Depose Maduro

Donald Trump has set some grandiose foreign-policy goals for his second term, from buying Greenland to ending the war in Ukraine “in a day.” Here’s one goal that is overdue and morally right and in our national security interest: deposing the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, through coercive diplomacy if possible or force if necessary.

Last week, Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term after a fraudulent election last July that independent surveys show he lost by about 35 percentage points. His opponent, Edmundo González, is in exile; the head of the opposition movement, María Corina Machado, had to spend months in hiding. As many as 10 Americans are languishing in Venezuelan jails on dubious charges. The regime has treated past American prisoners as political hostages.

That’s not even the worst of it. As of November, the regime held an estimated 1,800 political prisoners. Since Maduro came to power, close to eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, amounting to a quarter of the population; at least 600,000 are now in the United States. Malnutrition affects millions; the crime rate was among the highest in the world in 2024. This is a country that was once among the wealthiest in Latin America.

And Maduro continues to court our enemies, starting with Iran, which has reportedly established a “drone development base” at a Venezuelan air base.

What could bring the regime down? In his first term, Trump tried punitive economic sanctions. They didn’t work. The Biden administration eased some of those sanctions in hopes of better behavior from Maduro. It didn’t work. Last year’s election plainly didn’t work. A $25 million bounty for Maduro’s arrest, imposed this month by the United States, also won’t work, since it only serves as an incentive for Maduro to hold on more tightly to power.

There’s always the possibility of a coup, but the army’s senior ranks have remained loyal — for good reason: Senior officials have long been suspected of turning the country “into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering,” according to a 2015 Wall Street Journal article. There were also the stirrings of a popular revolt in 2019, but it fizzled: The regime seems to have learned from its friends in Havana that mass emigration is a good way of depleting a nation of its most discontented, energetic and talented citizens.