ANALYSIS
Maduro defies Trump: He does not believe he will dare to remove him and rules out negotiating his exit from power
Maduro's stance is clearly defiant in the face of the certainty that the U.S. president will not go any further, despite his taking different steps that were inconceivable for Chavismo just a couple of months ago.
Dictator Nicolás Maduro in an archive image.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported on Sunday that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is determined to remain in power at all costs, feeling confident that the anti-narcotics operation carried out by President Donald Trump's administration will not escalate enough to execute military actions against his regime. According to a report published by the newspaper, sources familiar with internal discussions in Caracas, whose identities were not disclosed, explained that Maduro will not accept any negotiation to exit.
"He has already decided, he is not going to leave. Now it's Trump's turn to make a move," one of the sources told El País, showing a clearly defiant stance on the part of Maduro, given the certainty that the U.S. president will not go any further, even though Trump has been taking different steps that were inconceivable for Chavismo a couple of months ago. The most clear was the deployment of warships near the Venezuelan coasts, as well as the destruction of several boats that, according to the Trump administration, were part of the narco-terrorist groups Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles.
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"He has no other destiny than to resist"
According to the Spanish newspaper's sources, Maduro's determination to remain in power is total, and they added that "Maduro has practically no other destiny than to resist whatever it takes and wait for Trump to hesitate." Likewise, the sources told the media that the socialist dictator is currently directing every detail of his regime's actions in the current situation with the United States, and that he is convinced that Trump will back down when it comes to ordering a direct military attack.
Despite the position that Maduro is taking at this moment, the truth is that since his first administration Trump has shown a clear intention to materialize a regime change in Venezuela, given the human rights violations committed in the country, as well as the migratory crisis that the devastation produced by his socialist policies has generated, and even the way in which the Chavista regime has become the most important South American ally of geopolitical rivals such as China and Russia.
Even without knowing how far Trump will be willing to go, relying on the certainty that he will eventually back down could become another serious mistake that could exacerbate Maduro's already adverse situation.
The Trump administration has shown a clear escalation in its actions against Maduro
One of the first measures taken by Trump in his first administration was the recognition of Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela, which led to the creation of an interim government that the U.S. president endorsed and even pressured his allies in the international community to recognize its legitimacy. During the existence of such a government, in the midst of his first administration, Trump also implemented different economic sanctions against the Venezuelan dictatorship. These two measures, although they weakened the regime, were dismantled during the subsequent Democratic administration of President Joe Biden.
Already in this second term, the Trump administration designated the criminal groups Cartel de los Soles and Tren de Aragua as narco-terrorist organizations, also assuring that Maduro is the main figure behind both of them. Subsequently, Trump deployed his military counter-narcotics operation in the Caribbean, focusing on the Cartel de los Soles as one of the main threats to the United States, in what many analysts have interpreted as the right decision to build a justified legal and narrative framework to endorse a hypothetical armed path against the socialist dictatorship.
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