GOA, India - The confrontation between the United States and Nicolás Maduro is one of the most revealing geopolitical conflicts of our time. It is not a clash of democratic ideals versus authoritarianism, as Washington tirelessly claims. It is not a moral crusade to rescue Venezuela from misrule, nor a humanitarian duty to “restore democracy.”

These are the familiar tropes through which American foreign policy has historically masked its deeper intentions—from Iran in 1953 to Chile in 1973 and Iraq in 2003. 

The real axis of the confrontation is simpler, harder, and more enduring: control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the largest on the planet. The United States cannot tolerate a government that refuses to privatize these reserves, refuses to subordinate its energy policies to American interests, and refuses to fall in line with U.S. geopolitical directives in Latin America.

Strip the conflict down to its essence, and the truth is unmistakable: the United States wants Maduro gone because he stands as a barrier to U.S. access, influence, and dominance over Venezuela’s petroleum wealth. That is the ABC of the story.

Venezuela possesses over 300 billion barrels of proven crude, surpassing even Saudi Arabia. For Washington, this makes Venezuela too strategically important to be left outside U.S. hegemony. Since Hugo Chávez first nationalized oil assets and redirected revenues toward social programs, the United States has sought to reverse Venezuela’s energy sovereignty.

Under Maduro, that resistance to American pressure has only intensified. Washington’s hostility is therefore structural, not personal. A country with the world’s largest oil reserves situated so close to U.S. shores cannot—according to American strategic thinking—be permitted to follow an independent path or forge deep ties with U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and, more recently, Turkey.

Maduro’s alliances have strengthened multipolarity, which is intolerable to a power used to treating Latin America as its strategic backyard.

Every major U.S. offensive in Venezuela since 2014 must be read through the lens of this energy geopolitics.

The recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president” in 2019 was not a democratic gesture; it was a desperate attempt to impose a pliant leader who would immediately privatize the oil sector, reverse nationalization, and invite U.S. multinationals back into the heart of Venezuela’s energy economy.

The plan collapsed quickly. Guaidó became a global embarrassment, abandoned even by sections of the Venezuelan opposition, and eventually discarded by Washington itself. But the U.S. strategy did not end. It merely adapted, shifting from the fantasy of regime change by proclamation to a brutal regimen of economic strangulation.

Sanctions became Washington’s weapon of choice. These were not targeted sanctions, as U.S. diplomats claimed, but comprehensive economic warfare designed to make Venezuela’s economy scream. Access to global markets was cut off.

Oil exports were blocked. Financial transactions were frozen. Billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets were seized abroad. The aim was clear: suffocate the economy to the point where everyday life became unbearable, generating enough popular discontent to delegitimise the government and trigger internal collapse. This strategy follows a long U.S. tradition.

It echoes the tactics used in socialist Chile, revolutionary Cuba, Sandinista Nicaragua, and post-revolution Iran. The doctrine is simple: if you cannot overthrow a government militarily, break its economy until the people revolt.

Yet Maduro did not fall. He held on through a combination of internal consolidation, external alliances, and the reorganization of the state’s political machinery. Behind this endurance lies not only political will but also structural shifts in global power.

The world is no longer unipolar. The United States can no longer enforce its will in Latin America with the ease it once did. China has become a major partner in Venezuelan oil and infrastructure.

Russia has provided diplomatic cover and defense cooperation. Iran has helped rebuild Venezuela’s refinery capacity and maintain fuel supply chains despite sanctions. Regional politics have also shifted.

Mexico, Brazil under Lula, Colombia under Petro, and several Caribbean nations resist U.S. pressure to isolate Maduro. The hemisphere is no longer united behind Washington. Maduro’s survival reflects a wider global reality: the U.S. is no longer an uncontested hegemon.

Washington’s narrative, however, remains frozen in an outdated frame. It continues to speak the language of “restoring democracy,” even as it openly supports authoritarian regimes from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel’s apartheid military state.

It condemns Maduro’s human rights record while arming governments that commit far worse violations. What is intolerable to the U.S. is not authoritarianism—indeed, many U.S. allies are authoritarian—but autonomy. The real offense is sovereignty exercised outside U.S. approval. Maduro’s Venezuela is guilty of disobedience, not dictatorship.

This geopolitical clash intensified in 2024 and 2025, as sanctions failed to achieve their intended outcome. With oil prices fluctuating and global supply chains shifting due to conflicts elsewhere, Washington suddenly confronted the limits of its own strategy.

Sanctioning a country with the world’s largest oil reserves carries risks, especially when global markets tighten. At the same time, the U.S. cannot politically afford to lift sanctions without appearing to capitulate. Venezuela thus becomes a symbol in the larger battle over the viability of U.S. sanctions as a foreign policy instrument. If Venezuela survives, the credibility of future sanctions regimes—from Russia to Iran—weakens.

Maduro, meanwhile, has leveraged the crisis to reshape Venezuela’s internal landscape. Sanctions created hardship, but they also produced a nationalist consolidation that allowed him to tighten political control. By positioning himself as the defender of national sovereignty against imperial aggression, Maduro cultivated legitimacy even among sectors that might otherwise oppose him.

This does not romanticize his governance. Venezuela’s state apparatus has flaws, corruption, and heavy-handed methods. But in the battle between sovereignty and empire, Maduro’s stance resonates across the Global South, where many nations see their own historical memories reflected in Venezuela’s defiance.

The U.S.–Maduro head-on is therefore not merely bilateral; it is emblematic of a changing world order. It exposes the shrinking reach of American coercive power and the rising confidence of nations willing to resist U.S. dominance.

It foregrounds a crucial question: can a resource-rich nation refuse to be a client state and still survive? Venezuela’s experience suggests that while the path is brutal, survival is possible—when backed by global alliances, internal resilience, and a political project that frames sovereignty as a collective moral imperative.

In the end, this confrontation is a struggle over the future of sovereignty in the 21st century. It tests whether the United States can continue to dictate the political direction of the Global South or whether the emerging multipolar world will allow nations like Venezuela to carve their own path.

Maduro’s survival, despite the most aggressive regime-change campaign in recent Latin American history, sends a message more powerful than any official statement: small nations can still push back against big empires. The head-on continues, but the outcome is no longer predetermined. The United States can destabilize, sanction, and isolate—but it cannot easily topple those who refuse to kneel.

(Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator and advocate for global justice.)