What Trump Wants in Venezuela
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Why did the Trump administration decide to capture Nicolás Maduro in early 2025?
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I have one question right now. What is America doing? In Venezuela. Over the weekend on Janew. The Trump administration launched an operation that ended with the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. We have heard a lot of reasons from the Trump administration of why they decided to do this. Maduro, not a good person, not a good guy, a repressive, brutal dictator who has made the lives of many, many people miserable. But there are a lot of brutal, repressive dictators in this world. Venezuela is not a leading source of America's drug crisis. We have a fentanyl crisis, not a cocaine crisis. Venezuela's oil reserves, which we should not be invading other countries for anyway, is not an easy source of future wealth or power for the United States.
President Donald Trump ran for office promising fewer foreign entanglements. He wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker. What Are we Doing. Watching President Trump stand on that stage and say America is now running Venezuela. The people standing behind him are now running Venezuela. Watching Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio then try to walk that back, say, No, no, no, we're just running policy in Venezuela. Do we have a plan? This was a Profound gamble. From an administration that to a very large extent ran for office this time, promising an end to these kinds of gambles, criticizing those the previous presidents had made in the past. So what is the collection of arguments? Views, interests, factions.
that led America to this point. And what comes after it? Joining me today is Jonathan Blitzer, who has covered immigration and the Trump administration in Central America for The New Yorker. He's profiled Stephen Miller and gone deep into the drug boat bombings the Trump administration has been executing. He's also the author of the excellent book Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here. The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis. As always my email as reclient show at nytimes dot com.
Jonathan Blitzer, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Who is Nicholas Maduro? How should we understand? what he
represents and and was. Maduro has always been um To my mind, kind of middling figure who attached himself to his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who was a transformative, obviously highly controversial figure in Venezuela, who nationalized the oil industry, who made improving the lives of the poor a kind of central plank of his political agenda, but also consolidated power in all kinds of ways, flirted with violating the Constitution and so on. Maduro was essentially a member of the government. Of that administration and became Chavez's appointed successor when Chavez became sick with cancer and died. And so Maduro took power in 2013 and never had the charisma of Chavez. And almost immediately when he took office, you had things start to change the fortunes of the country.
You had the price of oil drop. There was an economic crisis. You started to have an increase in inflation that got steadily. Worse in the 2010s. You started to have a series of domestic flare ups of mass protests, which Maduro responded to by cracking down on the population in increasingly aggressive ways. This is in 2014, again in 2017. In 2015, the Venezuelan opposition won congressional elections and would seem could really bring Maduro to heel. And the response of Maduro and his inner circle. Was to essentially invalidate that victory of the opposition in Congress and to go on to try to neuter the power of the opposition.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did the Trump administration decide to capture Nicolás Maduro in early 2025?
0:00–6:14
2
What does Jonathan Blitzer say about Nicolás Maduro’s rise to power and his impact on Venezuela?
6:14–14:08
3
How did internal factions—hard‑liners, Rubio, and Stephen Miller—shape the U.S. policy on Venezuela?
14:08–20:59
4
What role did oil, the Alien Enemies Act, and the Chevron exemption play in the administration’s calculations?
20:59–27:53
5
Why did the administration move from targeting fentanyl to bombing drug‑smuggling boats in the Caribbean?
27:53–34:55
6
Who is Delcy Rodríguez and why is she being positioned as Venezuela’s interim leader?
34:55–42:10
7
What are the possible short‑ and long‑term outcomes of the U.S. intervention in Venezuela?
42:10–49:10
8
How does the Venezuela operation reflect broader themes of Trump’s foreign‑policy style and domestic politics?
49:10–59:59