Trump’s Consistent Policies Against Venezuela’s Maduro

The New York Times’ Sept. 28 piece on “the mood” inside Venezuela portrays a country bracing, confused, and cynical amid Washington’s lurches between pressure and engagement. A reading that to a great degree can be attributed to the fact that of the sources the report cites, all are sympathetic to the regime. Whether it’s malpractice, considering that a perfect opportunity to ask the Maduro regime uncomfortable questions was missed, is a question worth asking. More importantly, however,  is to address how the piece fundamentally misreads President Donald Trump’s strategy while leaving Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro’s narrative unscrutinized.

The Times’ Julie Turkewitz misdiagnoses not only popular sentiment in Venezuela, by not challenging the regime’s talking points, but also U.S. strategy. What can look from Caracas like whiplash is, in fact, a deliberate “squeeze” designed to narrow Nicolás Maduro’s room for maneuver: brief, reversible openings to secure concrete gains — paired with fast-escalating pressure that steadily raises the cost of loyalty inside the regime. Recent months supply the clearest evidence yet — and there’s a logic reporters like Turkewitz refuse to grasp.

The Trump administration distinguishes means from ends: brief openings function as calculated moves to erode Maduro’s leverage and attain concrete short-term wins—unlike the Biden administration, which blindly accepted hollow promises of democratization. Critics who mistook Trump’s policy changes as incoherence seized on the Trump administration’s seemingly contradictory moves earlier this year. 

During the Biden administration, Washington eased oil sanctions in exchange for vague electoral commitments from Caracas — concessions that ultimately produced little democratic reform and allowed Maduro to consolidate power. This approach echoed aspects of the Obama-era policy, which leaned on engagement and multilateral diplomacy. In March, Trump reimposed targeted sanctions just days after Chevron had been allowed to continue operations in Caracas for thirty days — an apparent contradiction that in fact reflected a calibrated effort to extract economic leverage without conceding political ground.