Venezuela and the Cost of Pretending Pressure Is Strategy

I believed in “Libertad” once, too. Here’s what comes after the slogans.

I was there the first time. Inside the Trump 1.0 White House, Venezuela policy wasn’t abstract. It was debated in real time, often tensely, with national security, energy markets, migration, and domestic politics colliding in the same room.

The objective in Trump 1.0 was clear: force a political transition. The assumption was just as clear: if we applied enough economic pressure, the regime would crack.

It didn’t.

Trump 1.0: Pressure Without an Off-Ramp

The strategy relied on oil sanctions, financial restrictions, and diplomatic isolation. Venezuela’s dependence on oil revenue was seen as the pressure point that would finally force movement at the top.

What many outside government underestimated, and what some inside were slow to accept, was how quickly an authoritarian system adapts when survival is at stake.

Oil didn’t stop flowing. It rerouted. Cargoes moved through intermediaries. Tankers changed flags and paperwork. Buyers shifted. Sanctions became friction, not collapse. By the end of Trump 1.0, we were left with an uncomfortable truth: pressure alone wasn’t delivering political change, while the humanitarian and migration consequences were landing elsewhere, including at the U.S. border.

Trump Today: Enforcement, Not Illusions

For all the talk of democracy and regime change, Venezuela policy has always revolved around oil—and it still does. What’s happening now is more revealing.

This administration isn’t pretending sanctions will deliver democracy. Instead, it’s enforcing them physically: disrupting shipping networks, seizing vessels linked to Venezuelan oil, and targeting the logistics that keep the system functioning.

That’s not symbolic pressure. That’s coercive enforcement. It reflects a quieter admission: Venezuela didn’t break under maximum pressure, so the only way to reduce revenue is to interrupt the system itself. But that shift raises risks the public hasn’t really been asked to weigh.

The Navy Obsession Is Not a Side Note

This is where the pieces start to line up. At the same time, sanctions enforcement is moving from paperwork to physical interdiction. Donald Trump has been loudly fixated on the Navy: on building more ships, expanding maritime power, and projecting strength at sea.

That’s not accidental.

When policy shifts toward enforcement through interdiction, presence matters. Ships matter. Authorities matter. You need tools that can operate in contested waters, enforce rules, and signal dominance without a formal declaration of war.

This isn’t about wanting war. It’s about preparing for confrontation without calling it one. You don’t build naval power because you expect diplomacy to do the work.

That’s why the "Trump-class" battleship announcement should be read as branding, not planning. The Navy is already years behind and billions over budget on far smaller ships. This would be an eye-watering, decade-plus boondoggle. Long on rhetoric, short on reality.

The real signal isn’t the fantasy fleet. It’s the posture: anticipating friction over shipping lanes, energy flows, and enforcement authority.

Seen through that lens, Venezuela isn’t isolated. It fits a broader posture. Fewer illusions about regime change, more reliance on coercive leverage and visible power.

Why Americans Should Care

This doesn’t stay overseas.

Energy prices: Disrupting oil flows tightens markets. Even marginal shocks ripple through fuel prices, shipping costs, and inflation that hits households directly.

Migration: Economic constriction without a political horizon drives people out. That pressure doesn’t disappear. It moves north.

National security credibility: When enforcement escalates without a clear endgame, allies and adversaries alike learn that the U.S. intends to use power to manage instability rather than resolve it.

Precedent: What happens with Venezuela becomes a model. Interdiction today doesn’t stop at one country tomorrow.

The Through-Line

Trump 1.0 framed Venezuela as a democracy project that stalled. Trump today treats it as a problem to be contained and enforced. That may be more honest. It may also be more dangerous. Because containment without a political horizon doesn’t end crises. It hardens them, shifts the costs, and normalizes permanent pressure as policy. Venezuela isn’t collapsing. It’s being managed. I’ve seen this cycle before. The tools change. The tradeoffs don’t.

So What’s the End Game, Really?

Officially, the answer hasn’t changed. According to people now speaking publicly, including Susie Wiles, the goal is still regime change. Liberation. A free Venezuela.

I believed that once, too. During Trump 1.0, we said “Libertad” constantly. Mike Pence stood at the podium promising Venezuelans freedom and dignity. I remember this vividly because I worked on Venezuela for Pence. But being inside the meetings tells a different story. It became clear that Trump didn’t actually care about Venezuela: not its people, not its future, not what came after. What he cared about was leverage, optics, and whoever last convinced him this mattered for him.

That instability mattered. Because foreign policy does not survive indifference at the top. When Trump lost interest, the policy hollowed out. The rhetoric stayed lofty. The follow-through disappeared.

And now we’re told, again, that regime change is the endgame. So let’s stop pretending that’s enough.

Who’s Actually Driving This Now?

If Trump isn’t the strategist, someone else is. This time, it’s Marco Rubio–a man whose Venezuela hawkishness has been one of the few constants in an otherwise endlessly malleable political identity. Rubio has bent, flipped, recalibrated, and rebranded himself repeatedly to survive inside Trump’s orbit. On loyalty. On institutions. On democracy itself. But on Venezuela, he has been immovable. That should concern people. Because policy driven by someone with rigid ideology but flexible principles is how you get pressure without planning, and coercion without accountability.

Rubio pushed hard for maximum pressure during Trump 1.0. He is now the official steward of U.S. foreign policy while those same assumptions are being enforced more aggressively than ever. Which raises the question no one is answering.

What If They Actually Succeed?

Let’s say the pressure works. Let’s say the regime cracks. Let’s say Nicolás Maduro is gone. Then what?

Who governs on day one? Who secures infrastructure? Who controls the military? Who manages food distribution, oil production, internal reprisals, and migration flows?

We already know this story, because we’ve lived it elsewhere. The United States is very good at applying pressure. We are far less consistent at managing what comes after.

I’ve written before about how we fail the aftermath—how we under-resource stabilization, abandon long-term engagement, and confuse “victory” with exit. It’s not a theory. It’s history. Regime change without a post-regime plan isn’t a strategy. It’s abdication dressed up as resolve. And when enforcement escalates, when ships replace sanctions memos, when interdiction replaces diplomacy, the cost of not having an endgame rises fast.

Which brings us back to the only question that actually matters: Who is accountable for the morning after?

What to Watch Next

• Oil market lag effects: shipping insurance, freight rates, and rerouting before price spikes show up at the pump.

• China’s behavior, not its rhetoric: whether buyers quietly adapt or test U.S. resolve.

• Migration pressure heading into 2026: Regional displacement always comes first. I saw it in 2019, when I met with the Colombian Ambassador to the United States about the burden already falling across the region. This time, it will be worse.

• What are Venezuela’s neighbors like Colombia saying?

• Sanctions creep: secondary penalties and tariff threats are usually next.

• Whether anyone articulates an exit: containment is easy to start and brutally hard to end.

This is what happens when pressure becomes policy, persuasion disappears, and a "Trump-class" golden fleet is offered as both distraction and substitute for strategy.

More soon,

Olivia