By Rtd Lt Colonel Samsudeen Sarr
When I wrote my last paper, “Venezuela and the Triumph of Raw Power Politics” in the immediate aftermath of Nicolás Maduro’s stunning capture by United States forces, my reaction was one of deep unease. I questioned the legality, the morality, and above all the sustainability of President Donald Trump’s audacious intervention. I doubted that the forcible removal of one man, however powerful, could translate into real control over a sovereign state without provoking chaos or collapse.
However, the events since then demand a sober reassessment.
Contrary to early expectations of defiance, Venezuela’s new leader, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, appears to have chosen accommodation over resistance. Reports now suggest that she has agreed, among other undisclosed demands from Trump, to an extraordinary arrangement involving the release of between 30 and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, to be sold and shared under terms favorable to the United States. Equally striking is the reported release of political prisoners long held under Maduro’s rule, an unmistakable signal that the old order is being quietly dismantled.
Perhaps most consequential is the apparent suspension of Venezuela’s oil relationships with China, Iran, and the Russian Federation. Now confirmed, this has marked a dramatic geopolitical reversal. For years, these partnerships served as Caracas’ lifeline against Western sanctions. That they can be curtailed so swiftly underscores the brutal effectiveness of Washington’s pressure and the narrow options now confronting Venezuela’s leadership.
Subsequent developments have only reinforced this assessment. Acting under what he openly describes as the enforcement of sanctions, President Trump has authorized the seizure of five oil tankers linked to Venezuelan crude exports, including vessels reportedly owned by Russian interests, moves that have gone conspicuously unchallenged by President Vladimir Putin. This silence from Putin suggests not restraint but capitulation, and confirms that even rival great powers are unwilling to test Washington’s resolve in Venezuela’s waters.
More telling still is the shift from punishment to consolidation. President Trump has now convened senior executives from the global oil industry at the White House, openly urging them to commit capital, technology, and long-term investment to Venezuela’s energy sector. The message could not be clearer than the United States not seeing itself as a transient enforcer of sanctions, but as the ultimate arbiter of Venezuela’s economic future. Whether such ambitions will translate into sustainable stability remains uncertain, but the intent to anchor American influence in Venezuela for the long haul is no longer in doubt.
None of this negates my earlier concerns but sharpens them instead.
President Trump’s strategy is disarmingly simple and make the cost of defiance unbearable and the price of compliance tolerable. So far, the calculus is working. By removing Maduro with surgical speed, isolating the ruling elite, and issuing unmistakable warnings of further escalation, Washington has tilted the balance of fear in Caracas. Cooperation, however humiliating, now appears safer than confrontation. And who would blame them, after their last hope of military defense, Russia and China, was publicly and effectively neutralized, with Trump barring both powers from any dealings with Venezuela without U.S. approval?
This is not diplomacy as traditionally understood. It is intimidation elevated to policy.
Critics will rightly continue to cite international law, sovereignty, and the United Nations Charter. Yet Venezuela exposes the uncomfortable truth that when a superpower is determined, legal norms offer little shelter. Institutions may protest but power prevails in the end. The United Nations may convene but Washington will continue to act unhindered.
What is unfolding is not merely a Venezuelan drama but a broader signal to the world. We are witnessing the return of an unapologetic doctrine in which great powers pursue their interests openly through force, intimidation, and economic leverage, untroubled by global opinion so long as results are delivered. President Trump has not invented this approach but has simply abandoned the pretense.
The silence, or impotence, of Russia and China will not go unnoticed elsewhere. Venezuela’s experience sends a downright message to smaller states aligned with rival powers. That protection is conditional, alliances are fragile, and resistance can carry existential consequences.
This is not to suggest that Trump’s approach is just, lawful, or sustainable. Compliance extracted at gunpoint breeds resentment, not legitimacy. Governments that survive by yielding to foreign diktats rule on borrowed time. History is rarely kind to such arrangements.
Yet international politics is not a moral seminar. It is a contest of leverage and will. Judged by those harsh standards, President Trump is, for now, succeeding.
The lesson is as uncomfortable as it is clear. In today’s world, power no longer merely shapes outcomes, it overrides principles. Venezuela stands as a warning that the age of restraint is fading, global norms are hollowing out, and weaker states must urgently rethink assumptions about sovereignty, protection, and survival.
Whether this path leads to stability or disorder remains to be seen. What is already beyond dispute is that the rules of the game are changing, and those least able to bend them will pay the highest price.
