MARTIN GURRI: How Maduro’s capture weakens China, Russia, Iran and Cuba
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It was claimed that America’s night raid on Venezuela, which kidnapped dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, scandalized a certain group of analysts.
China has been given the green light to invade Taiwan. Russia is finally free to intrude… I don’t know, maybe Ukraine?
Even by today’s declining standards, this line of analysis is woefully shallow.
PRESIDENT TRUMP SAID THAT THERE WILL BE NO ‘SECOND WAVE’ OF ATTACKS AGAINST VENEZUELA DUE TO ‘COOPERATION’
Neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin is waiting for permission from the United States. The opposite is closer to the truth: They want to create confusion and weaken the hegemonic power.
Russia attacked Ukraine and China conducted naval exercises in Taiwan’s territorial waters without filling out the White House “Consent to Invade” form.
What will be the lesson for Xi and Putin from the Great Venezuela Raid?
I think it means this: Trump will take enormous risks to protect American interests.
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I leave it to the intelligent reader to consider whether this will encourage rash adventures.
Trump has no intention of dividing the world like an apple into spheres of influence where China, Russia and the United States can plunder smaller nations.
His involvement in conflicts in Africa and Asia is proof of this, and anyone who has observed Trump for more than half a minute knows that he puts no limits on his actions.
In reality, Trump’s brand of geopolitical gamesmanship is unprecedented, at least in my experience.
TRUMP, WITH HIS BOLDEST INTERVENTIONARY MOVE EVER, SIGNS THAT THERE WILL BE A LONG WAY TO OPEN IN VENEZUELA
It seeks the tactical offensive in any field that will completely change the strategic landscape to our country’s advantage.
What will be the lesson for Xi and Putin from the Great Venezuela Raid? I think it means this: Trump will take enormous risks to protect American interests.
After allowing the Israelis to plow and seed Iran, Trump achieved a strategic victory by dropping bunker-busting bombs on the regime’s nuclear facilities. From that moment on, events in the Middle East turned in our direction, and as I write this, the negative consequences for Iran continue to mount.
Likewise, the removal of Maduro from his stronghold in Venezuela created a domino effect in favor of the United States not only in Latin America but throughout the world.
Let me count the ways.
IN VENEZUELA ITSELF
The dice are still being cast here, and the ultimate effects of the crackdown won’t be known for months, possibly years. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio chose to keep the Maduro people in power over the Venezuelan democratic opposition; it was a gamble on stability against the possibility of chaos and violence.
It could backfire, but the signs so far look encouraging.
New Venezuelan president Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president, is sweet-talking the Trump administration. He may have played a role in the ouster of his former boss.
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American officials are opening stores in Caracas. The Cubans, Russians and Chinese seem to be left out in the cold. Political prisoners are released.
Most importantly from a strategic perspective, the Venezuelan oil industry is about to revive with the help of US companies, and Venezuelan oil will soon flood global markets.
CUBA
Once-vaunted military and intelligence personnel were protecting Maduro. They were destroyed without much of a fight, a humiliating blow to the country’s prestige.
Cuba imports all its energy but lacks the foreign currency to keep the lights burning. Venezuelan oil, offered on a barter basis, constituted 60 percent of fuel imports.
Now it’s gone with the wind. Whatever is still functioning in the Cuban economy is about to sink into darkness and silence.
President Trump said the post-Castro regime is “ready to fall.” He also said, in his unique, all-caps style, “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” He threatened.
Nothing is certain.
But if the Cuban military, which currently rules the country, believes that its equipment will cease within a few weeks, the Communist Party may decide to eliminate its intermediaries and make a deal with Yankee imperialism.
LATIN AMERICA
The region was already trending to the right; Maduro’s fall will only accelerate this trend. Conservative governments applauded American intervention, something unheard of in Latin America.
Radical left governments are in panic.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, onetime leader of the Marxist M-19 guerrillas, has made anxious noises about his own fate. He received a reassuring phone call from the president and will visit the White House in February.
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Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, normally addicted to repression, decided to imitate Delcy Rodriguez and free political prisoners.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega arrives at the inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 10, 2019. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He also canceled anniversary celebrations in case the U.S. military wanted to take on more hostile Latin American presidents.
CHINESE
One of the conditions Trump set for Rodriguez is that Venezuela end its alliance with China and Russia. Eager to survive, Rodriguez seems willing to do so.
If this is the case, Maduro’s departure would spell a strategic disaster for Xi; It would mean not only the loss of its most useful ally in the region, but also the loss of access to 800,000 barrels of cheap oil per day and the complete loss of what has been called China’s “$100 billion gamble” on Venezuela.
Additionally, Maduro’s hideout was surrounded by Chinese military technology, including air defense systems. They were neutralized with extraordinary ease.
When calculating the cost of invading Taiwan, Xi should include the fact that mainland China appears vulnerable to air strikes.
IRANIAN
Venezuela had become a playground for Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hezbollah. No more.
Trump condemned the slaughter of civilians and told protesters “help is on the way” as the Islamic regime struggles to recover from a violent street riot.
Therefore, the fate of Nicolás Maduro weighs heavily on the minds of the ayatollahs.
Anti-regime protesters also see parallels with Venezuela and applaud the president. In the video, a young man is seen solemnly changing a street sign to read “President Trump Street” somewhere in Iran.’
EUROPE
Venezuela has once again demonstrated the utter insignificance of the Old World in times of crisis.
European governments were unable to aid or prevent the United States before or after the attack. They just muttered from the sidelines.
They mostly complained about U.S. violations of international law, but later overcame their remorse long enough to investigate the payment of Venezuela’s debt to European energy companies.
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Europeans have not yet figured out how to live in Donald Trump’s world, after 10 years of repeated squabbles. They have yet to acknowledge that their static “rules-based order” is being swept away by a storm of change of which Trump is merely the avatar, not the cause.
It would be unfortunate if Europe’s laxity in the geopolitical arena gave the president the courage to swallow Greenland whole.
RUSSIA
The most complex consequences will fall on this country.
Even more than China, Russia has a formal “strategic partnership” with Maduro that is clearly aimed at the United States
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shake hands while exchanging documents at a signing ceremony following talks at the Kremlin on May 7, 2025 in Moscow. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
Venezuela has purchased billions of dollars worth of Russian military equipment, aircraft and weapons. Russia supported Maduro on the world stage and backed his recklessly manipulated elections.
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Putin and Maduro were shoulder to shoulder in Moscow as recently as May 2025.
This all ended literally overnight. But interestingly, the Russians reacted to the debacle by saying little and doing nothing.
What’s going on?
There is a bigger picture to consider regarding Russia.
The country is mired deep in the quagmire of the Ukrainian war and has limited room for maneuver elsewhere. Western sanctions have led Putin to a position of complete dependence on China.
I believe that the strategic intention of Trump and his people is to sever this bond.
They want Russia to be China’s rival, not its satellite. This may explain the constant effort to mediate the end of a war that would otherwise distract and weaken a hostile power.
Because Russia is a major exporter of oil and natural gas, its economy rises and falls with the global prices of these commodities.
Trump has openly embraced this. Although it has worked overtime to reduce energy costs, it has toughened sanctions on the purchase of Russian fuel.
It is clear that Maduro’s ouster had an impact on this plan. The president expects Venezuelan oil to flood the markets.
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This is his usual trick; A tactical coup that provided enough strategic advantage to drag Russia into peace with Ukraine.
In this case it hasn’t happened yet.
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It probably never will be; After all, Putin represented the Russian bear, while Maduro resembled a louder but much less dangerous inhabitant of the tropical shadows. Disappointing American presidents is a habit the Russian leader has developed over decades.
But the fact that we can imagine a raid on a Caribbean dictator to help end a bloody war in the dark heart of Eastern Europe is a sign of the strange moment we are living in, and perhaps of Trump’s ability to turn tactics into strategic results.
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