Four months have passed since the United States arrested Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to the United States to face charges. His vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, is now in charge, but the Trump administration has been largely silent on what’s next for the country.
Meanwhile, Missy Ryan, a staff writer at the Atlantic, tells Vox that some voting suggests that a large number of Venezuelans now feel that their country is better off – or at least no worse off – than it was before the US intervention.
It’s somewhat surprising, given the many bleak predictions after Maduro’s ouster. To explain what was going on, Ryan spoke to him Today, It’s Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram on the surprising nature of the US operation and what the positive outlook from inside the country tells us about what’s next.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get the podcast, including Apple Podcasts, Pandoraand Spotify.
You published a piece in the Atlantic called “Venezuela Looks Like It’s Going … Well?“ Why did you call that piece?
The title of the piece captured the surprise that many of my colleagues and many Latin American experts that I spoke to for the piece felt three months after the removal of Maduro, which was that, contrary to many expectations about the possibility of destabilizing Venezuela, the possibility of an Iraqi-style military rebellion or the collapse of the state, things were very quiet in Venezuela.
And indeed, there has been a positive response from the Venezuelan public. In the limited polling that has been done since January 3, they have shown cautious optimism or at least a willingness to let time pass before making a decision on the general analysis of ‘are things better or worse for Venezuela?’
And you mentioned voting, so this isn’t just people in the media saying things have gotten better in Venezuela. Venezuelans generally feel that way.
Correct. And I think that should be the main decider. It doesn’t matter what the pundits in Washington or Miami think. It’s about Venezuelans in Venezuela and then obviously the diaspora community around the world who are deeply invested in what’s happening there (and) can come back and help grow the economy, rebuild Venezuelan society after a traumatic period of repression and economic decline.
The feeling was that people were ready to give Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president, some time and temporary authority to show if they could deliver on the kind of bread-and-butter issues that Venezuelans seem to care most about. There are some improvements starting there in terms of economy. It has not yet affected the price, but the investment is definitely starting to materialize slowly, (although) it is certainly much shorter than what President Trump expected and promised when we heard from him in early January.
But with the price of oil, where it is and the removal of sanctions, Venezuela’s resource-based economy will stand up if only from a statistical point of view. And hopefully that will start going into the pockets of Venezuelans. The issue of political freedom will be very important, but it did not appear to be the main concern of Venezuelans in the polls that have been conducted so far.
One of the biggest differences is simply that there is a different person in charge. Does Delcy Rodríguez make Venezuela a freer country than Maduro?
That is a difficult question. There have been a number of tests that you can talk about.
When the withdrawal happened in January, the Trump administration talked about it as a simple law enforcement operation that was carried out by the military, which is very unusual. They were talking about three phases, and this is what Rubio and the people at the State Department were describing as the three phases that they saw for Venezuela: stability, recovery, and then transition.
As part of that recovery, they have relied on Rodríguez’s interim authority to take some action. They targeted the release of political prisoners (and) backed away from the same level of arbitrary arrests that occurred under Maduro. There have been fewer, more economically focused protests or demonstrations that have taken place without the kind of repression you would expect under Maduro.
These have only been small steps; there is much more that has yet to happen, and that includes the full release of political prisoners.
Remember that although Venezuela’s oil sales are actually starting to increase and revenues are starting to increase, the money goes into an account controlled by the United States Treasury in the United States, and Delcy Rodríguez has to submit a spending plan to the American government and in order to return the money to Venezuela to pay salaries, provide public services. So it’s not a state of freedom – far from it.
One of the biggest criticisms of this intervention in Venezuela, against President Trump, has been, “You didn’t even change the government. You put Maduro’s number two in power.” There is no commitment to choice, at least in reality. Do we have any idea now that four months have passed, when we might see an election?
There has been no official announcement either from the interim authorities in Venezuela or the US government, but what I am being told privately is that they plan to hold elections in the second half of 2027.
However, there is much that should be done before that time, and we have not seen any public actions to advance those actions, which would include the reform of the National Electoral Commission, an update to the registry of Venezuelans who have all been displaced throughout Venezuela, and then of course, the question of the millions of Venezuelans who are now abroad who will need to (participate) in any kind of credible election.
The lack of a plan that has been released to the public raises questions about the level of commitment the US administration has to the democratic part of this. Their argument has been, ‘Look, if we were to jump right into an election that would actually increase the likelihood of civil conflict.’ And so their bet is on slow change.
The fact that the election could be one, two years later only gives more credibility to this argument that this was not about freedom for the Venezuelan people, this was about oil. Now that we’re months out, does it feel like this was all about the oil? Is that fair criticism to influence the Trump administration?
It was definitely about oil, especially for President Trump. He mentioned oil 19 times in a press conference he gave the morning after Maduro’s invasion. There have been more modest deals that have occurred, but the type of large-scale production deals in the oil industry have yet to materialize. And there are many structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Chief among them is the general trend of Venezuela and the concern among oil investors to go back in when they don’t know who will rule the country in a year. Will it go back to the socialist style where they go to the right things?
Again, as Exxon said, their assets were seized not once, but twice, and (Venezuela) could not be investigated. But also, what will this country be like in two years, five years, 10 years?
