on the fragility of alliances between autocrats," and shows the "growing weakness and isolation" of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, says Kristina Foltz. Dictators "share only a common enemy — the global international rules-based order that would put a halt to their criminal, repression-fueled operations." Now is the "time for the world to ramp up pressure on Nicolas Maduro to accept defeat and liberate Venezuela from tyranny."

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'How Jimmy Carter helped the religious right's rise to power'

Neil J. Young at MSNBC

It is "hard to imagine a time when being an evangelical or openly talking about one's religious faith would be regarded as a liability for a presidential candidate," but Jimmy Carter "helped bring religious talk into the American presidency to a degree that had never been seen before," says Neil J. Young. Conservative politicians were "also following in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter, even as they took the nation down a very different path."

Read more

'A TikTok ban would harm colleges sports' have-nots'

Adam Minter at Bloomberg

For "thousands of college athletes," social media is an "essential tool for monetizing a brief college sports career," says Adam Minter. The "reality for most college athletes is that they can't earn money unless they hustle. If TikTok disappears, they'll struggle to even do that." If athletes "want to get paid, they need to develop personal brands and attract audiences," and TikTok is by far the most efficient means to secure them."

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A group of Venezuelan media organisations has launched a news show using AI-generated anchors, said CNN.

"Venezuela Retweets" is hosted by two AI avatars named "La Chama" (the girl) and "El Pana" (the dude). They share real news created by journalists who have found "reporting the news an increasingly dangerous business".

Many Western journalists may view artificial intelligence as a "looming threat to livelihoods" but these Venezuelan journalists see it "more favourably", as a "protection". The AI news anchors can "shelter their real-life journalists" from the crackdown launched by authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro since he claimed victory in July's disputed election.

"Right now, being a journalist in Venezuela is a bit like being a firefighter," Carlos Eduardo Huertas, the director of Connectas (a Colombia-based platform coordinating the initiative) told the US broadcaster. "You still need to attend the fire, even though it’s dangerous. The Girl and The Dude want to be instruments for our firefighters: we don't want to replace journalists but to protect them."

Response to repression

"Restrictions on freedom of speech in Venezuela are nothing new," said CNN.

But at least 16 journalists have been detained in the recent anti-government protests that erupted after Maduro claimed victory, according to Espacio Public, a Venezuelan organisation that measures freedom of the press. Some face charges of terrorism or incitement to hatred; others are "unsure even of what they are accused", said CNN.

Journalists are now using "Venezuela Retweets" to report the news that Maduro's regime "deems unfit to print", said The Guardian. The initiative involves about 20 Venezuelan news and fact-checking outlets and about 100 journalists, whose content is turned into daily newscasts read by the AI-generated avatars.

Intense government censorship and threats against anti-Maduro content means that most Venezuelans get their news through social media. So, "Venezuela Retweets" is specifically designed to be shared on social media: the avatars read news in clips that can be posted on Instagram or Facebook, or forwarded on WhatsApp – which makes the videos harder to track.

In the debut broadcast in August, the female presenter explained that she and her co-host hoped to spread the word about "what is really happening in Venezuela".

"But before we go on – in case you haven’t noticed – we want to let you know that we aren't real," the avatar added.

The use of AI is a response to "the persecution and the growing repression that our colleagues are suffering in Venezuela", where the uncertainty over the safety of doing their job "grows by the minute", Huertas told The Guardian. The increasingly authoritarian regime meant that "being on camera is no longer so sensible".

Even the name Venezuela Retweets – "Operación Retuit" in Spanish – is an ironic nod to the chilling euphemism coined by Maduro's regime for its harsh crackdown: "Operación Tun Tun" or Knock Knock.

AI as freedom of expression

Maduro's government has also cancelled the passports of "dozens of journalists and activists" without explanation since the vote, said the Financial Times. Rights groups have described it as an "intensifying campaign of repression", following what most nations have denounced as a stolen election.

The number of cancelled passports is likely to be far higher, the Caracas-based human-rights organisation Laboratorio de Paz told the FT, because of Venezuelans' "fear of reporting cases".

"Unlike murder or torture, which have a higher political cost, the government has found that passport cancellation is an effective way to neutralise and muffle critical voices with minimal effort," said Rafael Uzcátegui, co-director of Laboratorio de Paz.

One journalist only discovered her passport had been cancelled while she was abroad. "I asked myself, 'Now where do I come from?'," she told the paper. She is not sure whether she will try to return home.

Maduro has also "moved to stifle online dissent", said the FT, "blocking access to X" and "encouraging citizens to uninstall" WhatsApp.

"It's a policy to instigate fear," another Venezuelan journalist told the paper.

But "Venezuela Retweets" is "gaining traction", said CNN. Organisations involved in freedom of the press elsewhere in Latin America have been in touch, said Huertas. He hopes to make the content available in Russian, Chinese and other languages to reach audiences in countries allied with Maduro.

In authoritarian nations, said CNN, there is a "widespread interest for using AI as a freedom-of-expression tool".

What happened

Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González, who credibly claims to have won his country's July 28 presidential election, arrived in Spain on Sunday, seeking asylum. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said González, a 75-year-old former diplomat who replaced her on the ballot after she was barred from running, fled Venezuela because "his life was in danger" and he faced "increasing threats, summons, arrest warrants" from President Nicolás Maduro's unscrupulous regime.

Who said what

In an audio message Sunday, González said his departure was "surrounded by acts of pressure, coercion and threats," but "I trust that we will soon continue our fight to achieve our freedom and the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy." Machado said "Edmundo will fight from outside alongside our diaspora" and return for the Jan. 10 presidential inauguration.

Despite Machado's "positive spin," González's surprise exit dealt a "major blow to millions who placed their hopes in his opposition campaign," The Associated Press said. He joins the "swelling ranks of opposition stalwarts who once fought Maduro only to throw in the towel" amid a "brutal crackdown," including at least four other former presidential hopefuls who also fled to Spain to escape Maduro's persecution. The government's strategy is to force its loudest critics to flee, then "paint them as not being willing to fight, not being brave, not being strong," Francisco Rodríguez, an international affairs professor at the University of Denver, said to The New York Times.

What next?

Since Maduro's loyalist electoral panel declared him winner without providing any evidence, his government has arrested at least 2,000 people, including scores of opposition activists and hundreds of protesters. With Maduro having "solidified his hold on power" and efforts by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia to "broker a resolution" going "nowhere," the Times said, the opposition "has seemingly few options" left for a political settlement.

What happened

The U.S. has seized a luxury jet used by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Justice Department announced yesterday, saying the Dassault Falcon 900EX was purchased by a shell company in violation of U.S. sanctions and smuggled out of the U.S.

Who said what

The plane, "described by officials as Venezuela's equivalent to Air Force One," was flown to Florida from the Dominican Republic, where it had been undergoing repairs, CNN said. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the aircraft was "illegally purchased for $13 million" for use by "Maduro and his cronies." Venezuela's government said the seizure of Maduro's jet "cannot be described as anything other than piracy."

What next?

Maduro's private jet was one of dozens the U.S. has seized from top Venezuelan leaders either sanctioned or indicted for alleged drug trafficking or corruption. Investigating the "corrupt practices of the Venezuelan government" is a "continued body of work," Anthony Salisbury, a special agent at Homeland Security Investigations, said to The Associated Press. "Obviously, we are not done yet." The U.S. will be pursuing forfeiture with the confiscated Falcon, CNN said, so "the Venezuelan government has a chance to petition for it" after the U.S. searches it for evidence.

What happened

The Biden administration has offered Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro amnesty in exchange for giving up power as "overwhelming evidence emerges" he lost last month's election, The Wall Street Journal said Sunday. Official ballot tallies collected by the opposition show that its candidate Edmundo González Urrutia beat Maduro in a landslide in the July 28 election. 

Maduro, whose loyalist-stacked electoral commission declared him the winner without releasing required evidence, has cracked down on dissent, arresting opposition party officials and trying to stop Venezuelans from getting information through WhatsApp and X.

Who said what

The White House has put "everything on the table" in secret negotiations to persuade Maduro to step down, a person familiar with the talks told the Journal. "International action may be the only avenue to force out Maduro," and the U.S. attempt to offer him a "face-saving option dovetails with the opposition's strategy," the outlet said. But the Venezuelan leader's "total grip on power stacks the odds against the Biden administration" and other Latin American countries trying to resolve the standoff.

"Don't mess with Venezuela's internal affairs," Maduro said to the U.S. in a news conference Friday. A National Security Council spokesperson told the Journal the U.S. was "considering a range of options to incentivize and pressure Maduro to recognize the election results," but "the responsibility is on Maduro and Venezuela's electoral authorities to come clean" on the legitimate vote tally.

What next?

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Sunday called for August 17 to be an international day of protest "to support our victory and recognize truth and popular sovereignty." The U.S. and opposition have "five months before Venezuela's presidential inauguration to pull off a deal," the Journal said.

What happened

Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Venezuela yesterday after Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in an election that opposition figures say was marred by fraud.

Who said what

"It's going to fall. It's going to fall. This government is going to fall!" some of the protesters shouted.

"Public anger swelled," Al Jazeera said, after the National Electoral Council formally confirmed that President Maduro had been re-elected without releasing any tallies from the 30,000 polling stations across Venezuela.

What next?

The United States and many Latin American countries said Maduro cannot claim victory without the full release of vote counts.

Regional leftist leaders including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro "did not congratulate Mr. Maduro and instead called for the tallies to be released," said The New York Times.

As demonstrations continued Maduro claimed, without providing evidence, that an "attempt is being made to impose a coup d'etat in Venezuela." Opposition leaders dismissed the claim and called for more peaceful protests.

When the US agreed to normalise relations with Venezuela, it was on the proviso that Nicolás Maduro would hold "free and fair elections".

The authoritarian president, who inherited power from the late revolutionary Hugo Chávez in 2013 and whose re-election in 2018 was widely condemned as fraudulent, is not recognised as legitimate by most of the world. The Trump administration responded to the sham elections with harsh sanctions on Maduro and the oil-rich yet desperately poor South American nation.

But an agreement last October, which allowed Joe Biden to lift most of the sanctions, may give Venezuelans the chance to vote a deeply unpopular incumbent out of the Miraflores Palace on 28 July.

How is the election campaign going?

After years of negotiation, the Maduro regime and the opposition signed a US-backed agreement in October to hold a fair election. But authorities disqualified hugely popular opposition leader María Corina Machado, who had won more than 90% of the vote in the primaries, on "trumped-up grounds", said The Economist. The government-allied Supreme Court upheld the ban in January, which led the US to reimpose most sanctions.

Machado has since "ceded all her political capital" to proxy Edmundo González Urrutia, a 74-year-old diplomat who "until now had moved behind the scenes of power", said El País, and now leads in the polls by 20 to 30%.

This has "prompted Maduro to launch a charm offensive", said the Financial Times, appearing on TikTok and at rallies "with a spry, avuncular persona". A leader responsible for "economic disaster" now presents himself as a "relatable everyman" from the barrio, who "dances, poses for selfies and sings for his audience".

For the first time since 2013, the Maduro government "looks scared", said Foreign Policy. "It fears democracy," wrote Christopher Sabatini, senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House. About two-thirds of Venezuelans say they would support any opposition candidate against Maduro. "Stealing this contest won't be as easy as it was for Maduro in 2017, 2018 or 2020."

Will they be 'free and fair' elections?

The regime's internal polling shows that in a fair vote, Maduro would be "totally doomed", a source told The Economist. But he "appears determined to cling to power – through intimidation".

At least 37 opposition activists have been arrested this year, and 10 elected mayors who supported González have been ousted. Maduro also withdrew an invitation to the EU to send a delegation of election observers. 

Only 69,000 out of at least 3.5 million eligible Venezuelans abroad were able to register to vote, due to cumbersome bureaucracy and expense, according to rights groups. The "vast majority" would have voted for the opposition, said the FT. 

Maduro controls most state institutions, including the courts, the electoral authorities, the army and much of the media – "not to mention violent paramilitary gangs", said The New York Times (NYT). There is "widespread doubt" that he would accept or even publicise an opposition victory.

That's if the election even happens. The prospect of postponing the ballot is being "openly talked about", said El País. A manufactured incident in the ongoing territory dispute with neighbouring Guyana, or a purported threat to Maduro's life, could provide the pretext.

What are the stakes?

Maduro's tenure has been marked by economic collapse, growing authoritarianism and the largest exodus of people in Latin American history. Nearly eight million Venezuelans – more than a quarter of the population – have fled since 2014. 

Over the past decade, GDP has declined by about 73%, said Reuters. Venezuela suffers the second-highest level of hunger in South America, and, for the 10th consecutive year, the highest inflation in the world. This election, the "dire straits in which many live" will be "top of people's minds".  

If Maduro claims victory, Venezuela will "remain paralysed", said El País. A second hostile Trump presidency would "complicate things even further".

That could also have a knock-on effect on the US elections. More than half of migrants crossing the Darién Gap into the US are Venezuelan, which has already become a "dominant theme" in campaigns, said the NYT.  

If González wins, experts believe millions could return home, but if Maduro clings to power, "even more will be tempted to head to the US border", said CNN.

In the US, Maduro still faces criminal charges of "human rights abuse, corruption and involvement in the narcotics trade", said the FT. If Maduro does give up power, it would almost certainly be with a deal that would shield him from prosecution.

Also at stake is the future of Venezuela's oil reserves – the largest in the world – and the strength of its alliances with China, Russia and Iran. Those authoritarian nations have "already embedded efforts to expand their economic and political presence in Venezuela and the hemisphere", said Sabatini. Russia will be "doing everything it can to scuttle international interests in a free and fair election".

'Venezuela's Maduro tricks Biden — again'

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

Venezuela's decision to bar popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from running for president "was predictable," says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The Biden administration temporarily "lifted Trump-era oil and gas sanctions" after Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro pledged in October to work with the opposition toward free elections. Machado would be "a heavy favorite" in any fair vote, given Maduro's destruction of the economy. The White House was "naive" to think Maduro would keep his word.

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'The audacity of E. Jean Carroll'

Jessica Bennett in The New York Times

E. Jean Carroll once "blazed trails as a gonzo-style journalist," writes Jessica Bennet in The New York Times. Ever since she accused Donald Trump of a 1990s sexual assault, he called her a liar, and she sued for defamation, people see her, at best, as a former advice columnist. At worst, she's "the crazy Trump rape lawsuit lady." Beyond defamation, her case was about a woman, "long past middle age, who dared to claim she indeed still had value." 

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'MAGA has TDS — Taylor Derangement Syndrome'

A.B. Stoddard at The Bulwark

The romance between Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has "destabilized MAGA," says A.B. Stoddard at The Bulwark. With the Chiefs advancing to the Super Bowl, "addled Trumpers" insist the game will be fixed to help "brainwash" Swifties into liberalism and prop up the "woke NFL." What really "has MAGA filling up its diapers" is the fear Swift will encourage her 450 million social media followers to vote for Biden.

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'The United Nations doesn't deserve a role in Gaza's future'

Sean Durns in the Washington Examiner

A dozen United Nations workers "allegedly helped carry out the Oct. 7 massacre of Jewish civilians," says Sean Durns in the Washington Examiner. If true, their United Nations Relief and Works Agency deserves no "role in Gaza after the war." The agency already had a "troubled history." Created in 1949 to resettle Palestinian Arabs, it views all Palestinians as refugees until they return to Israel, meaning it thinks the conflict can "only end with the Jewish state's destruction."

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Venezuela on Wednesday gave the U.S. 10 American detainees and Leonard Glenn Francis, a fugitive Malaysian port services contractor widely known as "Fat Leonard," in exchange for a close aide to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The prisoner exchange was "one of the biggest and multifaceted hostage deals the U.S. has carried out with a hostile foreign government," The Wall Street Journal reported, as well as "a breakthrough in the Biden administration's rapprochement efforts with Caracas."

Under the terms of the deal, the White House said, Venezuela also agreed to release 20 political prisoners and opposition figure Roberto Abdul, and suspend arrest warrants of three other Venezuelans.

Fat Leonard was the central figure in a huge Navy bribery scandal that ensnared an admiral and gutted the leadership of the U.S. Asia-Pacific fleet. Francis was arrested in a 2013 sting, pleaded guilty to bribing dozens of Navy officers in 2015, agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors — with mixed results — then made a brazen escape in 2022 after cutting off his ankle monitor and fleeing south. He was arrested weeks later in Caracas, trying to board a plane to Russia.

At least six of the 10 American prisoners arrived late Wednesday at an airfield in San Antonio. "Reuniting wrongfully detained Americans with their loved ones has been a priority for my administration since day one," President Joe Biden said in a statement. "As is the return to the United States of fugitives from justice."

The U.S., meanwhile, sent the Maduro government Alex Saab, a Colombian-born financier arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 on an Interpol red notice and extradited to the U.S. in 2021 to face money laundering charges in Miami. The U.S. accused him of siphoning $350 million from government contracts to serve the poor, then cycling that money through U.S. banks, helping Venezuela evade U.S. sanctions.

Some Republicans, plus embattled Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), criticized the handover of Saab, arguing it will just embolden Maduro and fuel his authoritarian regime. The freed U.S. detainees and their families thanked Biden and the U.S. negotiating team for bringing them home.

Thanks to the reckless bravado of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, Latin America is at risk of "major continental war for the first time in 75 years", said Alexandra Sharp in Foreign Policy (Washington). 

Caracas has long staked a claim to Essequibo, a mineral-rich swathe of the Amazon that accounts for two-thirds of neighbouring Guyana – the former British Guiana. That claim acquired added urgency in 2015, when US energy giant ExxonMobil discovered oil reserves off Essequibo's coast – some 11 billion barrels' worth to date. 

And last week, in a referendum staged in order to rubber-stamp Venezuela's claim to Essequibo, Maduro claimed he now had the mandate to put that claim into effect. But the vote was held in defiance of a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, and has raised fears across Latin America that Venezuela could be about to use military force to grab another country's land.

'A vile plunder'

Venezuela's claim to this region dates back centuries, said Luis Alberto Perozo Padua in El Universal (Caracas). Essequibo was administered by Dutch colonisers for 200 years or so until, in 1814, those same colonisers sold a swathe of territory along South America's northern coast to the British. Britain then proceeded to launch a series of incursions into the territory of the recently independent Venezuela – a "vile plunder" that robbed us of vast tracts of resource- and oil-rich land.

Naturally, Caracas tried to resist; but in 1899 an international tribunal in Paris ruled that Essequibo was a part of British Guiana. And ever since Guyana won independence in 1966, the dispute has rumbled on and remains the subject of proceedings in the ICJ. As pretty much all Venezuelans view Essequibo as part of their nation's territory, Maduro had assumed his referendum would boost his waning popularity ahead of next year's elections, said Rafael García Marvez in El Nacional (Caracas). But a vast majority of voters stayed at home, making a mockery of his claim of 95% support. Desperate and disillusioned, Venezuelans had no appetite to hand Maduro a meaningful victory.

'Just sound and fury'

Be that as it may, the vote has still powerfully unsettled us in Guyana, said Frederick Kissoon in The Guyana Chronicle (Georgetown). Maduro is a ruthless dictator, and has already ordered state firms to exploit oil deposits in Essequibo. Will his next step be to deploy the army? Actually, that's not at all likely, said James Bosworth in World Politics Review (Tampa). Venezuela's claim to Essequibo is disputed by virtually every country in the world – even by Maduro's allies in communist Cuba.

So any military intervention would lead to a fresh round of international sanctions on Caracas that the regime could ill afford, to say the least. Besides, Venezuela's army can barely maintain control of its own territory, let alone seize control of a dense area of jungle almost the size of Florida. Unless Maduro has actually lost his marbles, this is all "just sound and fury".

Is a threat by Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to annex Guyana's oil fields a prelude to war in Latin America? Or is the strongman merely trying to rally his own nation ahead of a presidential election next year? No one really knows for sure, The Miami Herald reports, but American officials are "increasingly concerned over how far Nicolas Maduro may be willing to go."

Maduro's claim over the Essequibo region of Guyana "would give Caracas a claim to offshore oil riches that Guyana recently found and that Venezuela clearly covets," Alexandra Sharp explained at Foreign Policy. A weekend referendum in Venezuela supposedly received the backing of 95 percent of voters in favor of annexation, though it's important to note the government this week also ordered the mass arrest of annexation opponents. Maduro's aim in all of this is to "give him a claim to big oil, bolster support for his United Socialist Party, and pigeonhole the opposition into appearing anti-patriotic."

It's a threat that leaders across the Western Hemisphere are taking seriously. Irfaan Ali, president of Guyana, told The Associated Press his country is preparing to defend itself. "We take this threat very seriously, and we have initiated a number of precautionary measures to ensure the peace and stability of this region," he said. And the U.S. is weighing in: Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Ali to offer America's "unwavering support for Guyana's sovereignty."

What the commentators said

"The norm that borders cannot be changed through military force now faces its first major test in this hemisphere in generations," Ben Rowswell, who previously served as Canada's ambassador to Venezuela argued in The Globe and Mail. But Maduro "has made a career of breaking norms" — incarcerating opponents, subverting elections and suspending the country's constitution. While control of Essequibo has been disputed for more than a century, there's no real question that the territory belongs to Guyana. "We cannot accept a potential invasion."

With wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza, it's clear "President Biden does not want a dispute with Mr. Maduro now," The Washington Post editorialized. But Maduro's threat comes on the heels of his failure to make good on promises to hold a free presidential election and to release U.S. citizens improperly held by his government. (The U.S. dropped longstanding sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for those promises.) America "needs to respond with sanctions that squeeze Mr. Maduro and his gang, who have driven Venezuela to ruin."

The presidential election is the point, El País editorialized. A potential conflict with Guyana gives Maduro "the perfect excuse to declare 'internal commotion' and postpone the elections indefinitely." Maduro called the referendum on Essequibo the day after María Corina Machado overwhelmingly won the opposition primary election to oppose him. His party "has used the territorial conflict to stir up the specter of internal conspiracy" and cast Machado as the source of strife. The threat to Guyana is also a "threat to a fair electoral process."

What next?

Tensions are rising in the region. Brazil — which borders both Venezuela and Guyana to the south — this week announced that it is deploying troops along its border. "If there's one thing we don't want here in South America it's war," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told a summit of South American officials this week. "We don't need conflict. We need to build peace."

The American military is also getting involved. CBS News reported that the Defense Department will conduct "joint military flight drills" with Guyana in order to "strengthen regional cooperation." "The U.S. will continue its commitment as Guyana's trusted security partner and promoting regional cooperation and interoperability," the department said in a statement. And diplomats are hard at work: The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency session on the issue for Friday.  

'If it can happen in the Netherlands, it can happen anywhere'

The Washington Post editorial board

"It is time to stop being shocked" when far-right candidates win elections, says The Washington Post editorial board. The recent victory of the party of far-right leader Geert Wilders, who has called Islam "the biggest problem of the Netherlands," followed right-wing wins in Italy and Sweden. It's "lazy" to chalk up these politicians as local Trumps. The truth is "the 'center' — on charged topics such as immigration — has veered" right. Once-fringe parties are no longer extreme.

Read more

'Las Vegans grieve one more time'

Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board

"Will this insanity ever stop?" says the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board. Six years after one gunman murdered 59 people on the Las Vegas Strip, another has killed three at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The stale guns vs. mental health bickering that inevitably follows these horrific occurrences has already begun." But no debate is necessary to conclude a society that produces this many "lost and delusional" mass killers is suffering from deep, "entrenched maladies."

Read more

'One can hardly blame Maduro for his cockiness'

Washington Examiner editorial board

Venezuela is exploiting President Joe Biden's weakness, says the Washington Examiner editorial board. Two months after Biden "gifted" the South American nation's "dictator, President Nicolas Maduro," with six months of sanctions relief in exchange for an "absurdly disingenuous commitment that next year's elections would be free and fair," Maduro is trying to take over neighboring Guyana's oil-rich Essequibo region. He clearly thinks Biden is too scared — or "distracted by the Middle East crisis" — to stop him.

Read more

'If the economy is so good, why are Americans so grumpy?'

Steven Rattner in The New York Times

Unemployment, inflation, and the stock market suggest "the economy is strong," says Steven Rattner in The New York Times. But polls show "an understandable grimness about our broader economic prospects," partly because "the chaos of the pandemic" drove inflation to its highest in decades. Many people aren't satisfied that inflation is cooling. They want prices to fall, but that's proving to be a "fantasy." This is fueling pessimism about the future that could influence the 2024 elections.

Read more

Dozens of business figures and politicians have been arrested so far this year in a £17bn corruption scandal that has rocked Venezuela and its state-run oil company.

Senior officials in President Nicolás Maduro’s government have been among those arrested in an ongoing crackdown that has had “government insiders scurrying for cover”, said The Associated Press.

It is “one of the biggest scandals to hit Venezuela in years”, said The Sunday Times. It has already led to the resignation of “the once seemingly untouchable” oil minister Tareck El Aissami and there are “fears that up to £16.7bn may have been stolen from the coffers of the nationalised oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)”.

The investigation, led by Tarek William Saab, Venezuela’s attorney-general, “has fed a splurge of lurid headlines, as the excesses of a corruption network fleecing a nation emerge”, the paper reported. Confiscated assets include 28 mansions, 19 aeroplanes, a hotel and 361 luxury cars, and there are allegations of a prostitution ring dubbed the Oil Dolls.

“They gave themselves a life that not even Gulf princes have,” the paper quotes Saab as saying.

The episode “offers a rare window into the chaos and corruption at the top of PDVSA”, said The Economist, “the state oil giant which Mr Maduro, following in the footsteps of his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, has driven to near-ruin”.

The unfolding of a scandal

Oil has been “the backbone of Venezuela’s autocratic regimes for decades”, said The Economist. The country has one of the world’s largest oil reserves, and “successive presidents have been accused of stealing the easily tapped profits for their own use”, wrote The Sunday Times.

PDVSA was once the second largest oil company in the world, during the oil boom in the early 2000s, when record high prices allowed the leftist Chávez to launch “numerous initiatives” for public services, reported Al Jazeera.

“But a subsequent drop in prices and government mismanagement”, first under Chávez’s government and then his successor, Maduro, “ended the lavish spending”, the site reported. “And so began a complex crisis that has pushed millions into poverty and driven more than seven million Venezuelans to migrate.”

In 2016, the then opposition-led National Assembly said $11bn had gone missing at PDVSA between 2004 and 2014.

El Aissami, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs under Chávez and served as vice-president from 2017 to 2018, was accused by the US in 2017 of participating in corruption, money laundering and drug trafficking: a “narcotics kingpin”, according to Al Jazeera. He denies all the accusations.

Two years later, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on PDVSA to try to pressure Maduro into resigning, after the Venezuelan president “blatantly rigged the previous year’s election”, said The Sunday Times. The company’s losses came about partly because it had become “more reckless” in order to evade the sanctions, The Economist said.

PDVSA became reliant on fellow sanctioned allies Russia and Iran to import and sell oil at a heavy discount. In 2019 Maduro ordered PDVSA to move its European office to Moscow. Venezuela began accepting payments in rubles or cryptocurrency.

‘Corruption and incompetence’

When the pandemic caused a global slump in demand for oil, production at PDVSA plummeted. In April 2020, El Aissami was appointed Venezuela’s minister of oil.

An audit of PDVSA’s accounts in March this year showed “corruption and incompetence on a monumental scale”, said The Sunday Times. The anti-corruption police issued a communique on 17 March, which led to the first round of arrests.

Saab told reporters the alleged scheme involved selling Venezuelan oil through the country’s cryptocurrency oversight agency, in parallel to PDVSA. Some cryptocurrency payments reportedly turned out to be either scams, or to lead to huge losses.

El Aissami stepped down on 20 March. He has not been mentioned as a target for the investigation, and has pledged to help investigators while also publicly declaring his support for Maduro’s anti-corruption campaign.

Stabilising the economy

Venezuela is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, ranked by Transparency International in 2022 as 177th out of 180 countries.

Officials “are rarely held accountable”, said Al Jazeera, “a major irritant to citizens, the majority of whom now live on $1.90 a day, the international benchmark of extreme poverty”.

“It would be very difficult for even a much less corrupt state to implement all the necessary controls,” Francisco Monaldi, who heads the Latin America energy programme at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, told The Associated Press.

Internal PDVSA documents showed that more than half of its fleet of 22 oil tankers are so run down that they are at risk of “sinking, fires, or spills”, Reuters reported, and should be immediately taken out of service or repaired.

Analysts suspect Maduro may be seeking to stabilise the economy before next year’s presidential elections. The local currency, the bolívar, has slumped sharply against the dollar.

The anti-corruption drive, said OilPrice.com, could also be an attempt to persuade the US to lift sanctions on Venezuela.

Donald Trump has rejected any link to an alleged failed military operation in Venezuela that landed two US citizens in jail in the South American country.

Quizzed by White House reporters on Tuesday about the foiled “coup”, the US president said: “We just heard about it. But it has nothing to do with our government.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims the two “American mercenaries” were part of an attempt by his political opponents to incite a rebellion or kill him, backed by neighbouring Colombia and the US.

According to Venezuelan authorities, 13 “terrorists” have been arrested following Sunday’s attempted incursion, during which eight people were killed.

Maduro has warned for years of foreign plots against his rule, “waving at the spectre of treacherous coups and imperialist invasions”, says The Washington Post.

Such “alarmism” has often served as a “smokescreen for his government’s failures”, but this time “Maduro may have a point”, adds the newspaper, pointing to footage being circulated on social media by the Venezuelan authorities that appears to show captured insurrectionists - including two former US special operations soldiers.

Allegations and denials aside, this apparent coup attempt is most notable for its idiocy, says New York Magazine.

“First there was ‘stupid Watergate’, such an evocative phrase that it was applied both to the Trump camp’s entanglements with Russia and the president’s attempts to leverage aid in Ukraine that eventually led to impeachment,” says the US publication. Now, the Trump era has brought us stupid Bay of Pigs.”

In a series of blunders, the suspected insurrectionists reportedly tweeted about their raid while it was in progress; tried to defeat a standing army of 340,000 with a force of just 62; and came dramatically underarmed, with the weapons subsequently confiscated by Venezuelan forces said to include an air rifle.

“Seasick and vomiting... the ragtag band of fighters’ plan to arrest Venezuela’s authoritarian government and free political prisoners collapsed before they hit shore,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, the whole episode smacks of “Bay of Pigs” meets “Keystone Cops”, tweets Brett McGurk, a former diplomat for both the Trump and Barack Obama administrations.

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Trump’s efforts to distance himself from the operation may also come unstuck.

The Washington Post reports that “a key figure behind the plot is Jordan Goudreau, a former US Green Beret who runs Silvercorp USA, a Florida-based private security firm”.

Silvercorp provided security for the president’s rallies in 2018, as shown in a now-deleted Instagram picture that was screengrabbed by Vice News. The image appears to have been taken backstage at Trump’s October 2018 rally in Charlotte, and was captioned “Protecting our Greatest Assets”.

For Maduro, the whole incident “is a welcome distraction”, says the Post, which notes that “tanking oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic have put him under even greater pressure”.

That view is shared by former senior US diplomat Eric Farnsworth, now vice president of the Council of the Americas.

Unpicking Maduro’s “convenient narrative”, Farnsworth asks: “What better way to rally a country that’s flat on its back than to expose an invasion from the empire?”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Iain Martin in The Times

on history repeating itself

Conservatives face a backlash if they win

“Veteran party observers have cited similarities between this general election and 1983, when voters concluded that they simply could not countenance a far-left leader like Michael Foot. The more striking parallel I see is with 1992. Then the Conservatives won with a relatively new leader, John Major, and promises of a brighter future. Six months later they were ruined by the collapse of their European policy and the ERM debacle. In the years that followed they were buried under an avalanche of sleaze allegations. This time the Tories have been in power for nearly a decade and, in policy area after policy area, they are overdue a kicking from a country increasingly concerned about the condition of public services. If that kicking does not come next month, because voters sensibly realise that Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be prime minister, then it’s likely the dam will break next year.”

2. Joel Golby in The Guardian

on the mystical allure of the PM

Look at Boris Johnson eating a scone. This? This is your shagger god?

“With eyes open and hearts brave, we must watch this video of Boris Johnson eating a scone. This is what we’ve come to: Boris Johnson eating a mediocre baked good is somehow a sort of galactic-brained version of everyman campaigning, a highpoint of election conversation, and a stunning and remarkable example of strategic nous. When really, it looks like grainy VHS footage of a toddler eating a cracker for the first time re-enacted by a man who, on every other version of Earth, is the village weirdo famed for acting erratically near urinals, and not, as we have it here on Earth-Prime, the most politically important man in the United Kingdom. But there we are.”

3. Stephen Bush in The i Newspaper

on the battle for the opposition

The Liberal Democrats' dismal polling is down to Jeremy Corbyn - he is the party's real leader

“Lib Dems understandably resent Labour’s attitude that they are, in reality, little more than a strange adjunct onto the United Kingdom’s main opposition party. Labour partisans, too, find it incomprehensible that voters still view the Liberal Democrats, who spent five years sharing power with the Conservatives at Westminster, as a legitimate home for anti-Tory sentiment. But in 2019, as in every election in the modern history of the Liberal Democrats, most voters believe that, given a choice, the Liberal Democrats’ first preference is a deal with Labour – and if the Conservative voters that the party needs to flip to win seats are turned off by the Labour leader, they won’t back the Liberal Democrats.”

4. Judith Woods in The Telegraph

on the beauty of aging

It’s time we woke up to the allure of the older woman

“Young people flinch at our crow’s feet while we see laughter lines. We’ve been round the block often enough not to sweat the small stuff. It’s a curious paradox that young women wear far more make-up than my age group, even though they need it less. Could it be that each of us already grasps the strength and depth of our foundation so we don’t need to keep slathering on more? Just a thought. I have no inclination to stir up an inter-generational catfight, as it only fuels the cliches about women being their own worst enemies. Besides, would any of us swap wisdom for youth? There are good reasons why Freaky Friday is one of the most palm-sweatingly frightening films my demographic will ever watch.”

5. Carlos Eduardo Pina in Al Jazeera

on the overestimation of power

Is Venezuela really a threat to Latin America and the Caribbean?

“On closer inspection, the accusation that the Venezuelan government is a threat to the survival, stability and democratic integrity of the countries in the LAC region appears to be an exaggeration. Caracas currently has neither the intention nor the military, economic or political power to take on any major political actor or alter the dynamics within the region. Caracas' petrol income has reached record lows and its economy is in a shambles. The Maduro government is incapable of providing for its own citizens let alone spending money abroad to hurt its political rivals. Moreover, Venezuela does not currently have the capacity to embark on a military intervention in another country.”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. David N Meyers in the Los Angeles Times

on Kashmir as a symbol of the rising threat of authoritarianism

Trump’s silence on Kashmir sends a dangerous signal to the world’s autocratic leaders

“The parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian situation and that of India and Kashmir are striking. Both are byproducts of attempted partitions after British imperial rule. Both Kashmir and the West Bank contain populations deemed hostile and undesirable by the ethnic purists in their respective countries. Both Modi and Netanyahu have shown themselves to be willing to resort to incendiary and threatening language against the Muslim populations in their midst. And both are abetted by the active support — or telling silence — of Trump. What would Trump do if Netanyahu went ahead with his periodic pledge to annex the West Bank and its nearly 3 million Palestinians? Would he and his fellow illiberals sit back and crow that this is the new way of the world?”

2. Carlos Eduardo Pina in Al Jazeera

on the continuing plight of Venezuela

Will Trump go after Maduro to win a re-election?

“If Trump succeeds in orchestrating the demise of Chavismo in Venezuela, this would be the most important "victory" of his presidency. If he fails, however, it will certainly go down in history as one of the greatest blunders of American foreign policy. No matter what happens, in the end, it will be the Venezuelan people bearing the brunt of Trump's foreign policy experiments. The sanctions have already devastated the country and made life extremely difficult, especially for the country's poor. A military intervention would certainly result in a major humanitarian catastrophe and unimaginable human loss.”

3. Frida Ghitis in CNN

on the real issue preventing action in the Amazon

Bolsonaro's ego stands in the way of saving the Amazon

“The nationalists' creed is centered on some version of MAGA, Trump's Make America Great Again slogan, which is at its heart a call to mistrust cooperation with other countries and to reject the prospect of sacrifices for a common good shared with other nations.

The environment, international cooperation? Those are for wimps. Nationalists flex their muscle and tell others to mind their own business. It's no coincidence that Bolsonaro, too, campaigned on a hypermasculine platform. The ubiquitous hand signal at his rallies was an extended index finger and thumb, an imaginary pistol, symbolizing his plan to put more guns in the hands of civilians. He praised Brazil's military dictatorships, attacked LGBT Brazilians and when he heard a congresswoman had called him a rapist, he said she was not attractive enough for him to rape.”

4. Remona Aly in The Guardian

on the religious imperative for Muslims to go green

With hajj under threat, it's time Muslims joined the climate movement

“With approximately 100m plastic bottles left behind each year after the pilgrimage ends, it’s clear that action is desperately needed. Slowly, Saudi authorities are beginning to implement a more environmentally friendly hajj by installing recycling points around the holy sites, and they aim to cut waste volumes by two-thirds by 2030. Pushing for change has been a struggle in the kingdom, but apathy is a wider problem. It’s bound up in socio-economic deprivation, and too often 'saving the planet' is seen as something for the rich, a kind of green elitism.”

5. Geeta Anand in the New York Times

on the struggle of accommodating an aging population

How not to grow old in America

“Now that I am back in the United States, I have been thinking about assisted living again. My dad passed away in 2017, after living with us for nine years, and my 83-year-old mother now lives in New York City with my sister. Would assisted living offer our mother better care and relieve the pressure on my sister, who works full time while raising a young daughter? Sadly, I’ve discovered the answer is no. The irony of assisted living is, it’s great if you don’t need too much assistance. If you don’t, the social life, the spalike facilities, the myriad activities and the extensive menus might make assisted living the right choice. But if you have trouble walking or using the bathroom, or have dementia and sometimes wander off, assisting living facilities aren’t the answer, no matter how desperately we wish they were.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims his forces have defeated an alleged coup attempt led by opposition leader Juan Guiado.

According to Al Jazeera, hundreds of Venezuelans rallied in the streets of the capital Caracas on Tuesday afternoon after Guaido called for a “military uprising”, in what the news organisation says is his “strongest move” yet to take down the disputed leader.

Guaido has been backed by a number of foreign governments since declaring himself interim president earlier this year, and this week called on Venezuela’s military to support the “final phase” of his campaign to oust Maduro.

But following a day “punctured by violent exchanges”, Maduro announced that the “coup-mongering far-right” had been quelled, The Independent report.

“They failed in their plan. They failed in their call, because the people of Venezuela want peace,” Maduro said in a televised address. “We will continue to emerge victorious… in the months and years ahead. I have no doubt about it.”

But a defiant Guaido has called for more mass protests to remove Maduro from power, and has repeated his plea for the military to back his “Operation Freedom”.

“Over the expanse and length of Venezuela, we will be in the streets. We will see you all in the streets. That is our territory,” the opposition chief said.

A highly controversial figure, Guaido is both loved and loathed in Venezuela. But who is the self-declared “acting president” of the country and how did he rise to lead the charge against Maduro?

Who is Juan Guaido?

Guaido, 35, was born in the port city of La Guaira in 1983 and “cut his political teeth during 2007 student protests against Maduro’s late predecessor Hugo Chavez”, The Guardian says.

A former industrial engineer, Guaido served one term as a lawmaker for the centre-left Popular Will party, and became head of the opposition-held National Assembly at the start of 2019, Time reports.

Although Maduro stripped the parliament of its powers in 2017, it “still meets and is recognised by most countries”, says the magazine.

Guaido’s election as leader of the assembly “re-energised those unhappy with Maduro’s rule in a country crippled by a severe economic crisis”, adds the BBC.

The broadcaster notes that Guaido’s youth and background - hailing from one of Venezuela’s poorest states - means the government “has struggled to paint him as a member of the country’s elite”, against whom Maduro regularly directs his wrath.

What does he want?

“Few outside or inside of Venezuela had heard of Juan Guaido” until 2018, when he made headlines in the wake of the presidential election, says Time. Maduro was re-elected but international observers, including the US and EU, quickly declared the vote fraudulent.

Following Maduro’s inauguration, in January 2019, Guaido used a clause in Venezuela’s Constitution to declare himself president. According to the document, the leader of the National Assembly automatically becomes president in the event of a “vacuum of power” within the country, a situation he claimed had been brought about by the allegedly rigged election.

“We will stay in the streets until we have freedom for Venezuela,” Guaido told his supporters. “We will fight back until we have democracy.”

His announcement won support from the members of the Organization of American States, along with the US and a number of EU countries, who recognised him as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

Responding to Guaido’s calls this week for an uprising, US Vice President Mike Pence reiterated the Trump administration’s support, tweeting: “We are with you!”

However, when it comes to policies, Guaido has been accused of vagueness and lack of conviction.

Fox News, which takes a strong anti-Maduro stance, says that Guaido’s policies include “facilitating new elections, taking steps to restore the country’s ailing economy, and distributing aid”, but does not specify how that might be achieved.

The BBC says that while Guaido has dismissed Maduro as a “usurper” of power in the past, the opposition leader has given “little indication of his vision for Venezuela” beyond his support for the Popular Will party’s policies of a market economy and greater powers for regional governments.

What will happen next?

Some observers suggested that a major coup was taking place following Guaido’s call to arms on Tuesday. But within hours, news outlets including Bloomberg were reporting that Guaido’s efforts had simply “fizzled”, amid claims that he should have won more public support before launching his uprising.

“Even though the opposition went out and did everything possible, it doesn’t have enough popular support,” said Javier Buenrostro, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “The support it has doesn’t match the size of the action. The reaction does not make the government shake.”

Maduro blamed the alleged coup attempt on “the obsessive efforts of the Venezuelan right, the Colombian oligarchy and the US empire”.

However, while the uprising appears to have failed, the attempt alone “could lead to a different kind of dialogue”, Venezuelan political analyst Carlos Pina told Al Jazeera, adding that Maduro’s regime will “not be able to maintain the same strategy that it has carried out so far towards Guaido and his followers”.

The opposition leader may face serious repercussions in the meantime, however.

“[Prosecutors] will launch criminal prosecutions for the serious crimes that have been committed against the Constitution, the rule of law and the right to peace,” Maduro said in his “victory” speech this week.

A coup attempt in Venezuela dominates this morning’s front pages, several of whom feature startling images of chaos on the streets as protesters face off with an army mostly loyal to President Nicolas Maduro.

On the domestic front, the Labour NEC’s decision to stick to its “on the fence” policy of partial support for a second referendum also makes the headlines. “Confirmed: Vote Labour, Get Brexit,” blares an unimpressed The National.

The party’s reluctance to back a second vote might be partly explained on The Daily Telegraph’s front page, which suggests Theresa May is “on [the] verge of caving in” to Labour’s demands on a Brexit deal.

Take a look at the front pages of the major UK newspapers today:

Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro says he has thwarted an attempt to topple him by the “coup-mongering far right” and Donald Trump’s deranged imperialist “gang”.

Following a day of violence on the streets, Maduro accused opposition leader Juan Guaido and his political mentor Leopoldo Lopez of trying to ignite an armed confrontation that could be used as a pretext for a foreign military intervention.

Guaido declared himself interim president in January. Since then, the crisis-hit country has had two men claiming to be its leader.

Guaido has called on his supporters to take to the streets again today, after releasing a video yesterday morning in which, surrounded by men in military uniform, he said he had the support of “brave soldiers” in the nation’s capital.

“The National Armed Forces have taken the correct decision,” he said. “They are guaranteed to be on the right side of history.”

However, the BBC says most of the military stayed on the side of Maduro during yesterday’s clashes, in which live rounds were fired and armoured vehicles driven into protesters.

Health officials said 69 people were injured in the clashes, including two who had been hit by bullets.

As the violence unfolded, Guaido said on Twitter: “We are in a process that is unstoppable. We have the firm backing of our people and the world to achieve the restoration of our democracy.”

What comes next is less than certain. The New York Times says Guaido has “fallen short of the prize he sought: the toppling of President Nicolas Maduro”. In the longer term, though, says the BBC, while “Mr Maduro still occupies the presidential palace, his future isn't secure”.

Outside Venezuela, international governments lined up behind each side. Trump, who backs Guaido, said the US stood with the Venezuelan people and their freedom. Cuba and Bolivia, which support Maduro, condemned Guaido’s efforts as an attempted coup.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appealed for both sides to avoid violence.

US Vice-president Mike Pence is to announce “clear actions” to tackle the growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where at least four people were killed and hundreds injured during clashes between government forces and opposition activists this weekend.

Pence is in neighbouring Colombia today for a meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has asked the US and “other countries to consider ‘all options’ to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power”, reports The Guardian.

More than 50 countries including the US have recognised Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, after he secured the backing of opposition parties in the country's National Assembly, which he leads, to proclaim himself interim president in January.

But Maduro has dismissed Guaido as a “puppet” of Donald Trump’s government, and has closed Venezuela’s border with Brazil and shut down several crossings with Colombia. In the process, Maduro has blocked supplies of food and medicine from entering his country.

What happened over the weekend?

Clashes between opposition protesters and forces loyal to Maduro that began on Friday are “threatening the image of Guaido’s non-violent movement”, says The New York Times.

The border town of Santa Elena de Uairen saw the worst of the violence, with pro-government armed gangs and Venezuela’s military taking to the streets in a bid to disperse opposition supporters. At least four people were killed and a further 18 injured by gunfire, according to campaign group Foro Penal.

Elsewhere along the border with Colombia, aid vehicles were set on fire and pro-Maduro militias fired tear gas at protesting crowds, injuring hundreds.

“It was one of the outcomes we had imagined, but it wasn’t the one we wanted,” Armando Armas, an opposition lawmaker, told the Times. “We can’t expose our people any more. The entry of humanitarian aid can’t be the trigger of a wider conflict.”

But a senior Trump administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said: “What happened yesterday is not going to deter us from getting humanitarian aid into Venezuela.

“All [Maduro] demonstrated is he had enough henchmen to guard one end of three bridges in Colombia. That’s a tactical achievement for him. But it’s perishable.”

What might Pence and Guaido agree?

Pence will announce “concrete steps” and “clear actions” at a summit of the Lima Group - a bloc of 12 Latin American countries and Canada - in the Colombian capital Bogota on Monday, according to US officials. The vice-president will also have a one-on-one meeting with Guaido, although the US has not elaborated on exactly what kinds of measures might be declared.

In a clear hint that Guaido would support US military intervention in Venezuela, the opposition leader tweeted on Saturday: “The events of today oblige me to take a decision, to formally propose to the international community that we should keep all options open to achieve the liberation of our homeland.”

Trump did not immediately respond to Guaido, but the US leader said last month that “all options were on the table” and has “suggested invading Venezuela both in public and private”, notes The Guardian.

Asked whether the US would provide military assistance, if requested by Guaido, the anonymous US official said: “Ultimately, it would be a decision for the president to make.”

What happens next?

There have “always been strands of the Venezuelan opposition who have called for military intervention”, says The Guardian.

But exiled Venezuelan opposition leader David Smolansky, a close friend and ally of Guaido, told the newspaper that they were not asking for troops on the ground.

“It is still a peaceful movement,” he said. “Violence yesterday came from armed pro-government gangs and security forces.”

All the same, when pressed on whether he would support military intervention in the future, Smolansky declined to rule out the possibility, saying: “The only option we have is to restore democracy and freedom with internal and external pressure.”

According to US news site Axios, the driving force behind Trump’s hawkish Venezuela turn appears to be Pence, who isn’t the “impotent toady many assume him to be”.

Regardless of who is at the steering wheel, “the US rhetoric [has been] over the top”, said Charles S. Shapiro, a former ambassador to Venezuela. Shapiro claims the US response may have led some in the Venezuelan opposition to believe military assistance would be offered if Maduro continued to block aid deliveries.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been more circumspect than many of his colleagues, however. Pompeo told CNN that “further action will be contemplated” this week but that his government was focusing on sanctions, humanitarian aid and actions by Venezuelans themselves.

“The Venezuelan people will ultimately, I believe, hold accountable those who have done so much harm to the fundamental basic rights of the people of Venezuela,” he added.

In a bizarre musical stand-off, two concerts will take place opposite each other across the border of Venezuela and Columbia this weekend; one in support of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the other organised by billionaire Richard Branson.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Branson, who is backing opposition leader Juan Guaido, said he hoped the concert would raise $100m for “much-needed medical help” for crisis-torn Venezuela, which is suffering from hyperinflation and widespread shortages of food and medicine.

According to The Guardian “the plan is to raise donations from viewers watching the concert on a livestream over the internet”, with up to 300,000 people expected to attend in person to see the likes of Spanish-French singer Manu Chao, Mexican band Maná, Spanish singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz and Dominican artist Juan Luis Guerra.

Stepping up the stand-off, Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez also promised to deliver 20,000 boxes of government-subsidised food to the poor in the Colombian border city of Cucuta where the opposition concert is being held, and where tonnes of aid from the United States is now sitting earmarked for struggling Venezuelans.

“The rival bids for aid and concerts to shore up support are part of a tense bid by both Maduro and the opposition to break a monthlong stalemate over power in Venezuela,” says AP.

Maduro has vowed not to let any US aid enter Venezuela, instead announcing on state TV earlier this week that his government would import 300 tonnes of much-needed supplies from Russia.

Yet while he retains the support of Kremlin, China and crucially the Venezualan army, his position remains precarious.

Donald Trump has adopted an increasingly belligerent tone towards the regime and last week Cuba claimed US special forces were readying an infiltration under the pretense of averting a humanitarian disaster.

Seeking to appeal directly to the army, “the opposition has urged the military, which remains loyal to Maduro, to let the aid in”, says The Daily Telegraph, something “analysts say... would seriously undermine Maduro's authority and could lead to his ouster”.

Responding to news Maduro’s government plans to put on a rival concert, Guaido described the move as “desperate”.

“They’re debating whether the aid should come in or not... They don’t know what to do,” he said. “They’re now making up a concert. How many concerts are they going to stage?”

Cuba has claimed the US is secretly moving special forces soldiers closer to Venezuela ahead of a full military intervention aimed at regime change in the beleaguered South American country.

A “Declaration of the Revolutionary Government” claimed recent events in the country amounted to an attempted coup that had so far failed.

“Between February 6 and 10 military transport aircraft have flown to the Rafael Miranda Airport of Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base, in the Dominican Republic and to other strategically located Caribbean islands, probably without knowledge of the governments of those nations,” the declaration said.

“These flights originated in American military installations from which units of Special Operations and Marine Corps operate, which are used for covert actions,” it added, arguing it was part of “a plan to intervene in the South American country using the pretext of a humanitarian crisis,” reports Reuters.

The head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaido, declared himself interim president three weeks ago, provoking a constitutional crisis that threatens to descend into open civil war.

The US, along with many Western countries, have publicly backed Guaido. However, China and Russia continue to support incumbent socialist President Nicolas Maduro, as do crucially the Venezuelan army.

The country has been brought to a standstill amid a series sanctions that have further hit the already crumbing economy. Many now believe only a dramatic shift from the army or military intervention from outside actors can break the impasse.

Last month Donald Trump’s National Security advisor, John Bolton, ducked questions over possible US military involvement, although papers he was carrying may have revealed plans for the administration to send 5,000 troops to Colombia in an anticipation of a cross-border incursion.

With all eyes on the US, there have been conflicting reports coming from Washington in recent days.

On Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers said Congress would oppose US military intervention in Venezuela. The Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, said: “I do worry about the president’s saber rattling, his hints that US military intervention remains an option. I want to make clear to our witnesses and to anyone else watching: US military intervention is not an option”.

Reuters reports that “under US law, Congress - not the president - must approve foreign military action”.

It came less than 24 hours after the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the US military may have to intervene in Venezuela if Russia places weapons there.

“I think that it could happen,” Republican Senator James Inhofe said. “You’ve got a guy down there that is killing everybody. You could have him put together a base that Russia would have on our hemisphere. And if those things happen, it may be to the point where we’ll have to intervene with troops and respond.”

When asked by The Hill what type of military action he thought was appropriate, Inhofe said: “Whatever is necessary should they bring in some armaments on our hemisphere that would be, in the smart peoples’ opinion, something that would be a threat to the United States of America.”

There are other reports that seem to confirm suspicions American military power is quietly massing near Venezuela.

Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner suggests “Trump is likely to deploy US military forces to Colombia before 23 February”.

He says the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU, embarked on the USS Boxer, are “only 5-7 days’ sailing time” from the Columbian port of Cartagena near the border.

“An MEU deployment to Colombia would also represent an appropriate balance between deterring Nicolas Maduro's regime and threatening invasion,” he says, adding: “A significant US naval and marine presence is now operating in proximity to Colombia and Venezuela. Whether coincidental or not, these deployments afford the White House an increasing range of options”.

The prospect of US military action in Venezuela is not without risk, however. Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised Trump’s suggestion that US military intervention could be an option in resolving the current crisis.

Despite this, “Trump has staked out a position that is popular in Washington, particularly among his own Republican Party, while simultaneously signaling that he is not beholden to Russia’s interests,” says the Moscow Times.

“The wise move for Trump would be to maintain his current course on Venezuela. Increased pressure from Russia on one side and from Congress on the other may, however, put Trump in a very difficult position, forcing him to choose between two relationships that are very important to him,” says the news site.

Donald Trump’s administration has sought to ratchet up pressure on embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by claiming his regime supports Iranian-backed Hezbollah cells operating in his country.

Mike Pompeo told Fox Business: “People don’t recognise that Hezbollah has active cells. The Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America.”

Pompeo said the ongoing political and economic crisis risks turning the Latin American country into a no-man’s land, effectively controlled by Cuba, Russia and Iran.

The US has long considered Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and “sanctions on people in Venezuela linked to Hezbollah have been imposed as far back as the George W. Bush administration”, reports Jon Sharman for The Independent.

“Washington also believes Latin America has served as a base of fund-gathering for the group for some years, including through drugs and money-laundering schemes,” says Sharman.

Last month Fox News reported that “as Iran and Venezuela become increasingly isolated and sanctioned by the US and much of the international community, the two governments are said to be tightening their bond - with the help of Tehran's proxy group, Hezbollah, in the middle of the action.”

Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez formed tight links with Iran under Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in the 2000s and Fox claims that Iran and Hezbollah are said to provide “strategic advice” to the Venezuelan regime “for safe keeping”.

Right-wing US news site Breitbart adds that “under Maduro, Hezbollah, in particular, has established itself as a force in Latin America, dominating drug trafficking routes and using senior Maduro officials such as Minister of Industries and National Production Tareck El Aissami to expand recruitment efforts into the Western Hemisphere”.

Donald Trump became the first leader to formally recognise Venezuela’s national assembly president Juan Guaido as interim president in January. He has since been joined by EU leaders, while Russia and China continue to back Maduro.

The latest intervention by the US’ most senior diplomat is consistent with the administration’s increasingly hostile approach towards Iran.

Last year Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran, in breach of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama, labelling the government “a murderous dictatorship that has continued to spread bloodshed, violence and chaos”.

Venezuelan troops have blockaded a bridge that connects the country to Colombia, in an apparent bid by President Nicolas Maduro to stop international humanitarian aid being delivered.

Two shipping containers and an oil tanker have been positioned on the Tienditas international bridge, near the Colombian city of Cucuta, which was one of three designated staging points for the delivery of aid.

The convoy, donated by the United States, left Bogota on Wednesday morning, and was due to cross the bridge later today.

The aid was organised by opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido, who called on the international community for help as Venezuela continues to sink into further economic collapse.

However, Maduro has “repeatedly denied his economically devastated country is facing a humanitarian crisis, apparently fearing such an acceptance could be used to justify foreign military intervention”, The Guardian says.

In a speech to his troops this week, Maduro insisted that Venezuela did not need any international help, saying: “We are not beggars.”

Reuters reports that the United Nations has issued a warning against “using aid as a pawn in Venezuela”. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York: “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives.”

The blockade comes just days after Maduro appeared to threaten Guaido with imprisonment.

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has previously said that violence or intimidation of Guaido or other opposition leaders “would represent a grave assault on the rule of law and will be met with a significant response”.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has moved to ban opposition leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country, and has also frozen his bank accounts.

The move is the latest challenge by President Nicolas Maduro, who is refusing to step down from his position despite increasing pressure both domestically and internationally.

Maduro began a second six-year term as president on 10 January, following elections last year that many observers say were illegitimate.

Venezuela’s chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that his office had begun an investigation into Guaido for his anti-government activities.

Saab also accused Guaido of inciting “violent acts” on 23 January, when angry protestors answered the self-proclaimed interim president calls to take to the streets.

“These acts are undermining the peace of the nation,” Saab said.

According to The Guardian, Guaido “appeared to take the threat of imprisonment in his stride”, saying: “We are here, we will keep acting and working to confront the humanitarian crisis.”

Despite Venezuelan generals’ apparent support for Maduro, “a handful of Venezuelan diplomats and officials posted to missions in the United States have said they are abandoning the Maduro government”, The New York Times reports.

The US, along with a number of other countries have publicly stated their backing for Guaido to become president and call fresh elections.

However, the Maduro regime continues to enjoy international support from a number of allies, including Russia.

Meanwhile, as the political crisis drags on, the people of Venezuela are continuing to suffer through a severe humanitarian crisis, with hyperinflation and a lack of food and medicine making life very difficult.

The White House has announced sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil industry, in an attempt to stop sitting president Nicolas Maduro’s government from “[looting] the assets of the Venezuelan people”.

Speaking at a press conference, White House national security advisor John Bolton said that “the president has made it clear that all options are on the table” as the US seeks to exert more pressure on Maduro’s regime.

While Bolton skirted questions over possible US military involvement in the unfolding crisis in Venezuela, papers he was carrying (pictured above) may have revealed plans for the administration to send 5,000 troops to Colombia, The Guardian says.

The BBC says that it is “hard to predict how much of an impact the move will have”, as both Russia and China, who remain supporters of Maduro, may step in and increase the amount of oil they get from Venezuela.

Maduro is under mounting international pressure to step down, after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, sparking the political crisis.

Venezuela’s beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro has carried out one of the greatest currency devaluations in history in a bid stablise the economy and stem the mass exodus which threatens to turn into a full-blow refugee crisis that will engulf the continent.

With the International Monetary Fund warning inflation could hit 1,000,000% this year, Caracas has devalued its currency by 96% and also begun issuing new banknotes after slashing five zeroes off the crippled bolivar.

This means that the official rate for the currency will go from about 285,000 per dollar to 6 million, a shock that officials have tried to partly offset by raising the minimum wage 3,500% to the equivalent of $30 a month.

The new sovereign bolivar, named to distinguish it from the current strong bolivar, will be anchored to Venezuela's widely discredited cryptocurrency, the petro.

Each petro will be worth around $60 (£47), based on the price of a barrel of the country's oil.

Along with plans to increase the price of petrol, it forms part of Maduro’s promise of “a magic formula” to get his country back on track, although many are skeptical it will work.

Economists say the package of measures “is likely to accelerate hyperinflation rather than address its core economic troubles, like oil production plunging to levels last seen in 1947”, reports The Independent.

“It’s not clear how the shock measures announced by Maduro will sit with one of his key allies: the military” who have been handed the keys to several key ministries says the Financial Post.

“Clearly this will hit Maduro’s popularity, but power is being sustained with bullets and not with votes,” Moises Naim, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former minister in Venezuela, said from Washington. “As long as the military continues to have access to lucrative businesses it will continue to grant support to the government.”

The measures could also have wider ramifications outside Venezuela.

CNN reports that the mass exodus of citizens fleeing the economic and humanitarian crisis is ratcheting up tensions in neighbouring countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Brazil.

On Saturday, a mob of Brazilians attacked a group of Venezuelans in a border city and destroyed a migrant camp, prompting President Michel Temer to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday as regional tensions flared over the numbers fleeing Venezuela.

In Ecuador, a new rule came into effect over the week requiring Venezuelan citizens entering the country to present a valid passport.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than half a million Venezuelans have crossed into Ecuador via Colombia since the start of the year and that the number is accelerating with some 30,000 entering in the first week of August alone, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency.

“The exodus of Venezuelans from the country is one of Latin America's largest mass-population movements in history,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said in a statement. “Many of the Venezuelans are moving on foot, in an odyssey of days and even weeks in precarious conditions.”

A top UN official has warned that Venezuela is on the verge of turning into an “absolute disaster of unprecedented proportions” after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted the inflation rate in the country could reach 1,000,000% by the end of the year.

Venezuela has been suffering a dramatic economic collapse since oil prices nosedived nearly four years ago and authorities have refused to enact economic adjustments. “A number of price and exchange controls only added to the distortions” says Bloomberg.

Alejandro Werner, head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department, forecasts the economy to shrink 18% in 2018, the third consecutive year of double-digit contractions, as oil production falls significantly.

Writing in a blog post for Bloomberg subscribers, Werner compared the current crisis to that of Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in the late 2000s, adding: “The collapse in economic activity, hyperinflation, and increasing deterioration in the provision of public goods as well as shortages of food at subsidised prices have resulted in large migration flows, which will lead to intensifying spillover effects on neighbouring countries”.

The New York Times reports that “on the streets of Caracas, the capital, prices have skyrocketed to levels so high that many vendors now refuse to take bolívars bank notes, the national currency, because their value is eroding so fast”.

Store owners guess the prices they should be charging for goods, restaurant menus change weekly, and the price of the dollar, sold on the black market, has reached 3.5 million bolivars.

It follows a two-decades long mass exodus that has seen between 4 and 5 million Venezuelans leave the country since 1999, “one of the biggest population moves in Latin American history”, says the Daily Express.

While blaming the dire economic situation squarely on the socialist policies of Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, and his predecessor Huge Chavez, Steve Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University and one of the world's leading experts on hyperinflation, says Venezuela's hyperinflation could stop today, if the country adopted the dollar.

“Dollarise the economy officially” he says. “Hyperinflation would stop within a few minutes. It would be over. The thing would turn around on a dime”.

CBN News says “it is not clear if President Maduro would ever allow a switch to the dollar” even thought he has taken measures to stem the tide.

On Tuesday, the president, who survived an alleged assassination attempt earlier this month, announced he would be ending some fuel subsidies.

Like most oil producing countries, Venezuela has “for decades subsidised fuel as a benefit to consumers, but its fuel prices have remained nearly flat for years despite hyperinflation”, says the Daily Telegraph.

This means that for the price of a cup of coffee, a driver can now fill the tank of a small SUV nearly 9,000 times, creating huge incentives for smugglers.