The dinosaur, Trump, and the high cost of an exit in Venezuela

When Venezuelans awoke on the last day of 2025, the dinosaur was still there. The dinosaur in this nightmare — which we would like to turn into a fable — is Nicolás Maduro, who continues to cling to the presidency of Venezuela. Despite years of failed efforts and his proven illegitimacy following the theft of the July 28, 2024 elections, the citizens have been unable to remove him. Donald Trump’s aggressive intervention in this story, with the bombing of alleged drug-running boats and the recent CIA attack on Venezuelan soil, added new elements to the conflict, but without guaranteeing the desired outcome.

Thus, everything indicates that 2026 will begin with Maduro still in power, Trump escalating the confrontation, the opposition trying to square the circle between its urgent needs and the objectives — and questionable methods — of its ally, and millions of Venezuelans, inside and outside the country, awaiting the longed-for end of Maduro, even in the knowledge that this will not be the end of Chavismo, much less the end of history.

The problem with this scenario is the inevitable strain it places on everyone involved, with the exception — so far, relatively speaking — of Maduro. Let’s examine why.

To date, the U.S. campaign has proceeded in a circuitous manner, shifting its arguments and tactics daily, but without a clear endgame. As a Washington Post investigation clearly demonstrated, Stephen Miller, one of the most influential ideologues of Trumpism, was seeking a spectacular action against the Mexican cartels. Lacking a casus belli to attack a key ally like Mexico, he presented Venezuela as the new theater of the war on drugs. The factual basis was flimsy, but it fit with a narrative Trump had repeated throughout his campaign: Maduro had opened the prisons to “invade” the United States with members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Ergo, Maduro was the head of that criminal organization.

The next step was to designate the Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist organization on July 25 and identify Maduro as its leader. This allowed for the militarization of a struggle that until then had been primarily a police matter and the deployment of the U.S. naval fleet in the Caribbean. From the bombing of the first boat that left eastern Venezuela in September to the destruction this week of a suspected drug storage and distribution facility, Trump has set the tone and appears to be in control. However, he has paid less attention to the strong internal opposition these actions have generated, within sectors of both parties in Congress and within the MAGA movement itself. Despite Trump’s public pronouncements, his administration is not doing well, nor are most Americans. His approval rating is currently the lowest of his two presidencies. And the likelihood of a victory in the midterm elections diminishes daily. A lack of a swift and stable solution to the conflict with Venezuela could become a serious political headache and further erode those prospects.

There is also the matter of the reasons for confronting Maduro and attacking Venezuela. Trump has justified his decisions with shifting and inconsistent arguments: drugs, terrorism, national security, and, more recently, the demand that Venezuela “pay” the United States for the alleged theft of oil assets. This last claim borders on the absurd. But the key point is that, at all times, the president has kept open both the option of negotiating Maduro’s departure and the possibility of announcing a strategic withdrawal. Even the little he has already done would allow him to claim that he has put an end to drug trafficking from Venezuela to the United States, defeating two infamous enemies: the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua.

This possibility is remote, but not nonexistent. Therefore, such an uncertain outlook compels us to ask how the opposition, led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, believes the conflict will unfold in the immediate future. I posed this question to David Smolansky, spokesperson for the Comando Con Venezuela (Command for Venezuela) and one of Machado and González Urrutia’s main liaisons with the U.S. Congress and the Trump administration. “I am confident that the pressure on Maduro — not only from the United States, but also from Latin American governments, the European Union, and other countries — will continue. I trust that our team will be ready to face the transition. Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and Vladimir Padrino have not only harmed the lives of Venezuelans; they are damaging Latin American democracies by turning Venezuela into a hub for drug trafficking,” he said.

Smolansky admits, however, that while there is fluid communication with various branches of the U.S. government, there is no coordination or collaboration. And that is a delicate point when the future of an entire society is at stake. Especially because, while Trump talks about migration, terrorism, drug trafficking, and oil, Venezuelans are demanding freedom, peace, and a stable democracy. So far, for reasons that are difficult to explain, the U.S. president has not mentioned any of these principles when referring to Venezuela. If Maduro ends up leaving power, it is likely that Trump will try to cash in on having been the decisive factor in his removal. In a resource-rich country like Venezuela, which is in economic and institutional turmoil, that price would be very high. What today seems like a difference of interests could tomorrow become a profound cognitive dissonance, with a cost that would be far too high for the country.

Therefore, Venezuelans need their leaders to explain with complete transparency how the costs of a potential transition will be addressed, to ensure they align with society’s urgent priorities and do not become an unpayable burden. While this explanation may seem minor compared to the monumental task of liberating a country, it cannot be postponed or negotiated behind closed doors.

The fable of this nightmare would be this: dinosaurs don’t fall on their own or without cost. To get rid of them and finally make them disappear, you can’t improvise because what they leave behind is not only a country that will now struggle to build a new future, but also debts — political, economic, and moral — that no one wanted to discuss before the time came to pay them.

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