By Andrew Martin

United States’ President Donald Trump is obsessed with the idea of turning other countries into the 51st U.S state. He has targeted Canada, Greenland and Mexico, but now he has Venezuela firmly in his sights; twice in one week, he has expressed his desire to turn Venezuela into a 51st state with a Truth Social post showing a picture of Venezuela covered in the U.S flag. Trump claimed Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela, was seriously considering the offer. So, has the revolution ‘been betrayed’?

With the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, the U.S has increased its control over the oil-rich country. Oil in Venezuela has long been a battleground for its sovereignty. However, in light of recent developments, some commentators are claiming that Venezuela has now become a vassal state under U.S tutelage, that the process of socialist construction is being reversed, and that its Bolivarian revolution is finished.

The recent deportation of Alex Saab is the latest in a series of events that heighten concerns that Venezuela is capitulating to every one of Trump’s whims and betraying the principles of its revolution. Saab is a Colombian businessman best known for his close relationship with the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. He assisted in managing financial networks tied to the Venezuelan state, including food imports, housing contracts, and oil-related deals, helping the government circumvent U.S sanctions.

Many Chavistas in Venezuela are left wondering what the significance is of this change in attitude towards Saab, what direction their government is headed in, what its long-term plans are and if it will continue on the path of building 21^st century socialism.

Challenges and Setbacks

No revolution in all the history of humanity has proceeded without setbacks, mistakes, regressions or failures. Upending centuries-old social relations is not easy, especially when the world’s largest economic and military power is hell-bent on destroying even the most minor working-class victories. The whole history of Latin America is one of struggle against colonial subjugation and imperialist terror.

The Bolivarian revolution, beginning with the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, has not had the freedom to develop without the constraints imposed by U.S imperialism. Venezuela is a heavily sanctioned country; there are a total of over 1,300 sanctions against Venezuela from the U.S, Canada, the E.U and the U.K. None of them have been removed following the capture of Maduro.

The effects of these sanctions have been devastating. According to a report written by Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot, published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the sanctions have inflicted serious harm, leading to an estimated 40,000 deaths between 2017-2018, a 31% increase in mortality. The sanctions prevented the country from restructuring its foreign debt and adversely impacted oil production.

Annual oil production fell by 30% in 2018 and by 2019, with the loss of the U.S. market, oil production virtually collapsed. The U.S had been buying 586,000 barrels a day on average. The U.S pressured other countries, including India, not to buy Venezuela’s oil, plunging the country into a deep economic crisis. Indian companies such as Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy were among the key remaining commercial lifelines for Venezuelan oil exports and they were able to receive the oil at heavily discounted prices. Venezuela had planned to double its exports to India.

Foreign reserves were depleted, with little left to buy much-needed essentials such as medical supplies. The U.S tightened the screws even further, confiscating billions of dollars’ worth of assets such as the U.S-based CITGO, a petroleum and oil retailer, which held an estimated $5.2 billion worth with 5200 petrol stations. The sanctions also make it difficult for Venezuela to sell the $9 billion worth of gold reserves it holds.

And Venezuela’s economy had already been struggling. In mid-2014 the price of oil began to collapse, with brent crude prices sitting above US$110 per barrel in June, then falling rapidly through the second half of the year. By early 2016, prices had dropped below US$30 per barrel; one of the largest sustained oil crashes since World War II. Two major factors which drove the collapse were a surge in U.S shale oil production and slowing global demand, particularly in Europe and China.

As oil prices collapsed, Venezuela had already been struggling to cope with a deep recession, with GDP declining by almost 25% from 2013 to 2016 and inflation rising by as much as 1350% by 2017. Blackouts and shortages of consumer goods became a regular occurrence. Not many governments would survive such pressures, and without the social programs of the Bolivarian revolution, the consequences could’ve been much worse.

The government’s turn to ensuring food sovereignty in particular through the commune movement meant life could continue. Popular organisations established direct distribution routes to prevent hoarding and racketeering. Plan Pueblo a Pueblo established political and economic ties between rural and urban populations, guaranteeing food supplies, including fish and agricultural produce. Venezuela’s commune movement has enabled fresh food to be distributed even to the most remote parts of the country.

Despite the strangulation of its economy, Venezuela survived. In 2024, GDP grew by 5% and by 2025, it was on the road to recovery, growing by 7.71%. This had real-world implications. During the 2025 Carnival season (long a part of Venezuela’s traditions), government revenue collection increased by 25% over the previous year, and hotel occupancy rose by 61.5%. A normality of social life was returning.

The sanctions had failed to achieve their objective of fostering regime change. Although isolated, the Venezuelan people proved they could withstand the worst deprivations. It is for that reason, right at the beginning stages of economic recovery, that the Trump regime sought the kidnapping of President Maduro.

The Kidnap of Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores

The kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores should not be celebrated by anyone. That there was no international outrage over the attack on Venezuela, no condemnations or even deeply expressed concerns from our government or any other in the club of imperialist nations, shows the depravity of our whole political system. It is never imagined what would happen if any other country had taken similar actions, let alone what would happen if they had similar actions undertaken against them.

China issued this condemnation: “China calls on the United States to ensure the personal safety of Maduro and his wife, release them at once, stop toppling the government of Venezuela, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.” But there were few other voices opposing the actions of the U.S.

The special forces mission, Operation Absolute Resolve, that kidnapped Maduro and Flores was extremely audacious. Reportedly, the CIA positioned a covert team inside Venezuela and secured a high-level informant within Maduro’s inner circle to track his sleeping habits and daily routines. U.S. elite forces had constructed a full-scale replica of the presidential compound in the United States to tenaciously rehearse entry points and timing.

The special forces troops were able to neutralise radar and all other communications. Over 150 U.S. aircraft, including F-22 fighters, B-1 bombers, and surveillance drones, launched from 20 regional bases and bombed key sites in Caracas, killing over 100 people. U.S. forces disabled Venezuela’s air defences and cut the electricity grid in Caracas, plunging the capital into total darkness. Low-flying aircraft struck key military infrastructure, including air defence systems, clearing the way for helicopters to land at Maduro’s compound.

The speculation that Maduro and his wife’s capture was an inside job planned over many months is plausible and likely.

These attacks followed several months of military tensions, with the U.S killing fishermen, claiming with no evidence that they were drug smugglers. Maduro and Flores are being accused of crimes of “narco-terrorism” and, bizarrely, gun charges as if U.S law has jurisdiction everywhere that imperialists wish for it to.

In the lead-up, the Trump administration escalated the situation by initiating a naval blockade of oil tankers towards the end of 2025 as part of ‘Operation Southern Spear’ resulting in ship seizures and threats of a ground invasion. A week before announcing the blockade, the US seized the oil tanker Skipper in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. The maritime blockade was fiercely condemned by United Nations human rights experts, who characterized the interdiction of civilian vessels as an illegal use of armed force and a violation of the UN Charter. It’s notable that the blockade and subsequent denial of crucial Venezuelan oil shipments also exacerbated Cuba’s energy crisis.

The ship seizures created a climate of fear which the U.S staged to escalate tensions, leading to the military operation that captured Maduro and Flores. In the aftermath of the abduction, Rodríguez called for the immediate liberation of Maduro and Flores, stating that Maduro “is the only president of Venezuela”. She has not made any indication that she intends to usurp Maduro and has called for his return.

The success of the U.S operation is a major blow to the Bolivarian revolution. Maduro had led the revolution through the most difficult of circumstances. His capture is a reminder of the lengths the U.S will go to maintain hegemony and the outsized military force it can exert, particularly in regions in its geographic proximity.

The Deportation of Alex Saab

The capture of Saab also represents a blow to the Bolivarian revolution, particularly as it surrounds it in subterfuge and haziness. According to Venezuelanalysis:

“Rumours that the former government envoy had been arrested by security forces began to circulate in February, with authorities neither confirming nor denying them. Following his handover to US agencies, Venezuelan high-ranking officials have sought to distance themselves from Saab.”

According to the Orinoco Tribune, when asked about Saab’s deportation, Delcy Rodríguez claimed, “We made an administrative deportation measure, justified in national interests”. The official statement issued by the government directly incriminated Saab, stating he “is involved in various crimes in the United States, as is public, notorious, and widely reported.” The deportation appears to have been illegal under Venezuelan law as there is a constitutional ban on extradition.

What is particularly both confusing and concerning is that Jorge Rodríguez, National Assembly President and someone who in fact championed the release of Saab in 2023, indicated that Saab had broken the trust of the Venezuelan government and that in time details of his betrayal would come to light. This sentiment was echoed by another long-time member of government Diosdado Cabello, Interior Minister and United Socialist Party leader, who alleged that past legal efforts during attempts to defend Saab led to the uncovering of evidence of his collaboration with the US government and in particular the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

And further “claimed that Saab had fraudulently obtained Venezuelan nationality back in 2004 and went on to ‘defraud’ the country. ‘He is not Venezuelan, he is a citizen of Colombian origin,’ Cabello affirmed in a Monday press conference. ‘He always presented an illegal Venezuelan ID card that has no backing from the immigration services.’”

The Venezuelan government stripped Saab of his citizenship in order to enable the deportation. It is alleged, by both Venezuelan and U.S authorities, that Saab was acting as a double agent. It is also alleged that Saab met with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) before he was first arrested and 2022 forfeited $12 million dollars to U.S authorities. It is likely Saab will testify against Maduro.

As Andreína Chávez Alava writes, “the campaign for Saab’s release was always a risky political decision. There was always a chance that it would backfire, either because Saab is guilty of wrongdoing or because, due to his known links with the DEA since 2018, he had effectively become a US asset, whether he wanted to or not, as his former lawyer recently admitted”.

In this context, perhaps one of many setbacks the Venezuelan government faces is the challenge of recovering or retaining public trust. Such sharp shifts in policy towards someone who was considered a high-level diplomat will cause disorientation and raise questions of the character of the government and its leadership. Worse, they feed the idea that a transition of power has taken place and that Venezuela has become a vassal state.

Is the Regime Changing?

Following Maduro’s capture, Trump announced, “We are going to run the country” and subsequently rebirthed the Monroe Doctrine as what some analysts have styled the “Donroe doctrine”, claiming that the U.S. seeks to re-assert decisive influence across the Western Hemisphere, from South America to Canada – an outcome stated explicitly in the 2025 U.S National Security Strategy: “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity—a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region”. Getting control of Venezuela is just one part of the conquest.

Rodríguez is seeking a major debt restructuring and the lifting of sanctions on her country, hoping to unlock oil reserves to stabilise the economy and allow it to continue its path of recovery. Doing so will give a much-needed boost to wages and living standards. This comes at a price.

There has been a political rapprochement with the U.S reopening its embassy in Caracas. Rodríguez has also signed a reform law to open the state-controlled oil industry to foreign investment, fulfilling a key demand from the Trump administration.

Oil shipments to Cuba have also not resumed, the suspension of which strikes at the core of the political and economic alliance that has linked the two countries since the era of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. For more than two decades, Venezuela supplied Cuba with heavily subsidized oil in exchange for Cuban doctors, advisers, and security personnel. Venezuela became Cuba’s principal external energy source. The cessation of shipments deepens Cuba’s severe energy crisis, further weakening the country at a time when the Trump regime has threatened its takeover.

Rodríguez has also changed cabinet positions within her government, removing some of Maduro’s closest collaborators and giving amnesty to opponents of the Bolivarian revolution. These manoeuvres create an ambiguity around Rodríguez’s aims and intentions, but it’s hard not to discount the need to (whether genuine or not) appear reactive to the directives of the Trump administration. But what are the Trump administration’s specific objectives? U.S Envoy John Barrett has reaffirmed the plan for Venezuelan “stabilisation, recovery, and transition”. But transition to what? And by what means?

The U.S is calling for new elections, but the opposition in Venezuela is widely discredited, and the people of Venezuela will be seeking to protect the social gains of the revolution. The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has not been dismantled. The trade union movement and the communes are still active in the country’s political life, at times pressuring, at others supporting the government. Indeed, the typical intervention template would have us anticipate the linking of certain political outcomes favourable to the U.S with economic outcomes which appear favourable to the Venezuelan state – for example sanctions relief following demonstrations of ‘democratic’ (U.S aligned) values. Such clear targets are yet to be articulated.

The other difficulty with achieving regime change is that there is no conceivable opposition that could be elected in Venezuela. Maria Machado, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and prime comprador candidate, is widely hated in Venezuela and is only a celebrity in the reactionary circles of the capitalist class. The daughter of a steel-industry magnate, she has no connection to ordinary people of Venezuela.

Clearly the chosen candidate by the U.S, she is condemned by the fact that she has received funding from the CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to build an opposition in Venezuela. Many of Venezuela’s people have also not forgotten her treasonous signing of the Carmona Decree during the 2002 coup attempt against the late president Hugo Chavez. She has repeatedly called for U.S intervention but despite having her wishes granted, she is no closer to securing power.

Limitations of Imperialist Power

It is likely that the U.S calculated a conventional military invasion would fail, but capturing Maduro poses its own limitations in that it still draws awareness to imperialist exertions on Venezuela. Particularly given that Maduro had strong support from the military and the PSUV.

The government launched massive protests across the country with a series of demonstrations known as the Great Pilgrimage under the slogan Venezuela flies free. Coinciding with Venezuela’s first cry for independence on 19 April and lasting until 1 May, rallies were reported in states including Aragua, Miranda, La Guaira, and Guárico. The National Assembly president, Jorge Rodríguez, called for “the spiritual and national defence” of Venezuela’s right to national self-determination.

These rallies had immense popular support, despite doubts surrounding the circumstances of Maduro’s capture. This is a strong indication the people are still prepared to defend the gains of the Bolivarian revolution and that overt imperialism can unintentionally galvanise its own opposition.

Venezuela’s people are also armed and ready to militarily defend their country. The Bolivarian National Militia (Milicia Nacional Bolivariana) has registered 4.5 million people for the defence of the country and can immediately mobilise hundreds of thousands into action. Following the instigation of war with Iran, the calculus U.S empire must do has changed for the worse; a military invasion of Venezuela would be a quagmire for the U.S with too many unintended consequences at a time when they are already overstretched.

This is a critical conjuncture for Venezuela, but the same is true for U.S imperialism. It faces a global crisis of legitimacy. None of its military adventures are popular, and it cannot sustain a long war on any of the fronts it is fighting. What it seems to express in its attempts to control Venezuela is the desperation of a dying empire. As Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, grandson of Fidel Castro, suggested in February following the abduction of Maduro and subsequent intensifying of the blockade on Cuba, “Washington’s aggression is a symptom of its weakness, not its strength; it is the lash of a wounded beast watching the world cease to obey it blindly”.

While this sentiment is not a call to rest, or underestimation of the empire, it has become perhaps even more true in the months following as, to sustain the petro-dollar, the U.S almost immediately turned to West Asia. It is clear that as the U.S engages in wars of unbelievable destruction, it is also sowing the seeds for political rebellion wherever it spreads its talons; even on its home soil, it may face resistance.

Venezuela Will Resist

There are aspects of Rodríguez’s approach that rightly draw concern. When Iran retaliated against U.S bases in Qatar, she offered solidarity to the Qatari government, as well as expressing regret for the humanitarian consequences of the conflict. Iran had been attacked without provocation, with schools and hospitals being targeted as well as the systematic elimination of the leadership of the Islamic Republic, including its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Rodríguez claimed the situation “has triggered in recent hours a dangerous and unpredictable escalation of events, including undue and condemnable military reprisals by Iran against targets in various countries of the region.” The Orinoco Tribune, a website that is a part of the Chavista movement, claimed, “following the US aggression against Venezuela, two sovereign funds were established in Qatar to process Venezuelan oil revenues that could be traded via the United States”.

Iran has been a longstanding ally of Venezuela providing it with both aid and technical expertise to keep its oil industry alive. Rodríguez’s statements are in stark contrast to the fierce condemnations Maduro issued of Israeli and U.S war crimes. The solidarity Iran has offered to Venezuela has not been forgotten by its people who have rallied against the attacks on Iran. Rodríguez statement was quickly deleted without explanation.

A similar incident occurred when Foreign Minister Yván Gil broadcast a video communique that announced Venezuela had authorised U.S military drills – termed “evacuation exercises” – on Venezuelan soil. Again, the video was quickly deleted following backlash.

But what this contradiction also draws out is the distinction between the Venezuelan state and the revolutionary power base; the communes. Though the two are certainly interlinked, it seems that while the former may be compromised or coerced by imperialist influence, there is no indication that the latter has been.

Indeed, even as multiple large protests formed on the day following the U.S military exercises, as Venezuelanalysis reports various organisations highlighted imperialist forces as the key cause for their anger, with different speakers reiterating support for the government and others and others “denouncing the Venezuelan government’s accommodation of US impositions”.

What can be seen here is that as the U.S wields immense power against the Venezuelan government – it is hard to interpret the military exercises, mere months after the bombing of Caracas, as anything but a ‘gun to the head’ – it must not be forgotten that the Venezuelan people, through the PSUV or indeed other organisations also represent an immense power that is yet to be overcome.

In this light, we must understand that the distinction being made between the government and other organisations however does not represent a break between “the government and the people” as is often suggested with regards to certain countries. Instead, these structures, with the commune as their epitome, represent organisational embodiments of collective power which both flow into and exert pressure on the government. As Cira Pascual Marquina of the El Panal Commune writes, “the commune is not a local refuge from the system, but a fundamental component of a broader strategy of power and social transformation.”

President Delcy Rodríguez responded to Trump’s claim that she was considering the offer of U.S statehood, “it would not even be contemplated”. She is compelled to say this, because the Chavista and communal movements still hold significant power in Venezuela.

The Peoples’ Plan

For Trump, seemingly everything has gone to the imperial plan, but the reality is, this is not the regime change the U.S desires. The ideas of the Bolivarian revolution and the consciousness it has aroused can’t be easily erased. Neither can its institutional power.

As Chris Gilbert of the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela argues, “it’s very hard to take apart a revolution… The communes.. the civic-military alliance.. the party.. the educational apparatus.. it’s not a declarative thing, you have to start taking apart those things.”

It is a recognition of this revolutionary political force persisting under intense imperialist pressure that we must centre our perspective on. A reminder that the commune movement has posed and still poses a serious challenge to the dictates of U.S imperialism. They are one of the most ambitious experiments in popular organisation in Latin America since the Cuban Revolution.

Maduro had intended to expand the popular participation of the communes, so they would cover more economic sectors and would be a part of national government-run consultations that would improve the allocation of resources. He’d also pledged to strengthen the central planning system of the communes, envisaging that they would form the basis for a communal government and the eventual transition to socialism.

The communal state was ready to grow, and the successes of a socialist project that could endure the harshest of sanctions is something U.S imperialism could not bear.

Despite everything the U.S threw at it, coup and assassination attempts, paramilitary invasions, oil price shocks, theft of its assets, sanctions that would normally lead to starvation in other countries, and yet not only did Venezuela survive, but it did so while its socialist project retained popular support.

Venezuela’s stabilisation, its economic recovery and the threat of its good example in the alternative economic model of the Bolivarian revolution was, and still is, not just a threat to its own capitalist class, but to the entire world capitalist order.

The Bolivarian revolution has faced many setbacks, but it has also managed, and thus far is managing, to endure great hardships. If it survives the current crisis, then it is likely to prevail over U.S imperialism and continue the struggle for 21^st Century Socialism.

There is no forecasting the outcome, those seeking to show solidarity should not dismiss the emerging contradictions created by U.S imperialism, but nor should they project a defeatism or scepticism that will ultimately serve the imperialist’s plans, and not the peoples’.

For now, it may seem that crisis has struck, but supporters of the Bolivarian process must remember its history, that Venezuela’s people have struggled hard to survive; they will not easily give up and that we should continue to struggle in solidarity with them.