‘Transition’ to What, Exactly?

By Judson Berger

Friday, January 09, 2026

 

President Trump vowed, after ordering the most audacious act yet of his second term, that America will “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper, and judicious transition” can occur. The question of who would run it was most immediate for reporters at Mar-a-Lago.

 

“Transition to what?” may be more consequential.

 

I’m going to let Elliott Abrams cast my horoscope from now on, because he wrote in detail for NRO last Friday morning about the prospect of regime change in Venezuela. So the former special representative for Venezuela’s analysis carries added weight here, and his first take after the extraction raid was that if the U.S. backs 2024 election winner Edmundo González, he can “lead a transition to democracy”; but if the U.S. deals with “regime remnants,” it invites the resumption of drug-trafficking, mass migration, and Cuba/Iran interference.

 

So far, the Trump administration looks to be dealing with regime remnants. That includes Vice President turned acting President Delcy Rodríguez, whose dark record Jim Geraghty details here and who, as Jim puts it, is “responsible for a list of crimes longer than a CVS receipt.” A taste of her dossier:

 

She is a Maduro loyalist, a “hardline socialist,” and has close ties to Cuba’s intelligence agency. The New York Times described her “impeccable leftist credentials” as the “daughter of a Marxist guerrilla who won fame for kidnapping an American businessman.” From 2018 to 2022, Rodríguez headed SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence service, which the United Nations determined “repressed dissent through crimes against humanity” “including acts of torture and sexual violence. . . . The report details how orders were given by individuals at the highest political levels to lower-ranking officials. Both SEBIN and DGCIM made extensive use of sexual and gender-based violence to torture and humiliate its detainees.”

 

In December, imprisoned retired Venezuelan major general Cliver Antonio Alcalá Cordones sent a letter accusing “Rodriguez and her brother, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez of being the real leaders of the criminal network long known as the Cartel de los Soles.”

 

Noah Rothman and Michael Brendan Dougherty — who don’t always agree — concur that the regime remains largely intact, for now. Andy McCarthy questions if the plan is to simply “squeeze reform and concessions” out of Rodríguez; he notes that Trump has not tried to install González (and the president played down the prospects for opposition leader María Corina Machado).

 

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio appealed for patience, describing a “threefold process” that includes stabilizing the country, ensuring American and other firms “have access to the Venezuelan market” while starting a political reconciliation process, and finally, pursuing a transition. According to Politico, the administration has specific demands for the acting presidente: crack down on drug-trafficking, kick out operatives from nations hostile to the U.S., and stop selling oil to American adversaries. Importantly, they want her “to eventually facilitate free elections and step aside” — though the timeline is unclear.

 

Rubio voiced confidence in America’s leverage over Caracas in the form of an oil blockade (not to mention the threat of a second attack). But absent a full-blown military occupation, which the public and presumably the administration have little appetite for, Trump’s options may be limited, shaped by fluid and unpredictable circumstances. The neighborhood is not friendly. Pro-Maduro, armed gangs reportedly roam the streets, hunting for supporters of the U.S. intervention. As Jianli Yang writes, “Any U.S.-backed transitional authority will face immediate legitimacy crises, fragmented opposition forces, and the possibility of asymmetric resistance,” while administering a society “in near systemic collapse.” Meanwhile, Trump’s attention is already shifting across the Atlantic, with saber-rattling toward Greenland and NATO ally Denmark not only threatening the integrity of the alliance and alienating partners he’d need for a deal, but also diluting the case that the Maduro raid was an extraordinary measure for an extraordinary threat.

 

It is obviously a good thing, for America and for Venezuela, that Nicolás Maduro is in handcuffs. The dancing dictator offered no hope for reform. As NR’s editorial recaps, “He wrecked his country, stole elections, facilitated the drug trade, flooded the hemisphere with millions of refugees, and aligned his regime with enemies of the United States.” Noah calls the raid itself a strategic victory and tactical success, sending a sobering signal to “anti-American great powers and rogue states alike.” Joshua Treviño adds, “America, in the Americas, is back.”

 

But the impact of that message will depend in part on whether Maduro’s capture leads to chaos, a mere continuation of the regime under new management (this time friendlier to American oil interests) — or something better.

 

Jianli Yang, in closing:

 

If Washington succeeds in stabilizing Venezuela while neutralizing China’s embedded influence, it will be a decisive assertion of American hemispheric dominance. If it fails — if Venezuela becomes a prolonged contest of sabotage, debt disputes, and geopolitical signaling — it will confirm that even in its own backyard, U.S. power now faces determined, capable resistance.

 

Either way, Venezuela has become a proving ground for the emerging world order.