President Trump hasn’t had much foreign policy success. His much-discussed trade deals remain unmade or unratified, tariffs are still in place, and North Korea still has its nuclear weapons. But with gunshots ringing out in Venezuela on Tuesday morning, Trump might finally get the sort of foreign policy win he wants.
Since a U.S.-led effort to force aid into Venezuela and kick-start a rebellion fizzed in February, the political standoff between internationally recognized and U.S.-supported interim president Juan Guaidó and strongman Nicolás Maduro has been locked in a stalemate. For Washington, the situation threatened to become yet another quagmire entangled with oil and Russian interests.
But on Tuesday Guaidó put his cards on the table, leading an armed uprising and calling for the end of Maduro’s regime. In Washington, top Trump administration officials responded with full support.
If Guaidó is successful in persuading the rest of the military to join his supporters, he has a clear, although likely difficult, path to ousting Maduro and securing a new political order — a long-standing goal of the Trump administration.
That success, of course, hinges not on what leaders in Washington say but where the loyalties of the military lie.
Maduro, at the helm of a failed state, has relied on the military to keep his grip on power. That strategy has hinged on tying the fate of the military, and particularly officers, to his regime. Since 2016, the military has controlled food and medicine distribution. That means that the officers have continued to benefit even as the country faces starvation. For lower ranks, military control also meant that although they might be struggling to feed their families, the government made sure that they got monthly food boxes.
That’s an attractive pull, especially as Russian support has recently bolstered Maduro’s standing. But there’s also plenty of reason to think that Guaidó has a shot: high-profile defections and uniformed men appearing beside him add momentum to his movement.
For Washington, the military flipping sides and successfully removing Maduro would be a clear demonstration of foreign policy success for Trump. Not only would Guaidó be able to cast himself as the vanquisher of socialism, but he’d also buy a good deal of credibility for stabilizing a volatile situation without resorting to military force. Ahead of 2020, that would be a valuable victory indeed.
