Venezuela’s Chance at Freedom Is Real but Fragile

Nearly six months ago, President Donald Trump led a bold operation to remove Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, giving the South American nation of roughly 30 million people its first real chance at democracy in a generation. But while the opening created by Maduro’s ouster is real, Venezuela remains precariously perched between a democratic revival and an airbrushed version of the old regime.

Critics of the Trump administration have argued that the operation to remove Maduro was haphazard, risky, or half-baked. But that criticism misses the most important point. Before January 3, Venezuela had no real path forward. Maduro remained in power, the opposition was repressed or exiled, political prisoners languished behind bars, and the criminal machinery of Chavismo appeared firmly entrenched.

Trump’s action did not magically restore democracy or rebuild Venezuela’s ruined economy. But it did break the illusion that the regime was permanent. It created an opening where none previously existed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described the administration’s plan for Venezuela as a three-phase process: stabilization, recovery, and transition.

The first phase seeks to prevent Venezuela from collapsing into chaos after Maduro’s removal, using American pressure, oil sanctions, and a maritime quarantine as leverage.

The second phase is economic recovery, reopening the country under transparent rules that allow fair access for American, Western, and allied companies while advancing national reconciliation through amnesty, prisoner releases, and the return of political exiles.

The third phase, which overlaps with the first two, is political transition — blending economic reopening with a new governing framework that can eventually return Venezuela to democratic legitimacy.

That framework is sensible, but it also underscores potential pitfalls ahead. If Venezuela stops at the first two phases, the country may escape Maduro only to remain trapped under Chavismo with a softer face.

To understand the risk, readers first need to understand who now governs Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president, is not a neutral caretaker chosen by the Venezuelan people. She was Maduro’s vice president and oil minister, one of the regime’s most powerful figures, and a longtime insider in the political system that helped bring Venezuela to ruin. After U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Rodríguez was sworn in under the authority of institutions still shaped by Chavismo.

In other words, Maduro is gone, but the governing structure he left behind has not disappeared. The courts, bureaucracy, security forces, National Assembly, state-owned companies, and regime-aligned economic interests remain deeply influenced by the old order. Rodríguez has changed ministers, adjusted the regime’s public posture, and spoken of a “new political stage.” But none of that makes her democratically legitimate – even if allowing her to take control may have been the best possible option in the moment.

Professor Giacobbe Provenzano, a former financial policy advisor to the Italian government who now resides in Peru, said the international community must remind Rodríguez that she lacks democratic legitimacy. He called her “only a placeholder until a true people’s leader emerges.”

That distinction matters because Venezuela’s recovery is both urgent and potentially dangerous. The country Maduro left behind is a humanitarian, economic, and institutional disaster. World Bank data show that Venezuela’s GDP per capita fell from roughly $13,000 in 2012 to just over $4,200 in 2024. Annual inflation remains above 500 percent. The country’s minimum wage has become almost meaningless in dollar terms, forcing the government to rely on bonuses and other stopgap payments even as real purchasing power continues to erode.

Nearly eight million Venezuelans have left the country over the course of the country’s crisis, one of the largest migration disasters in the modern world.

There have been signs of improvement since Maduro’s removal. Venezuela’s oil exports rose to 1.25 million barrels per day in May, the third consecutive monthly increase, with more cargoes heading to the United States, India, and Europe. Foreign energy companies are again looking at Venezuela. Airlines are moving to reconnect the country with the outside world. Rodríguez has sought to present her government as pragmatic, business-friendly, and capable of reopening the economy after years of socialist decay.

In ordinary times, those developments might be greeted as unqualified good news. In Venezuela, however they raise the central question of whom exactly will benefit from the recovery.

If economic reopening occurs under transparent rules, with genuine rule of law and a clear path to free elections, it can help rebuild the country. But if it is managed by the same political networks that looted Venezuela in the first place, it could allow old-regime insiders to convert political power into economic power before voters have a chance to choose a legitimate government.

That is the danger Rubio’s plan must avoid. Stabilization cannot become an excuse for indefinite rule by a Maduro-era insider. Recovery cannot become a vehicle for elites to privatize public assets to themselves, capture foreign investment, and then claim credit for rebuilding the country they helped destroy.

The early stages of any democratic transition would be rough. A new government would inherit inflation, low wages, weak institutions, distorted labor markets, broken infrastructure, and a public understandably impatient for rapid improvement. Even under the best circumstances, recovery would be uneven and politically painful.

Old-regime figures know this. They would have every incentive to exploit public frustration, blame inevitable hardship on the new democratic order, and present themselves as the only people capable of restoring stability.

The opposition fears that Venezuela’s regime will gain economic power even if it loses political power, retired Professor of Economics Louis Alfonso Pinheiro told me. “This fear is rooted in concerns that a new government, even with broad public support, would be weakened,” he explained.

His warning echoes the experience of parts of Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. In several post-communist countries, old party networks and state-connected insiders moved quickly to capture privatized assets, rebrand themselves as businessmen, and use their new wealth to shape the politics of the supposedly new order. The result was not always a clean break with communism, but a murky transition in which the old regime’s power survived under new labels.

Venezuela faces a similar danger. If the people who helped ruin the country are allowed to manage the sale of public assets, distribute concessions, control energy partnerships, and decide which political forces are permitted to compete, the country may discover that Maduro’s removal changed the face of power without changing its foundations.

That is why political reform cannot be treated as something to be handled later. The release of political prisoners, freedom of expression, the safe return of exiles, and the right of opposition leaders to organize openly are not decorative add-ons to economic recovery. They are the difference between a real transition and a managed succession.

Rodríguez has attempted to signal openness by releasing some detainees. But the figures remain contested. In January, her government claimed hundreds of prisoners had been released, while the human rights group Foro Penal confirmed far fewer political prisoner releases and warned that many remained behind bars.

Some releases also came with restrictions rather than full freedom. Meanwhile, families of detainees have continued to wait outside prisons for news of their loved ones.

The censorship problem also remains. In one recent incident, the Venevisión channel abruptly cut off a live interview after a guest mentioned opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia.

That small moment revealed a large truth. If Venezuelans still cannot freely mention the leading democratic opposition figures on television, the country has not yet entered a real democratic stage.

This is where the opposition’s Panama Manifesto becomes so important. Announced in late May, the document outlines a pathway for moving Venezuela toward actual democratic transition. It calls for a serious national agreement, normalization of civic and political life, the dismantling of repressive structures, the release of political prisoners, guarantees for exiles to return, and the conditions necessary for free, transparent elections with international observation.

The manifesto is not a rejection of Rubio’s framework. Properly understood, it is the democratic fulfillment of that framework. Stabilization prevents chaos, which then allows the economy to recover and flourish. But any transition must restore sovereignty to the Venezuelan people. Without that final step, the entire project risks becoming a bargain with the remnants of Chavismo.

María Corina Machado, the country’s leading opposition figure and Nobel laureate, understands this clearly. She has supported negotiations, but not a cosmetic process that allows the old regime to choose its own successor or dictate the terms of Venezuela’s future. Rodríguez has control of the interim state. Machado has democratic legitimacy. That contrast should guide American policy.

“Venezuela’s greatest problem over the years was illegitimate power,” said Professor Provenzano. This, in turn, led to internal unaccountability and external illegality. “To deal with the first issue, the regime used tyranny; for the second, its means ranged from smuggling to subversion.”

That diagnosis explains why the stakes are so high. Venezuela’s tragedy was never merely bad economics. It was illegitimate power — power seized, preserved, and exercised without accountability. That illegitimacy produced repression at home and criminality abroad. It corrupted institutions, destroyed prosperity, empowered armed networks, and pushed millions of Venezuelans into exile.

President Trump deserves credit for doing what years of diplomacy, sanctions, condemnations, and negotiations failed to do. He removed Maduro and created a real opportunity for Venezuela to reclaim its future. That achievement should not be minimized simply because the next phase is difficult. But the opportunity Trump created can still be squandered if Washington confuses temporary stability with democratic success.

The United States should therefore make clear that Rubio’s three-phase plan must reach its final phase. Stabilization is necessary, but it must not harden into permanent rule by Maduro’s former deputy. Recovery is urgent, but it must not enrich the insiders who helped destroy the country. Reconciliation is important, but it cannot mean impunity for a regime that continues to censor, intimidate, and manipulate the political process.

Venezuela is closer to freedom today than it was six months ago. That is because Maduro is gone. But the test now is whether the regime he built goes with him. Trump opened the door. Rubio has outlined the path. The Venezuelan people must now be allowed to walk it — not into a renewed version of the old order, but into a genuinely democratic republic.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.