Anyone who knows Venezuela knows that things happen fast there. It is a function of the hectic pace of urban life in a society that is highly subject to the play of global energy markets. It is also a feature of the nation’s position in the world system––one in which imperial powers are always ready to take advantage of Venezuela’s internal political battles in order to capture a share of its resources. In this light, it is hardly surprising that Venezuelan leaders often find themselves contesting those manoeuvres and that they can rise and fall just as quickly as the price of oil. Something akin to this recurrent dynamic has unfolded in Venezuela over the last six months as the United States has sought to pressure the Venezuelan government into submission with a large naval flotilla, the sinking of multiple small vessels, and now the kidnapping of the country’s head of state. Contrary to what some imagine, however, such a turn of events is in no way new or unprecedented. Just ask Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president of Haiti.
Venezuela is no stranger to gunboat diplomacy. In the early twentieth century, the combined naval forces of Britain, Germany, and Italy blockaded the Venezuelan coastline for three months in retaliation for non-payment of debts stemming from the decline of the coffee economy (Roseberry 1985) and the internal political struggles surrounding the dictatorship of Cipriano Castro (Tinker-Salas 2009, McBeth 2001). This blockade was one of the events that led to the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the US could interfere in the affairs of Latin-American and Caribbean nations if the actions taken by any government “loosened the ties of civilized society.” Needless to say, “loosening the ties of civilization” is an extremely broad and loaded phrase. But the key point is that the doctrine now justified not only the expulsion of European powers making territorial claims in the Americas, but also active US intervention in the commercial activities and political disputes of fraternal republics. The “Donroe Doctrine,” as some are now calling it, adds very little to this original formula.
Many observers have correctly diagnosed Trump’s geopolitical strategy as one of US retrenchment in the Western Hemisphere. But most don’t understand its overriding logic. This strategic reorientation is frequently misread as an expression of isolationism or the “paleoconservatism” of the 1930s, which gave voice to anti-communism and latent sympathies for fascism. Others read this strategy as a slightly crude update of the otherwise-august statement by George Washington that the US should “avoid foreign entanglements.” I don’t believe either of these appraisals is entirely correct. The purpose of this retrenchment is to improve the economic and military position of the US, the better to make war on the rest of the world, not to sit quietly on the other side of the Atlantic. In recent decades, the US has been outflanked by China and Russia in multiple world regions, and its investors are slowly being pushed out of Africa, the Gulf States, and of course, parts of Latin America.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are now trading oil in yuan; Russian and Chinese firms have invested heavily in Venezuela’s petroleum sector, and Russia’s shadow fleet has helped to deliver Venezuelan oil to markets across Asia. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, meanwhile, continues to lay down blacktop on four continents. These developments, combined with Russia drawing closer to Iran in the context of the war in Ukraine, are all unacceptable to US capital and its military planners. Venezuela sits at the crossroad of all these dynamics, making the Bolivarian Republic a key node in a global network that seriously threatens the US empire. Republican strategists thus hope to draw a defensible line or “trench” around the Western Hemisphere from which to relaunch the struggle for global supremacy. The Trumpists and the neoconservatives are of one mind on this.
Some commentators have suggested that with oil hovering around 60 dollars a barrel there isn’t much incentive for US-led transnationals to invest in Venezuela. Indeed, the CEO of ExxonMobil has complained that Venezuela is “uninvestible” without a rewriting of its hydrocarbon laws. There’s some truth to these reports, but the sceptics may be missing the bigger picture. Venezuelan oil has historically played an important role in preserving the US empire outside the Americas, and prices won’t stay the same forever. Remember, things move quickly. Hemispheric oil is essential to securing US energy supplies and the capacity to offset any price increases following renewed or long-term conflict in the Middle East. In truth, this is an old playbook. In the 1980s, with the OPEC crisis still fresh in his mind, George H.W. Bush made an informal agreement with the Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Pérez, which stated that in the event of war or another embargo in the Middle East, Venezuela would open the oil spigot and turn it on full blast to offset any price spikes or supply problems (Mitchell 2011). This quiet agreement, which was in fact implemented during the First Iraq War, was torn up when Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999. Instead, Chávez worked tirelessly to revive OPEC and to forge linkages with the Arab states and Iran, as part of his push for greater returns on Venezuela’s natural resources.
In the event of a wider war in the Middle East, Iran can block the Strait of Hormuz and prevent around a quarter of the world’s oil from leaving the Persian Gulf. If the US wants to topple the Iranian government, or carry out protracted campaigns against its other enemies, control over Venezuela’s oil is a must. Maduro had to go. Trump has already said that he expects Venezuela to deliver between 30-50 million barrels of oil from its crude reserves to the US, and he has been fairly transparent about his objectives beyond Venezuela. In the press conference after the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, journalists asked if the US would cut off Venezuelan oil to Cuba. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was evasive and offered a vague response. But Trump’s answer was an unequivocal, “Yes.” Trump hopes to overturn the Bolivarian Revolution to increase pressure on Cuba and to strengthen his hand in negotiations with Russia over Ukraine. Trump is also waving the big stick at Colombia and Mexico since their presidents dared to question Washington’s dictates. Yet, however much we should despise Trump and Rubio, a share of the blame for this dark turn of events also belongs to Nicolás Maduro himself.
Authoritarianism is not an analysis
It’s extremely difficult to provide a comprehensive analysis of a political process as complex as the Bolivarian Revolution, and it is impossible to give a detailed explanation of all the events that have led up to where we are now. But even a few snapshots from Venezuela’s recent history can reveal the deficiencies in the standard accounts. One diagnosis commonly heard on the left today is that there was “too much centralisation of power” in Venezuela and that the economy was “state-centric”––the magic recipe for disqualifying the Bolivarian Revolution as “authoritarian.” I not only think this analysis is wrong, frankly, I think it’s lazy. Even Stuart Hall (1985) came to qualify his use of the term “authoritarian populism,” saying it could never provide a general explanation of Thatcherism, only the forms of its hegemonic politics. I’m not even sure it can do that in Venezuela.
“Authoritarianism” has become a liberal swearword, used to signify forms of power or government that one finds distasteful. I also consider it tacitly consistent with neoliberal ideology––the sort of “State bad, non-state good” analysis one used to get from the now-confirmed CIA agent, Jim Scott (1998). In most cases, critiques of statism or authoritarian populism in Venezuela are rhetorical moves, based on schematic moral oppositions, not empirical investigation. Such analyses tell us very little, for example, about the labour relations or productive processes in state industries or how Venezuela’s public-sector functioned––or didn’t as the case may be. They also tell us next to nothing about who was calling the shots. What classes or interest groups were in charge in particular spaces and moments? What types of institutions were they trying to build? What types of political consciousness or participation did decision-makers and grassroots activists seek to promote? Those critiques which avoid all these essential questions must be dismissed out of hand. It is also a myth that Venezuelan socialism ever closely resembled the political economy of the Soviet Union.
Based on my experience of working in multiple state enterprises in the 2010s, I arrived at the opposite conclusion: Venezuela’s economy looked more like France in the 1930s, in the days of the Popular Front, than Stalin’s Russia (cf. Smilde 2011). The energy sector, transportation infrastructure, and some of the heavy industries and banks were in the hands of the state. There were also significant welfare programs to protect the poor, along with an ambitious housing construction program (which mostly created individually titled units). Some inroads were also made against landed property. But there was no meaningful central planning of the home market. Venezuela’s socialist economy failed in part because it was decentralized. Decisions made in state enterprises were frequently based on the highest return for the individual farm or factory, not a coherent division of labor or national allocation (Kappeler 2025). In many cases, this decentralization not only resulted in duplication of services or unnecessary competition, but also in state enterprises forging commercial relationships with private capitalists. This hardly helped to reduce Venezuela’s oil dependency or reshape the rentier state (Coronil 1997).
Lack of clarity on these basic questions ultimately made the country vulnerable to imperial predations when oil prices dropped. After Chávez’s death, Maduro presided over the conservatization of a stalled revolutionary process. In turn, Maduro’s government attacked striking workers, backpedalled on land reform, and cut backroom deals with the political opposition. The herds of cattle in my main fieldsite were literally carted off by the military, and the farm’s leadership positions were given to members of the opposition to silence them. When I visited Venezuela in 2016, I had to watch friends weep bitter tears over the stripping of their enterprise. By that time, millions of Venezuelans had already left the country or grown tired of hearing Maduro’s pious words about “the great socialist patria.” The Bolivarian Revolution has been dead man walking for at least ten or twelve years now, and Maduro gave the US the opportunity it needed.
The moves inside Venezuela, required to enforce Trump’s new policies, are obviously very complex and hard to interpret by anyone outside of the ruling circles. Will the US try to force elections to get rid of the Interim President, Delcy Rodríguez? Or will they select another figurehead, like Edmundo González, and try a coronation? Will the Venezuelan military step in and impose its own conception of order? It is hard to say. Many Venezuelans and international observers thought María Corina Machado was the heir apparent after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (see Striffler 2025). However, in some ways, Machado stuck her neck out too far in advocating neoliberal policies. She is on record calling for the privatization of all Venezuela’s state enterprises, including PDVSA, the state oil company. This is a non-starter for most Venezuelans, and I dare say for the military as well. If the cash-cow of the state oil company is cut up, the military will lose many of its privileges. Machado is also one of the most vociferous and reactionary anti-communists, and Venezuela’s political leaders, military officers, and rank-and-file Chavistas must know that there could be reprisals if she gains office. They would likely have no other choice but to fight her, and it could, in fact, start a civil war. For this reason, Trump seems to have dismissed Machado as a transition leader––although if she gives Trump her Nobel Prize medal, he may change his mind.
Where to from here?
The question that now concerns most is the nature of any deal between the US and the Venezuelan military, which remains the real power behind the throne. Was there a quid pro quo involved in Maduro’s removal, and if so, what was it? Rumours are circulating that Venezuela’s military allowed Maduro’s capture and that its units could have fired Russian and Chinese-made antiaircraft weapons at the helicopters flying over Caracas. But the guns were silent. The fact that these weapons were fired a few days ago is an indication of that possibility and a potential signal that the US only gets one “freebie,” i.e. it should not push matters further. If the US actually tries to deepen the coup or threaten the military’s position, the brass might respond. Again, this is only a hypothesis, and I have no way of knowing the specific terms of any deal. But my suspicion is that any future consensus surely includes the severing of Venezuela’s energy-market ties to all of the US’s foes, along with a promise to end any real participation in OPEC. The reestablishment of diplomatic ties with the US points in that direction. Such a deal also likely prohibits oil exports to China––and perhaps India––as well as energy collaborations with Russia and Iran. It is worth repeating that Maduro bears more than a little responsibility for this outcome and having let himself be captured in Caracas. Hugo Chávez always said that if faced with a US invasion, Venezuela’s forces would retreat to the interior of the country to fight a guerilla war. Maduro clearly wasn’t listening.
The situation in Venezuela today remains highly unstable, and many average people are afraid to leave their houses. While there have been pro-government demonstrations in cities and towns across the country, these have generally not been as large as in previous years, and they are certainly nothing like the mass mobilizations that helped to defeat the US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002. The colectivos, or pro-Chavista militias, are prepared to suppress Venezuela’s opposition to ensure PSUV control. But how secure can the PSUV leadership really feel? Probably not very. Delcy Rodríguez’s father was murdered by the state-security services during the Fourth Republic (1953-1999), and she must be aware of the tenuous nature of her position and that of her brother, who is the current head of Venezuela’s National Assembly. Between the hammer of Trump and the anvil of Venezuela’s military, the PSUV officialdom could find itself crushed, and it doesn’t have much economic breathing space either.
Hugo Chávez wisely tried to forge ties with countries that had their own frictions with US imperialism. But like so many other decisions in the Bolivarian Revolution, these temporary alliances or stopgap measures were mistaken for something more permanent or lasting. The terms upon which China is willing to oppose US interests in Latin America, for example, have always been relatively limited. It is important to note that China did not even recall its diplomatic staff from Washington in reaction to Maduro’s kidnapping. The Chinese government lodged some protests with the Trump administration, but they didn’t expel the US Ambassador. That’s the minimum they could have done in response to military action of this sort. It’s also important to understand the two-sided nature of China’s stance towards Venezuela. For its own reasons, the Chinese bureaucracy has seen fit to invest in the country, chiefly to secure access to raw materials and markets for its industrial products. Venezuela has equally benefited from this relationship, and it is my view that neither Maduro nor Chávez would have survived as long as they did without Russian or Chinese help. Anyone who tells you that Venezuela had a choice other than seeking terms with these powers is living in a dream world. But the reality is that China is not going to stick its neck out too far for Venezuela––just as Russia didn’t stick its neck out too far for Assad in Syria.
Superficial ideological similarities aside, the CCP leadership quickly became impatient with Maduro and Venezuela’s non-payment of loans. At one point, China cut off Venezuela’s credit line. So, it’s crucial to understand the limits of this financial and diplomatic relationship. As a matter of fact, I don’t preclude the possibility that China will attempt to sign deals with any Venezuelan government––whether civilian or military––that succeeds Maduro, Rodríguez, or other PSUV leaders like Diosdado Cabello. Beijing’s potentates care more about Venezuela’s oil and creditworthiness than they care about its socialism. This brings me to one last point.
In the final analysis, Venezuela only has the strength of its working people and the international solidarity movement to defend its sovereignty and democracy. Venezuelans have paid a very high price for showing the rest of the world that it was possible to resist the Washington Consensus. In my opinion, anyone who calls themselves a socialist––or even a consistent democrat––owes Venezuela a tremendous debt of gratitude. Sadly, sectors of the left academy have failed in their duty to oppose the overthrow of yet another Latin-American government by the US, and they have mindlessly repeated the new Pentagon-speak of “authoritarianism” to dismiss any leadership the US finds inconvenient. As I have written elsewhere (Kappeler 2024), the defects of Venezuela’s political leaders do not justify US intervention, and any excuse for the kidnapping of Maduro amounts to collaboration with imperial violence. The threat that Venezuela posed to the US was never great in material terms, but one should not underestimate the power of example. The Bolivarian Revolution showed the peoples of Latin America that Thatcher’s dictum of “no alternative” was a lie the moment it was uttered. There were alternatives, and the US is busy trying to kill what’s left of one right now.
Aaron Kappeler is Lecturer in the Anthropology of Development at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on agrarian reform, natural resource politics, energy, and environmental struggles in Latin America. He has carried out fieldwork in state enterprises and cooperatives across Venezuela. His latest project explores indigenous land tenure and the redistribution of extractive rents. Before joining the University of Edinburgh, he was Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University, and Instructor at the University of Toronto.
References
Coronil, Fernando. 1997. The Magical State: Nature, Money and Modernity in Venezuela. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hall, Stuart. 1985. Authoritarian Populism: A Reply. New Left Review. 151(1): 115-124.
Kappeler, Aaron. 2025. “Towards Neo-Structural Socialism? Social Profit and Dependency in Venezuelan State Enterprises,” Economy and Society. 54(3): 457-479.
–––––2024. Tropical Leninism or the Eighteenth Brumaire of Nicolás Maduro? Dialectical Anthropology. 48(4): 459-474,2024.
McBeth, Brian. 2001. Gunboats, Corruption and Claims: Foreign Intervention in Venezuela, 1899-1908. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press.
Mitchell, Timothy. 2011. Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. London: Verso.
Roseberry, William. 1985. Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Smilde, David. 2011. Socialism and Neoliberalism in Chávez’s Venezuela. Contexts. 10(4): 70-72.
Striffler, Steve. 2025. How Trump got his Nobel Peace Prize after all. Al Jazeera. October 16th. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/10/16/how-trump-got-his-nobel-peace-prize-after-all
Tinker-Salas, Miguel. 2009. The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cite as: Kappeler, A. 2025. “On the Kidnapping of a President” Focaalblog January 12. https://www.focaalblog.com/2026/01/12/aaron-kappeler-on-the-kidnapping-of-a-president/