What is President Donald Trump‘s policy on Venezuela? What are his prime objectives? And what strategy is he using to achieve them?
In normal times, these basic questions would be answered once the sitting administration underwent a detailed inter-agency review among the various principals, deliberated about the benefits, costs and consequences of their options, and presented a general plan for the public. But the Trump administration isn’t a normal administration and we aren’t living in normal times. In the Trump White House, there isn’t so much a policymaking process as there is a series of disjointed, dizzying moves that could change by the week.
Ditto Venezuela policy. Trump has always been a bit conflicted about the country. During his first term, his administration slapped a mountain of economic sanctions on Caracas, including Venezuela’s cash-cow oil industry, to drive Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro into either giving up power voluntarily or negotiating his own exit with the political opposition. The strategy, heavily influenced by John Bolton, his national security adviser at the time, didn’t work; Maduro was able to snuff out an amateurish coup by ensuring the upper-echelons of the Venezuelan army stayed loyal. The whole thing turned out to be an embarrassment for Trump, who at points suggested the United States could invade Venezuela to usher in regime change there. Trump lost confidence in Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó shortly thereafter and hinted in 2020 that he could change tact and sit down with Maduro for negotiations himself.
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