By Andrew Martin

No one in the government of Venezuela or any of its supporters lamented Trump’s closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Venezuelan minister for foreign affairs, Yván Gil, at the 58th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva made his displeasure with the agency clear when he stated that it funds “ghost projects with the sole purpose of attacking sovereign governments.”

He went on to say that USAID “fills the accounts of the same political operators who present themselves here (at the UN) as ‘defenders of human rights.’”

The agency was founded in 1961 under the Kennedy administration, ostensibly to promote democratic values abroad and support economic development. Although USAID has provided humanitarian aid, supported infrastructure projects, and promoted education and health initiatives, it is a tool of the U.S. State Department.

The main lesson to learn here is that no aid the U.S. provides comes without strings attached. It is generally conditional that in return for any such aid, goods and services are purchased from the United States. The aid often comes with the expectation that markets will be liberalised and that governments align themselves with U.S. foreign policy objectives. Funding is determined solely by political considerations and not the needs of people – it is certainly not for the purposes of “development”.

As nefarious as that may be, in the case of Venezuela, the role of USAID is far more sinister.

USAID in Venezuela

Venezuela has been a focal point for USAID activities, particularly in the context of the country’s political and economic upheavals. In addition to sanctions, assassinations, terrorist attacks and coup attempts, the U.S. has used USAID to directly fund opposition groups and target the base of support for the Chavez-Maduro Bolivarian governments of Venezuela. The agency has been working covertly together with the CIA since (and most likely before) it was banned in Venezuela in 2010.

USAID fits in neatly with a broader strategy of regime change. Its closure revealed to the world that it engages in far more than delivering carefully packaged boxes of medicine and food. The executive director of Reporters Without Borders, United States chapter, Clayton Weimers issued a press release on the closure stating (without any apparent sense of irony): “The freezing of U.S. aid funds is sowing chaos throughout the world, including in journalism,” and he made a general call to the international corporate sector to “commit to the sustainability of independent media.”

The same press release stated that “the 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support ‘independent media and the free flow of information.’”

So “independent media,” we learn, is often funded by an agency directly linked to the U.S. State Department! Reporters Without Borders ought to rename themselves “Capital Without Borders”. At the very least, it should be clear to everyone that one of the primary functions of USAID is propaganda work.

No doubt a large portion of this money was directed towards “independent media” in Venezuela.

Regime Change

USAID has a history of involvement in political affairs in Latin America and other regions aimed towards regime change efforts. There are many examples from the Cold War era where USAID and other U.S. agencies supported coups and undermined socialist or left-leaning governments from Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Argentina (1976), Bolivia (1971), El-Salvador (1979-1992), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989) and Venezuela in 2002.

The last coup mentioned here failed after three days because the people rose up to defend the government of Hugo Chavez, the mass protests leading to the consolidation of power of the Bolivarian revolution. Despite this expression of the democratic will of the people, the Bush administration kept close contact with the organisations that plotted the coup and organised yet more coup attempts.

The 2002 coup revealed a web of “soft power” that was anything but soft. Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), training and support was given to military operatives, business representatives and to media figures to manufacture political chaos, leading to municipal police firing on supporters of the government. A narrative was spun internationally that reversed the reality of the situation–I remember the news reports clearly which stated the government was firing on unarmed protestors.

Tellingly, USAID organised in Caracas via the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) one month before the coup took place, meeting with corporate backers, church officials and NGOs. It disbursed millions of dollars of small grants to organisations and agents it viewed as willing collaborators.

According to information gathered by research agency Mision Verdad through Freedom of Information requests, one of the main beneficiaries of USAID in Venezuela was Súmate, the main NGO that promoted the referendum against Chávez. Sumate was founded by María Corina Machado, now the main opposition figure in Venezuela. Though the referendum was held, Chávez won and remained in power until dying of cancer in 2013; Machado then moved directly into an opposition role garnered by more funding from USAID.

The leaks by Chelsea Manning to Wikileaks also reveal the role of USAID in Venezuela. The leaks revealed in 2006 that then U.S. ambassador in Caracas William Brownfield had outlined a long-term plan summarised in five points:

1. Strengthen democratic institutions.
2. Penetrate the political base of [Hugo] Chávez.
3. Divide Chavismo;
4. Protecting vital U.S. businesses; and
5. Isolate Chavez internationally.

As well as funding, USAID provided logistical support and training to organisers of protests such as the “colour” student led protests of 2009. This aid increased over time, reaching its peak during the actions of the “guarimbas,” who blockaded cities, burned tyres and carried out violent attacks on government buildings and supporters of the government.

In September 2010, President Hugo Chávez ordered the expulsion of the OTI, accusing it of funding activities intended to destabilise his administration – a decision that was finalised in February 2011. This occurred before the cables revealing the role of USAID and OTI were made public. It is worth noting that later that year, the Chávez government passed laws prohibiting foreign financing for political purposes in the country.

But USAID money increased exponentially as it was spent more covertly. By 2022 it reached $142.9 million in a single year (633% higher than 2019).

According to Mision Verdad, there is a direct correlation between funding and opposition protests in Venezuela and that the “notable increase in funding for the Venezuelan opposition since 2017 is such that, since then, the figures have almost doubled year-on-year”.

Much of this money has gone to private media outlets that run a 24/7 news cycle to destabilise the government, but it has also gone directly to coup plotters. According to files leaked from USAID, $700 million have gone into the hands of the opposition cabal around Juan Guaidó and Carlos Vecchio.

Guaidó gained international recognition in 2019 when he declared himself interim president of Venezuela, directly challenging Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela. He led an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Maduro in April 2019. By 2023, international support for Guaidó had weakened, and the Venezuelan opposition dissolved his “interim government.” He now resides in Miami.

Carlos Vecchio is the former ambassador for Guaidó’s interim government in the U.S. He became Guaidó’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2019, lobbying for U.S. sanctions on Maduro’s government. He played a key role in securing U.S. recognition of Guaidó and control over Venezuelan assets abroad (like CITGO). Neither Vecchio nor Guaidó have any legitimacy in Venezuela; their power solely relied on them being possible agents of regime change, a status which USAID was happy to cultivate.

It’s reported by Venezuelan media outlets that Carlos Vecchio would have received 116 million dollars through USAID. In total, both these shady figures were handling hundreds of millions of dollars, most of which was embezzled.

Will the United States Continue to Attempt Regime Change?

Billions of dollars of USAID money have been frozen and hundreds of its employees have been laid off, but it is not clear that Trump intends to abolish USAID in its entirety. It is more than likely it will be absorbed into the U.S. state department giving the government tighter control of it.

Speaking to Politico, a former USAID official stated that there is bewilderment and wonder that the gutting of USAID may be “acting as the test case on how the administration will obliterate other U.S. agencies.” There is speculation that it could also come under control of the Office of Foreign Assistance which reviews the policy objectives of USAID.

Following a recent visit to repatriate six U.S. prisoners from Venezuela, U.S. special envoy Richard Grenell stated: “We are very clear about the Venezuelan government and Maduro, but Donald Trump is someone who does not want to make regime changes… I spent the day in Caracas, I met with Maduro, I saw him face to face. I tried to have a conversation where we had a different relationship with him.”

It’s hard to take Grenell or Trump at their word. The whole history of relations between the U.S. and Venezuela for the last 27 years has been adversarial, with the U.S. playing a predatory role in the country’s affairs. Venezuela has the largest proven reserves of oil in the world. Last time Trump was in power, all options were on the table, including invasion. Trump’s security adviser John Bolton openly stated, “we want the oil”.

The role of USAID in Venezuela is unambiguously that of regime change. Its dismantling is a piece of showmanship for domestic audiences to feed the idea that Trump is waging a war on corruption, but there will be other tools at the disposal of Trump’s administration. In any case, no-one should shed a tear over its decline.

The impact of USAID’s involvement in efforts to politically undermine and overthrow the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro has resulted in extensive human, material, and political damage of incalculable scale. The adversarial nature between Venezuela and the U.S will not improve with the closure of USAID. In fact, it is set to worsen.

Trump has revoked licences which allow U.S. energy giant Chevron to operate in Venezuela. On his Truth Social Account he stated: “We hereby reverse the concessions that the corrupt Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and which also has to do with the electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime.”

The license revocation can only be seen as an act of coercion marking a new phase of economic strangulation. Florida republicans are no doubt lobbying for more sanctions in exchange for their support of Trump’s regressive budget measures. But Venezuela will not be bowed by these measures and in recent years has increased its capability to evade sanctions.

If Trump imposes more sanctions, it will increase the unity within Venezuela as sanctions are only advocated by the most extreme right-wing elements of the opposition. Venezuela’s allies within BRICS will most likely deepen their economic ties with the country, seeking out its supplies of heavy crude oil. Currently, around 700,000 barrels of oil per day are exported from Venezuela to markets outside the United States, with a significant portion of this crude being sold through innovative methods to bypass the blockade.

President Maduro responded to Trump with defiance:

“If the gringos want to continue their path of betting on fascism, on violence in Venezuela, of betting on sanctions, that’s their problem,” said the Head of State. “To the wise: clear words. I don’t play with hidden cards, I play with cards on the table and, for that reason, we always win: because we play with the truth,” he concluded.