The end of Nicolás Maduro’s tyranny is great news for Latin America and the world. For over two decades, the Venezuelan dictator and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, were the main advocates of socialism across the region, which led Venezuela into left-wing authoritarianism and economic collapse and dragged other countries along the way—much like Cuba during the 20th century. In fact, “21st Century Socialism,” as Chávez labeled it, is still not over everywhere. Besides Cuba, it is also alive in Nicaragua, where the dictatorship led by nominal socialist Daniel Ortega still survives.
President Donald Trump’s decision to “run” Venezuela, however, is a huge mistake, whatever it means. For one thing, the country has a legitimate president—Edmundo González Urrutia, who won the 2024 presidential election with over 67 percent of the vote. With the support of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was then banned from running but later won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to restore democracy and liberty in Venezuela, González Urrutia is poised to take over the country, which would reduce the prospects of civil war or social collapse.
Indeed, the rapid loss of legitimacy that the Maduro regime suffered after the 2024 election has turned into a pro-democracy consensus in Venezuela that is hard to overstate, even if the American intervention has raised serious constitutional and foreign policy concerns within the US. Trump himself pointed to the fact that he did not order a second attack because opposition from the regime was nonexistent.
Unlike Middle Eastern countries, where the recent fall of dictatorships has resulted in chaos, Venezuela is a relatively uniform country in terms of culture, where this would not be the case. Venezuela has no serious ethnic or religious cleavages. After the resounding opposition victory in 2024, it barely has a political one. A September poll showed that seven out of ten Venezuelans who still live in their country no longer identify with the regime.
Thus, if Trump does not force Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to hand over power to González Urrutia, the legitimacy of the operation could be called into question across Latin America, particularly after the US president’s brazen references to improving access for American companies to Venezuela’s oil industry as one of his goals during his Saturday press conference. If Rodríguez, a socialist fanatic who has long been at the service of the Maduro regime, stays in charge, the status quo is guaranteed to continue. This would be bad for Venezuelans, who would continue to be deprived of their liberties, and for American commercial interests, because the oil industry would not make significant improvements in such an uncertain and capital-scarce scenario.
The fall of Maduro could still turn out to be an almost bloodless and relatively cheap revolution—but it should be the rightful Venezuelan authorities who restore liberty and prosperity, not Rodríguez nor some designated US delegate. Following the 2024 results that Maduro unsuccessfully tried to hide from the world, González Urrutia must now take the oath as interim president and call for a new election in which no candidates are banned for political reasons. This is the only way to finally end the nightmare that Venezuelans have endured for over 25 years.
Regardless of how the Venezuelan story evolves, the world should take note once again of the dangers of electing socialist candidates into office. The chain of events that led from mere big government to an outright dictatorship is not surprising, since it is the logical consequence of implementing socialist policies consistently over a long period of time.
The fact that a quarter of Venezuela’s entire population has had to flee the country over the course of the Chávez-Maduro regime is no accident. Similar hopelessness and mass emigration have taken place throughout the world every time socialism has reigned, from East Berlin during the past century to Cuba today.
