Trump Ousts Maduro: Who Is Next in Line?

Having ascended to the presidency with audacious vows to annex Greenland and reclaim American sovereignty over the Panama Canal, Donald Trump has now executed his most dramatic foreign policy gambit to date: the military ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In a lightning strike on 3 January 2026, US forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas, transporting them to New York to face “narco-terrorism” charges. As the dust settles in the Venezuelan capital, the international community is left to wonder which nations now sit in the crosshairs of this emboldened “America First” doctrine.

The rhetoric driving these actions is strikingly reminiscent of Trump’s past fascinations with territorial strategy. In February 2022, he lauded Vladimir Putin’s incursion into eastern Ukraine as “genius,” suggesting that such tactics could be applied to the United States’ own southern border. Today, that hypothetical “genius” has manifested as a full-scale intervention in a nation of 28 million people. By ordering a strike to decapitate the Venezuelan leadership, Trump has effectively discarded decades of hard-won diplomatic caution regarding regime change. While military operations may achieve swift tactical successes, history suggests that the subsequent strategic quagmires are far more difficult to resolve.

Trump’s “Plan A” for a post-Maduro Venezuela initially appeared to involve Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, whom he described as “gracious” and “willing to do what is necessary.” However, the reality on the ground has proven more volatile. Within hours of the US announcement, Rodríguez publicly denounced the intervention as “barbaric” and labelled the US an “illegal, imperialist occupying power.” Despite this defiance, Trump has asserted that the US will “run the country” until a transition occurs—a move explicitly tied to his desire to revitalise Venezuela’s oil infrastructure using American energy giants.

Regional Targets and the Trump Corollary

This aggressive posture is codified in the “Trump Corollary” to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, unveiled late in 2025. This policy asserts a unilateral American right to expel any external influence from the Western Hemisphere, effectively treating the Americas as a domestic security zone. With Maduro gone, the administration has already issued stern warnings to Havana; Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Cuban leaders should be “concerned” given their historical ties to the Maduro regime. Similarly, Trump’s recent claims that “cartels are running Mexico” have sparked fears of a potential “narco-terror” intervention north of the Darien Gap. Whether this marks the dawn of a stable, pro-US regional order or the beginning of a cycle of endless “hit-and-run” wars remains the defining question of his second term.

Source: The Guardian