Delcy’s Quagmire | Caracas Chronicles
Not even a month in since the Trump administration captured Nicolás Maduro and the left-wing, Bolivarian regime led by Delcy Rodríguez has been “extremely cooperative.” “Thus far,” the White House said, she has “met all of the demands and requests of the United States”— around favoring American oil companies and investment, stopping narco-trafficking, and severing subordinance to extra-hemispheric rivals.
“Thus far” being the operative word. While in the immediate aftermath she appears to have stabilized the regime while cooperating with Trump, over the medium to long-term, Rodríguez’s attempt to satisfy US demands will likely require her to modify the very structures and processes—i.e., the mechanisms—that have underpinned the regime’s internal cohesion and stability for over two decades.
Delcy, indeed, is in a quagmire.
Alas, that Delcy’s regime has remained stable is unsurprising. The Venezuelan regime has historically turned threatening crises—from mass protests, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and economic sanctions to a parallel government recognized by over 50 nations—into recurrent opportunities for consolidation. These survival mechanisms rely on loyalty coerced from civilians and engineered among military and political elites by weaponizing access to dwindling economic rents—from oil, as well as agriculture and minerals, illicit networks, and dependence on China, Russia, and Iran. The scale of this systemic pillaging is vast: since the Chávez era only, at least $300 billion have been diverted to fuel these survival mechanisms.
On the other hand, these are the mechanisms that the Trump administration expects to be overhauled or abolished. While these structures and processes were originally established by the regime, for the regime, the post-Maduro reality is that Rodríguez must now modify them with the US, for the US.
Rodríguez must also redirect scarce resources from pillaging into investments in ruined public infrastructure (especially roads, highways, freeways) and even in basic services like water or domestic gas.
Hence, Delcy’s quagmire. Reforming these mechanisms enough to satisfy the economic and security interests of a forceful (and eager) US administration risks, for regime elites, severing their access to rents that engineer their loyalty. Yet, mere superficial reforms risk Delcy’s fate with her new patron. Trump himself made it clear: “All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren’t just, fair, even to their people.”
Take for instance Trump’s demand that Venezuela grants privileged access to US oil companies and allows the US to have control over allocation from the financial proceedings. For Rodríguez to fully meet this, it will likely require much more than a mere reform of the Hydrocarbons Law. It necessitates the regulation, hiring, mobilization, and investment of resources to rebuild a decades-neglected, decimated national electricity grid, with 75% of Venezuelans suffering daily outages. Furthermore, Rodríguez must also redirect scarce resources from pillaging into investments in ruined public infrastructure (especially roads, highways, freeways) and even in basic services like water—to which only 36% of Venezuelans have daily access—or domestic gas, where over 70% receive it once every three months! And, on top of this, there is a Frankenstein-type financial system that has also presented opportunities for graft and provides all but predictability.
Washington’s expectation that scarce resources be directed toward restoring infrastructure and basic services while overhauling structural financial distortions to ensure US firms operate safely and profitably will strongly constrain Rodríguez’s ability to allow her inner circle to siphon these limited rents. Rodríguez will likely have to interfere with the very mechanisms of survival that have kept the elite unified: to satisfy Trump jeopardizes internal unity; to preserve internal unity risks facing the fate of Maduro.
During a recent visit to Caracas, CIA Director John Ratcliffe demanded Rodríguez to ensure Venezuela is no longer a “safe haven for America’s adversaries, especially narco-traffickers.” But this requires eliminating the shadow economies that have largely sustained the regime. As oil output collapsed by about 90%, it has been demonstrated that the regime has pivoted to illicit enterprises—along with the regime’s acquiescence to criminal groups in their territory. Illegal mining and drug trafficking, for instance, have reportedly accounted for over a quarter of Venezuela’s economy.
The Trump administration’s eagerness (or impatience) over reforms in Venezuela, plus its immense leverage and willingness to exercise it, may eventually make it realize the need for a swift and credible timeline for re-institutionalization and electoral reform.
Furthermore, China has become the regime’s primary economic patron, absorbing sanctioned crude. With the US interdicting shadow-fleet vessels in the Caribbean and demanding a severance of ties with Beijing, regime insiders—particularly the military, which controls critical pillars of domestic oil production and gasoline distribution—now face unprecedented structural strain. The security apparatus is similarly entangled with Russia, a partner that occupied key strategic voids left by the US and provided the military with hardware and gray market financial networks. These networks will not disappear overnight. Trump’s demand for a strong severance from illicit and foreign ties will likely be a turbulent process.
Complying too strongly with Trump will likely require Rodríguez to cut off many of the elites—and their related structures—that, by enriching the regime, have averted threatening crises for over 20 years. Complying too little with Trump to avoid overhauling internal-regime mechanisms, however, risks the ire of a Trump administration that has staked significant political capital on Venezuela’s transformation, especially in a critical election year.
Will the regime, as María Corina Machado suggested, “be forced to dismantle itself”? While not ensuring democratization, altering survival mechanisms to avoid the fate of Maduro could open junctures towards political liberalization. Conversely, prioritizing elite loyalty and existing mechanisms of enrichment over US expectations of reform and improvement risks unilateral dislodgment. While neither path guarantees democracy in the short term, the Trump administration’s eagerness (or impatience) over reforms in Venezuela, plus its immense leverage and willingness to exercise it, may eventually make it realize the need for a swifter and credible timeline for re-institutionalization and electoral reform.
Amidst this uncertainty, rather than a narrative of Delcy’s uncontested longevity, the politics of post-Maduro Venezuela suggests that the possibility of critical junctures favoring a transition toward democracy remains, today, more resonant than ever.