The US attempt to remove the President of Venezuela

By Matthew Parish, Associate Editor

The recent history of Venezuela has been marked by profound political polarisation, economic collapse, and the repeated involvement of external powers seeking to shape the nation’s future. Amongst the most consequential of these actors has been the United States, whose attempts to unseat Venezuela’s President and replace him with an opposition leader have become an emblematic case study in twenty-first century regime-change strategy. These efforts, spanning diplomatic initiatives, sanctions, covert support, and episodic flirtations with military pressure, reveal a complex interplay between ideology, geopolitics, and domestic Venezuelan dynamics.

The origins of this conflict may be traced to the rise of Hugo Chávez in 1999 and the subsequent reorientation of Venezuelan foreign policy away from Washington’s sphere of influence. Chávez positioned Venezuela as a regional counterweight to the United States, using her vast oil wealth to fund social programmes at home and patronage networks abroad. Washington viewed this as destabilising and contrary to its hemispheric preferences. Relations deteriorated rapidly, culminating in the April 2002 coup attempt, in which military factions briefly removed Chávez from office. Although the United States denied involvement, documents later indicated the existence of prior knowledge and tacit encouragement of anti-Chávez forces. The coup’s failure and Chávez’s dramatic return to power set the tone for two decades of mutual hostility.

Following Chávez’s death in 2013, his chosen successor Nicolás Maduro inherited a state already facing severe economic difficulties. Falling oil prices and mismanagement accelerated Venezuela’s descent into hyperinflation and humanitarian crisis. As public discontent grew, the Venezuelan opposition coalesced around figures such as Henrique Capriles and later Juan Guaidó, leaders who argued that Maduro’s presidency lacked constitutional legitimacy. The United States adopted this framing and, by 2017, began escalating sanctions against Venezuelan officials and the state oil company PDVSA. These measures aimed to deprive the government of revenue while signalling support for political change.

The decisive turn occurred in January 2019, when Guaidó, then head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim President, arguing that Maduro’s re-election in 2018 had been fraudulent. The United States swiftly recognised Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, followed by several European and Latin American governments. Washington’s strategy relied upon two assumptions: that mass defections from the armed forces would follow, and that popular mobilisation would force Maduro from office. Neither assumption proved correct. The Venezuelan military, benefiting from patronage networks and wary of chaos, remained loyal. Many ordinary Venezuelans, although suffering deeply, were sceptical of foreign-backed regime change, recalling the chaos that had followed similar interventions in Iraq and Libya.

Having failed to provoke a swift political collapse, Washington intensified its pressure. Sanctions expanded to target Venezuelan gold exports, foreign currency transactions, and shipping firms involved in oil trading. The strategy increasingly resembled a siege, aiming to render governance impossible. Yet the humanitarian costs were high. Shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and electricity worsened. Critics argued that US policy was exacerbating the suffering of the very people it was purportedly designed to defend, turning Venezuela into an example of coercive diplomacy bordering on collective punishment.

There were moments when Washington’s strategy flirted with the possibility of military escalation. US officials made ambiguous statements that all options were on the table, and in 2020 the Trump administration supported attempts by small groups of Venezuelan dissidents and former soldiers to infiltrate the country by sea. The most infamous of these, the so-called Operation Gideon, involved a Florida-based private security contractor and ended in failure and embarrassment. While certain factions within the US government may have viewed paramilitary options as a means of destabilising the regime, the broader international community, including cautious US allies, rejected any suggestion of military intervention.

The limits of the strategy became increasingly clear. Guaidó’s political standing eroded as the opposition fragmented and as the United States proved unable to deliver a decisive outcome. Within Venezuela, Maduro tightened his grip on the state, weathering sanctions with support from Russia, Iran, and China, who provided fuel, financial lifelines, and diplomatic backing. Over time, even some of the governments that had once recognised Guaidó began to shift towards a more pragmatic engagement with Caracas. By the early 2020s, many Latin American states, including Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil under new leadership, favoured negotiated solutions rather than externally driven regime change.

However now the United States has engaged in a renewed military build up off the Venezeulan Coast, including the US Navy’s largest vessel, the USS Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier and her strike fleet. The purpose of moving the strike fleet to Venezuela is presumably a renewed attempt at regime change, using military force; otherwise there seems little point in moving the strike fleet to the region. Smaller US vessels have purported to be intercepting vessels carrying drugs from Venezuelan shores; but in truth Venezuela is not a major exporter of drugs to the United States compared to countries such as her neighbour Colombia. Hence those military actions appear to have been a pretext for something larger about to follow imminently. Precisely what will happen, and what active military role the United States will take in attacking Venezuela directly, is anyone’s guess.

The Role of Russia and Iran

The resilience of the Venezuelan government cannot be understood without appreciating the strategic support provided by Russia and Iran. Both states view Venezuela not only as an ideological ally but also as a convenient platform from which to challenge American influence in the western hemisphere. Their involvement has placed decisive constraints on Washington’s ability to force political change.

Russia’s relationship with Caracas deepened steadily from the late Chávez era. Moscow supplied arms, refinanced debt, and invested heavily in Venezuela’s energy industry through the state-owned Rosneft. Russian advisors assisted in restructuring PDVSA’s operations, enabling the Venezuelan government to circumvent some sanctions. Although Moscow was careful to avoid excessive exposure, its political commitment signalled that Maduro would not be left diplomatically isolated. Russia’s military presence was limited but symbolically significant; periodic deployments of bombers or naval vessels served to remind Washington that any attempt at military coercion would carry geopolitical risks.

For Russia, Venezuela formed part of a broader strategy of asserting global influence by cultivating partnerships with states opposed to Western hegemony. Moscow understood that sustaining Maduro came at modest cost while delivering disproportionate strategic benefit. It forced the United States to devote diplomatic attention and resources to a region it wished to stabilise quickly, thereby creating opportunities for Russia to leverage negotiations elsewhere, including in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Iran’s role, though sometimes overlooked, has proved equally consequential. Facing her own US sanctions and isolation, Tehran viewed Venezuela as a natural partner. In the 2020–2021 period, Iran delivered convoys of fuel tankers to alleviate Venezuela’s severe petrol shortages, directly undermining Washington’s objective of cutting off energy supplies. Iranian technicians rehabilitated refinery infrastructure, allowing the Maduro government to restart domestic production at least partially. Iran also received payment in gold, granting both states a means of bypassing the dollar-based financial system.

In return, Venezuela provided Iran with diplomatic solidarity, access to Latin American markets, and potential logistical nodes for intelligence activity. Although claims of Iranian paramilitary operations in Venezuela have often been exaggerated in political rhetoric, the partnership nonetheless represented a significant challenge to US attempts to isolate Caracas.

Together, Russia and Iran helped create an alternative international architecture through which Venezuela could survive sanctions that might otherwise have crippled her government. They offered diplomatic cover at the United Nations, bilateral trade channels insulated from Western pressure, and a narrative portraying US actions as neo-imperialist interference. This narrative resonated across parts of Latin America, where memories of past US interventions remain vivid.

By sustaining Maduro, Russia and Iran exposed a structural vulnerability in US regime-change strategy: the assumption that economic isolation will inevitably lead to political collapse. In a global order no longer unipolar, states targeted by Western sanctions can increasingly seek refuge in parallel networks of support, trading, and security cooperation. Venezuela became an exemplar of this trend, demonstrating how the balancing influence of rival great powers can neutralise the leverage once held almost exclusively by Washington.

What next?

Today the political standoff persists, though with a different balance of power. Maduro remains entrenched, the opposition remains divided, and the United States has shifted towards what appears to be maximalist regime change backed by military force. The legacy of earlier attempts to do the same thing lingers: widespread distrust, damaged institutions, and a Venezuelan society that has endured extraordinary hardship.

The Venezuelan case offers a cautionary lesson for policymakers. It shows how external support from rival powers can buttress even a deeply unpopular government, how sanctions can fail when alternative geopolitical partnerships exist, and how the attempt to manufacture regime change may inflame rather than resolve internal crises. Whether the United States can now use military force in a manner that supports democratic development without repeating the mistakes of the past remains uncertain, but the current stand-off stands as a reminder of the dangers of statecraft in an increasingly multipolar world.