Trump’s Venezuela Gambit Sends Shockwaves Through China and Russia

Paul Riverbank, 1/16/2026Trump’s surprise Venezuela raid rattles allies, jolts rivals, and reshapes global oil, diplomacy, and regional politics.

Panic swept through the airwaves—and not just in the predictable echo chambers. Before breakfast, analysts across Europe and Latin America were debating—some worriedly, others almost gleefully—what this “American lightning strike” might mean for everybody’s position on the grand chessboard. There was the inevitable flurry of opinion that this bold removal would give China and Russia license to flex their muscle elsewhere, but—here’s the thing—Beijing and Moscow barely noticed similar cues when they made their own moves, whether that’s in the Donbas or near Taiwan. Reality often cares little for conventional wisdom.

If there’s a method in Trump’s foreign policy, it is hard-edged, impatient, and openly gambles with what most leaders shy away from: risk that could go sideways fast, or remake the landscape to America’s benefit overnight. We saw the same signature with the Iran bunker-busters a year back, which, say what you will, cooled Tehran’s ambitions—at least temporarily. Senior White House figures apparently viewed Venezuela as the next tile to tip: a warning shot and a negotiation ploy rolled into one.

The fallout, as they say, didn’t wait for the dust to settle. Delcy Rodríguez, until yesterday vice president and now suddenly president, almost instantly moved to win over a wary—not to say skeptical—Washington. She flipped the script by welcoming U.S. diplomats (not covertly, but with television cameras in tow), fast-tracked the release of political prisoners, and floated the prospect of oil patch joint ventures—deals faintly reminiscent of post-Iraq arrangements, but far more urgent. It’s head-snapping to recall just a few weeks prior, Capitol Hill was grumbling about a new Cold War in Latin America. Now, American officials were openly negotiating under the same chandeliers where Maduro once raged about “Yanqui imperialists.”

Lost in the noise was an old, fragile partnership north of the Caribbean. For Cuba, the news was nothing short of catastrophic. Havana has leaned, heavily, on Venezuelan oil—stuff that kept the lights on, literally, for most of the island. The U.S. move slashed that lifeline overnight. Trump, never one to shy from tabloid headline tactics, tweeted in all caps that Cuba’s supply of cheap oil (and, for that matter, off-the-books cash) had hit zero. If you wanted evidence the Monroe Doctrine was breathing again, this was hard to miss.

As news trucks set up outside Miraflores Palace, conservative leaders in Brazil, Ecuador, and beyond broke with years of wariness and applauded, albeit some through gritted teeth. Colombia’s President Petro, an erstwhile Marxist rebel and now a pragmatic centrist, was suddenly less interested in ideological grandstanding and more interested in talking shop with U.S. officials. One by one, strongmen elsewhere—Nicaragua’s Ortega, for example—scrambled to release detainees and cancelled holidays that might look a bit too festive for American tastes. It was, depending on your perspective, either a master class in deterrence or the start of a new regional anxiety.

From the American perspective, one message out of all this was unambiguous: Venezuela had to break ranks with Russian and Chinese patrons, or face harsher consequences. Rodríguez, sniffing the shifting winds in Washington and likely calculating the half-life of her own mandate, edged along the path the U.S. set. If she sticks to it, China’s $100 billion investment vanishes, as does its privileged access to 800,000 barrels per day of Venezuela’s best oil. The tech China had gifted Maduro—radars, missile batteries—was reportedly neutralized without much fuss, a reality that won’t go unnoticed in Beijing’s military circles.

Neither was the oil calculus lost on world markets. Markets, after all, have their own way of expressing geopolitics. In practical terms, Washington’s hope is that Venezuelan crude flooding the market will edge oil prices downward, squeezing Russia just as it needs fat profits to fund operations in Ukraine. Some suggest this is Trump’s signature play—knock a key resource loose, and see if adversaries blink. Whether it tips Moscow into negotiations is anyone’s guess. But for now, American refineries are dusting off old blueprints for Venezuelan blends.

If you watched the satellite feeds, the aftershocks traveled further still. In Tehran, young anti-regime protesters held up cell phones showing Manhattan news anchors and trendy Instagram clips of “President Trump Street.” It would be flippant to call this infectious hope, but the echoes are real.

Across the Atlantic, European policymakers—who prefer their crises slow-cooked—looked distinctly sidelined. Some wrung their hands over breach of international law; others got down to brass tacks and wanted to know how their banks would recover losses from Venezuela’s old bonds. There was a sense, in Brussels at least, of time passing them by; the language of “rules-based order” felt oddly stale against a backdrop of rapid strategic improvisation.

Back home, the episode laid bare once again the peculiar Republican balancing act. Senior leaders didn’t mount open opposition, but it was not hard to find a senator or two muttering about “bad advice” from unnamed West Wing insiders. When strange ideas, like annexing Greenland, surfaced, official critiques aimed everywhere but the Oval Office—an acknowledgment, perhaps, of the continuing grip Trump holds on the base, and the perils of picking battles one cannot win.

When the dust began to settle, one thing was evident: this raid wasn’t merely a tactical shuffle in Caracas. It broke old alliances, opened new pipelines, and put regional rivals on uncertain footing. Whether the approach produces durable change or, instead, fresh instability is a concern that only time and careful watching will settle.

For students of power, perhaps the larger lesson is that unpredictability—wielded with energy and nerve—forces adversaries to recalculate, and often, to react faster than they’re comfortable with. Of course, history tells us nothing in geopolitics ever settles for long.

No one who watches international politics will quickly forget that peculiar evening when the White House—under President Donald Trump’s direction—dropped the curtain on Nicolás Maduro’s chapter in Venezuela with startling speed. The raid wasn’t one of those drawn-out affairs. In fact, it caught even several State Department lifers off-guard. One moment, Maduro and his wife were fixtures in Caracas’s presidential palace, the next, Caracas was picking up the pieces and Latin American capitals were recalibrating decades-old assumptions about Washington.Panic swept through the airwaves—and not just in the predictable echo chambers. Before breakfast, analysts across Europe and Latin America were debating—some worriedly, others almost gleefully—what this “American lightning strike” might mean for everybody’s position on the grand chessboard. There was the inevitable flurry of opinion that this bold removal would give China and Russia license to flex their muscle elsewhere, but—here’s the thing—Beijing and Moscow barely noticed similar cues when they made their own moves, whether that’s in the Donbas or near Taiwan. Reality often cares little for conventional wisdom.If there’s a method in Trump’s foreign policy, it is hard-edged, impatient, and openly gambles with what most leaders shy away from: risk that could go sideways fast, or remake the landscape to America’s benefit overnight. We saw the same signature with the Iran bunker-busters a year back, which, say what you will, cooled Tehran’s ambitions—at least temporarily. Senior White House figures apparently viewed Venezuela as the next tile to tip: a warning shot and a negotiation ploy rolled into one.The fallout, as they say, didn’t wait for the dust to settle. Delcy Rodríguez, until yesterday vice president and now suddenly president, almost instantly moved to win over a wary—not to say skeptical—Washington. She flipped the script by welcoming U.S. diplomats (not covertly, but with television cameras in tow), fast-tracked the release of political prisoners, and floated the prospect of oil patch joint ventures—deals faintly reminiscent of post-Iraq arrangements, but far more urgent. It’s head-snapping to recall just a few weeks prior, Capitol Hill was grumbling about a new Cold War in Latin America. Now, American officials were openly negotiating under the same chandeliers where Maduro once raged about “Yanqui imperialists.”Lost in the noise was an old, fragile partnership north of the Caribbean. For Cuba, the news was nothing short of catastrophic. Havana has leaned, heavily, on Venezuelan oil—stuff that kept the lights on, literally, for most of the island. The U.S. move slashed that lifeline overnight. Trump, never one to shy from tabloid headline tactics, tweeted in all caps that Cuba’s supply of cheap oil (and, for that matter, off-the-books cash) had hit zero. If you wanted evidence the Monroe Doctrine was breathing again, this was hard to miss.As news trucks set up outside Miraflores Palace, conservative leaders in Brazil, Ecuador, and beyond broke with years of wariness and applauded, albeit some through gritted teeth. Colombia’s President Petro, an erstwhile Marxist rebel and now a pragmatic centrist, was suddenly less interested in ideological grandstanding and more interested in talking shop with U.S. officials. One by one, strongmen elsewhere—Nicaragua’s Ortega, for example—scrambled to release detainees and cancelled holidays that might look a bit too festive for American tastes. It was, depending on your perspective, either a master class in deterrence or the start of a new regional anxiety.From the American perspective, one message out of all this was unambiguous: Venezuela had to break ranks with Russian and Chinese patrons, or face harsher consequences. Rodríguez, sniffing the shifting winds in Washington and likely calculating the half-life of her own mandate, edged along the path the U.S. set. If she sticks to it, China’s $100 billion investment vanishes, as does its privileged access to 800,000 barrels per day of Venezuela’s best oil. The tech China had gifted Maduro—radars, missile batteries—was reportedly neutralized without much fuss, a reality that won’t go unnoticed in Beijing’s military circles.Neither was the oil calculus lost on world markets. Markets, after all, have their own way of expressing geopolitics. In practical terms, Washington’s hope is that Venezuelan crude flooding the market will edge oil prices downward, squeezing Russia just as it needs fat profits to fund operations in Ukraine. Some suggest this is Trump’s signature play—knock a key resource loose, and see if adversaries blink. Whether it tips Moscow into negotiations is anyone’s guess. But for now, American refineries are dusting off old blueprints for Venezuelan blends.If you watched the satellite feeds, the aftershocks traveled further still. In Tehran, young anti-regime protesters held up cell phones showing Manhattan news anchors and trendy Instagram clips of “President Trump Street.” It would be flippant to call this infectious hope, but the echoes are real.Across the Atlantic, European policymakers—who prefer their crises slow-cooked—looked distinctly sidelined. Some wrung their hands over breach of international law; others got down to brass tacks and wanted to know how their banks would recover losses from Venezuela’s old bonds. There was a sense, in Brussels at least, of time passing them by; the language of “rules-based order” felt oddly stale against a backdrop of rapid strategic improvisation.Back home, the episode laid bare once again the peculiar Republican balancing act. Senior leaders didn’t mount open opposition, but it was not hard to find a senator or two muttering about “bad advice” from unnamed West Wing insiders. When strange ideas, like annexing Greenland, surfaced, official critiques aimed everywhere but the Oval Office—an acknowledgment, perhaps, of the continuing grip Trump holds on the base, and the perils of picking battles one cannot win.When the dust began to settle, one thing was evident: this raid wasn’t merely a tactical shuffle in Caracas. It broke old alliances, opened new pipelines, and put regional rivals on uncertain footing. Whether the approach produces durable change or, instead, fresh instability is a concern that only time and careful watching will settle.For students of power, perhaps the larger lesson is that unpredictability—wielded with energy and nerve—forces adversaries to recalculate, and often, to react faster than they’re comfortable with. Of course, history tells us nothing in geopolitics ever settles for long.