Earlier this week, Nicolás Maduro’s vice president was sworn in as president of Venezuela in a ceremony attended by the same officials who led the regime for years. The country’s senior military commanders were present, along with the interior minister, who oversees much of the state’s repressive security apparatus. Also present to congratulate her were the most powerful ambassadors in Caracas, from Russia to China and Iran.
Despite our military and intelligence community’s successful operation that took Nicolás Maduro into federal custody, control over the Venezuelan state has not materially changed. The same individuals continue to lead the institutions that matter.
That continuity has consequences. The networks linked to drug trafficking and official corruption remain entrenched in the government, as do the conditions that have driven more than seven million people to flee the country, many of them to the United States or to neighboring countries such as Colombia and Peru. The American adversaries who have invested the most in maintaining this system remain actively involved.
AFTER Maduro, VENEZUELA POWER VACUUM EXPOSES BRUTAL INSIDERS AND ENFORCERS
Changing that reality is much more complex than removing a single leader. It would mean reforming Venezuela’s security forces, dismantling criminal enterprises embedded in the state, stabilizing a collapsed economy and supporting a credible path to democratic elections. These efforts would require significant U.S. resources and entail real risks, with no guarantee of success.
At this early stage, the United States has deployed large forces and personnel to the region. Approximately fifteen thousand U.S. personnel and approximately 20% of U.S. naval assets were stationed in the region during the buildup, supported by air power. That scale illustrates how quickly a limited operation can become a permanent liability.
Any expectation that Venezuela could quickly finance its own recovery, or offset the costs of U.S. involvement, is unrealistic. Restoring oil production in Venezuela is a long-term undertaking. Years of mismanagement have damaged infrastructure and displaced skilled workers. Bringing production back online at scale would require lengthy technical work and substantial private investment, under conditions of security and governance that currently do not exist. Moreover, American refineries already have their hands full; they cannot abandon their work refining domestic crude oil to prioritize Venezuelan oil. That is why President Trump even recently acknowledged that American taxpayers may be called upon to reimburse oil companies seeking to establish themselves in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, the administration has dismantled U.S. economic and democratic assistance, including cost-effective and targeted instruments that would be essential for stabilizing Venezuela and supporting a transition away from corruption and criminal control.
China, on the other hand, has consistently used infrastructure, financing and humanitarian support to expand its influence in Venezuela and across the region. Undermining US economic involvement while signaling an interest in resource extraction risks strengthening Beijing’s position rather than weakening it – and this would be a message sent around the world: the US takes while China invests.
Taken together, addressing these challenges would amount to a multi-year commitment of resources, attention, and political capital, with uncertain outcomes and competing demands elsewhere. That commitment could grow, with the president expressing interest in ever-increasing interventions in the hemisphere.
These considerations are not abstract. Long-term engagement abroad competes with pressing domestic priorities, including reducing household costs, protecting access to health care, and sustaining domestic investments in affordability and economic growth.
More than anything, I hear from my constituents in New Hampshire that they want their elected leaders to focus on their economic concerns, on making their lives more affordable and lowering the costs of important expenses like housing, health care, energy and daily necessities. They recognize the importance of America playing a constructive and muscular role in the world, but do not want their elected leaders to ignore their very real economic priorities.
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President Trump acknowledged these concerns when he campaigned, but his agenda since then — from across-the-board tariffs to health care cuts — has had the opposite effect. Americans are increasingly feeling pressured by the high cost of living. The president also campaigned on a cautious foreign policy that avoided the kind of open-ended nation-building commitments we’ve seen in the past, but when it comes to Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere, we see him taking a very different approach. Threats and actions to seize or control sovereign territory are not only unpopular among the American people; they are among the most expensive and strained partnerships and alliances, creating even more room for U.S. adversaries like Russia and China to take advantage.
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Americans know that our country – and the world – is stronger, safer and more prosperous when we engage in and shape what happens beyond our borders. But they are keenly aware of the real compromises that arise when our leaders drag us into costly foreign commitments without a clear end game or strategy.
Right now, the president has drawn the United States into a potentially long-term involvement in Venezuela and beyond. So far, we have not heard a consistent rationale for our involvement, let alone a plausible long-term strategy for how we stabilize Venezuela and transition it to a thriving democracy – long the shared goal of Republicans and Democrats. It is critical that the Administration be transparent with the American people and Congress about the costs and real tradeoffs associated with this involvement. And it is crucial that the government does not maintain the highly autocratic systems and institutions that they once saw as a threat to American national security.
