Nicolás Maduro made a troubling announcement on Wednesday that he has defeated a coup attempt against his rule. That announcement increases the probability that Maduro will arrest the legitimate interim President Juan Guaidó.
As CNBC notes, Maduro’s speech explicitly blamed Guaidó for the coup attempt. And what better pretense to remove his primary challenger for Venezuela’s future than by presenting trumped up coup charges?
Another factor makes Guaidó increasingly vulnerable: Namely, President Trump’s lack of attention to Venezuela.
Frustrated by his administration’s inability to push Maduro out of power, Trump has fixed his focus towards other issues. This will not have gone unnoticed in Caracas. And while Maduro’s access to foreign capital is steadily shrinking, his grip on the regime remains stable. From Maduro’s point of view it would thus make sense to get Guaidó out of the way now. Venezuela’s disparate opposition movement is thinly held together by Guaidó’s charisma and the support of the U.S. government. But if Guaidó is gone, Maduro hopes the opposition will revert to a much more manageable problem.
Maduro’s claim that Guaidó attempted a coup is unlikely to have any grounding in reality.
It looks instead like a pretext to allow Maduro to crackdown on his primary challenger in a way that provides some small measure of international cover. The timing; with America focused on Iranian threats and Chinese trade deals, also suit Maduro.
Regardless, Trump must not let Guaidó come to harm. The president should remind Maduro that Guaidó’s detention or demise would invite U.S. military action in support of previously established American red lines. Trump should also clarify that Cuba will face an overdue U.S. enforced embargo of its access to Venezuelan oil if anything happens to Guaidó.
The key here is for Trump to remain resolute.
Maduro remains under immense pressure and while progress towards his removal has been slower than anticipated, the pretender-president’s future remains very much in doubt. But arresting Guaidó would alter that equation in a way that is unfavorable to Venezuelans, Americans, and the stability of Latin America.
